Goals

$500 Weight-Loss Challenge

by

Your weight indicates your health
photo credit: sylvar
As I have done terrible so far this year on my weight-loss goal I have decided to try something different. My original weight-loss goal for this year was to lose 30 pounds. I’ve gained weight since setting that goal so I now need to lose 40 pounds and am aiming for a weight of 180 pounds.

In order to meet this goal I’m asking you, my readers, to hold me accountable. I need some extra motivation and since I am money motivated I’ve decided that if I don’t meet this goal I will give $500 to my readers. The prospect of losing $500 should motivate me to lose weight. I’m not sure how I will distribute the $500 but it will go to readers of this blog. You will somewhat have to take my word for whether I meet my goal. I will post before and after pictures as a form of proof though. If I haven’t posted by the end of December that I’ve met my goal contact me and remind me of this challenge. To be eligible to receive part of the $500 you need to leave a comment on this post. Thanks.

***I have turned off the comments and closed the challenge to new entrants. Thanks to everyone who entered for all the support and encouragement. I will keep you updated on my progress.

April 2009 Goal Review

by

This is my monthly review of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year.

My first goal is to increase my passive income. I made some progress on that this month. I opened a reward checking account that pays 5.03% which produced a nice increase in the amount of monthly interest I receive.

My second goal is to lose thirty pounds. My weight went from 220.4 pounds to 219.2 pounds last month. I consider that not making any progress. I should be starting my hike soon which will take care of the weight loss. There is a chance I won’t hike though and if that happens I have a different plan for losing weight.

My third goal is to have my subscriber count reach 500 subscribers. I reached a new high of 393 subscribers during the month although I haven’t maintained it. Considering I haven’t done anything special to promote my blog this is good progress.

I made progress on two out of three of my goals last month which is ok. I’m aiming for three out of three this month.

Time Tracking Results

by

I kept track of what I did with my time last week to see where I was wasting my time. I already knew before I started that I was wasting a lot of time on the Internet but now I know exactly how much time I’m wasting. I’m spending over four hours a day on average on the Internet. I do have a couple blogs and other sites on the Internet but most of the time I’m online I’m not doing anything productive. Until I am finished with my R&W I’m restricting myself to one hour a day online. I’m going to write my blog posts offline to the extent possible so I should still be able to keep up with my blogging.

I also like to eat leisurely lunches out and read the newspaper cover to cover. This might be a reasonable indulgence once every week or two but I’m doing this two or three times a week. I’m now restricting that activity to no more than once a week. That should make it a special treat and save me money and time.

The other big time waster is TV. I generally watch a couple of hours a day. This includes DVDs which I actually watch more than TV. I don’t plan to cut back on this activity for now because I think it is a reasonable use of my leisure time. I just have to work the rest of the day rather than making my whole day leisure time.

February 2009 Goal Review

by

At the end of every month I will be posting on how I am progressing towards my yearly goals.

My first goal was to increase my passive income. I didn’t do well on that goal this month. I did reinvest some dividends in more stock but GE slashed their dividend which results in a net reduction of dividends due this year. I’m planning to work on some different sources of passive income this month.

My second goal was to lose thirty pounds. I really sucked on my progress towards this goal this month. I gained weight and now weigh 219.2 which is my highest weight ever. I know I’ll lose a lot of weight on my hike but it would be good to be in decent shape before I start hiking. The weather should improve this month and I’ll start running more when it is nice outside. Improving my diet would probably be even more beneficial than exercise though. I’m going to work on that as well.

My third goal is to increase my subscriber count to 500 subscribers. The subscriber count has been around 350 lately. At this rate I should have no problem meeting the 500 subscribers goal.

This wasn’t a good month for making progress towards my goals. There is still plenty of time to fix that and I plan to substantially improve my progress this month. Check back at the end of the month and we’ll see how I did.

Living on $10k a Year

by

My plan for this year is to keep my expenses under $10k and so far I am on target to do that.  Of course there is a lot of time left in the year for something to go wrong.  I was curious how much a $10k a year budget translates to as a daily amount.  My calculations put the daily budget for $10k a year at $27.40 rounded up.  This does not seem like very much money to live on and the daily budget number could be a little intimidating when first making plans to live on a $10k budget.

On the other hand the daily budget number looks great when you look at it from the perspective of how much income you need to make.  I have a goal of making $10k a year in alternative and passive income. Earning an average of $27.40 a day looks pretty easy.  I don’t make that much money from my blogging and alternative income now but the figure certainly seems attainable.  My blogging income from last year would cover about 40% of the days in a year.  My dividend income would cover about half a month.  That puts me close to having half the year covered. I just need to find some additional sources of income and/or increase my current income streams to cover the rest of the year.  I probably won’t reach the $10k level in alternative/passive income this year but the goal is close enough that it seems realistic that I’ll make it in the next few years.  Being able to see progress and knowing I don’t have to wait too long for the payoff should make it easier to stay on track towards my goal of having $10k a year in alternative and passive income.