Goals

July 2010 Goals

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As June draws to a close it seems like a good idea to set some goals for July. I have been especially unmotivated lately and perhaps some goals will motivate me. My first goal is to lose weight. I need to lose about 50 pounds. That is more weight than I can lose in a month. I’m going to set a goal of losing eight pounds. I weighed 218 pounds even this morning so that would get me down to 210 which is a nice round figure. In order to achieve this goal I intend to give up soda, exercise at least three times a week, and only eat out for mystery shops or dates with my girlfriend. If I do all of that I will definitely lose some weight.

My second goal is to cut back on my driving. I put about 2400 miles on my car this month. My goal for July is to cut that amount in half. I made several long drives for mystery shops this month that I don’t plan on doing in July. There were some other longer trips that I probably won’t make this month although I might still need to make one trip to KC. With a little planning a lot of the driving I do around town can be eliminated as well.

My third goal is to cut my spending for the month of July. Not eating out and reducing my driving will both help with this goal. I am getting married this month though and there will be some necessary expense associated with that although most of the wedding/honeymoon expense has already been paid. I’m not going to skimp on my wedding just to keep my expenses down so if necessary I won’t count the wedding expenses when considering whether I met my goal.

I think that should give me some things to improve on in the coming month. Now I just need to stop procrastinating and get things done.

2009 Expenses – $12,090.99

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My total expenses for 2009 were $12,090.99.  That does not include the purchase price of my car although it does include all other car expenses associated with the car purchase such as the sales tax and registration.  It doesn’t include business expenses either as those are deducted from my business income.

I’m fairly satisfied with that total although I want to do better this year.  I had a goal of keeping my expenses under $10,000 last year which I obviously did not meet.  I did come close to my backup goal of keeping my expenses at $1000 a month.  Considering I spent over $1000 on travel and over $1500 on entertainment it is surprising I came as close to meeting my goal as I did.  I do plan to cut back on my entertainment expense this year but I will probably spend just as much on travel.  That means I am going to have to be extremely disciplined in all other areas of my budget. Considering I didn’t have a car most of last year it will be hard to keep my expenses in 2010 below the 2009 level but I am making that a goal.

No New Year’s Resolutions

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I have decided not to make any resolutions for the new year.  After making three resolutions last year and only meeting one I’ve decided to do things differently.  I am  going to have goals they just won’t necessarily be year-long ones.  Also I will be more specific about my goals and my plan to achieve them.  One goal to lose weight and I have a specific plan to achieve that but I haven’t decided on any other goals yet.

Instead of writing about what I’m going to do here and then not doing it I am going to do stuff and then write about it.  That seems like a better model: more doing stuff, less talking about doing stuff.

My next post about goals will be after I have met one or tried and failed.

August 2009 Goal Review

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It is the end of the month and time once again for my monthly goal review.

My first goal is to increase my passive income. I didn’t do anything substantial toward this goal this month. I did reinvest some dividends but I need to do a lot more than that if I want to make a noticeable increase in my passive income. Passive Family Income’s eHow 100 Article Challenge has produced some good results for him and I’m thinking of making a similar challenge for myself in September.

My second goal is to lose weight. I made progress on this goal since my weight dropped from 225 to 221. I’m not happy with this result though because my weight was down to 215 at one point this month. My goal is to weigh 180 pounds by the end of the year. This means I need to lose 10 1/4 a month for the next four months. In the past I’ve lost 10 pounds a month in Guatemala without trying. I’m hoping that is still the case. Once I return from Guatemala though I will have all the Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts to contend with. It would probably be best to lose all the weight while I’m in Guatemala. At the end of next month I’ll know whether that is a reasonable goal.

My third goal is to increase the number of RSS subscribers to this blog to 500. I had a high of 448 subscribers this month up from 430 the month before. I’m making steady progress toward this goal but I need to increase my rate of progress if I’m going to reach my goal by the end of the year.

I made progress on two out of three goals this month. That is what I expected before this month started. Since I came back early from my hiking trip though I should have made some progress on the passive income goal as well. In September I should hit all three goals.

January 2009 Goal Review

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I set three goals for myself this year. I’m going to check on my progress at the end of each month to keep myself accountable and to see if I need to make any changes to meet my goals.

My first goal was to increase my passive income. I purchased several dividend paying stocks this month which should help me reach this goal. Sometime this month I need to add up how much passive income I made last year. This will allow me to know exactly how much passive income I need to make this year to reach my goal.

My second goal was to lose thirty pounds. My weight has gone from 214.1 at the start of the month to 213.6 at the end of the month. I’m going to count that as no progress since my weight fluctuates more than a half pound from day to day. I had several sub related to diet and exercise to help me lose weight. The only one I’ve come close to keeping so far is doing the hundred pushup challenge. The others I need to work on this month.

My third goal was to increase my subscribers to 500 from 300. I made some progress on this and my subscriber count spiked up to over 350. It has since come down and is hovering around 325. I should be able to steadily increase this amount over the year to reach 500 and I have some more plans to increase the number of subscribers to TFM.

I did ok on my goals for this month. Two out of three ain’t bad but I’d like to make that three out of three this month.