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Yet another month has passed, and it’s time to take a quick look at the goals I had for this year.
If you remember I set a S.M.A.R.T. goal for 2008 and now that it’s the end of January, it’s time to see how things are going.
I have almost made my goal this month of replacing my $1500 mortgage with alternate (non-salary) income, but in a way I didn’t expect. As a consultant, you tend to travel, and I’m traveling full-time to a client in a nearby town. The per-diem comes out to around $1750/month above and beyond salary. 
The bad thing, it comes to 1 1/2 hr commute ONE WAY to the site. Talk about doing it the hard way!
- Non-Salary compensation - $1200 for per-diem costs.
- Blog Advertising - Blog advertising was light this month, but I haven’t been really pursuing it because of my new consulting position - $150.
- Adsense Revenue - Not enough to cash out, but at $75 so far
I almost made the goal, but not quite like I was hoping to. Now is the time to work on getting the blog up to snuff itself.
Non-Monetary Accomplishments
Some non-money things that I’m proud of for this month are;
- Social Website Submissions - I’ve had quite a few of the posts here Stumbled, Digg’d, Reddit, and Propellered, which gets the word out to the world on the articles I’ve written. Again, thanks to my readers for the support and all the social submissions. I appreciate it!!
- Contest Win - I won a DS Lite from Debt Kid this month. Yay!!! Thanks Debt Kid
Yearly Goals
- Increase subscribed readers to 1000 - I’m averaging around 210 subscribers now, that’s a 50% increase from a month ago (~150) SO KEEP SUBSCRIBING!
- Consistently post at least 5 entries a week, moving to 10 entries a week (average 2/day) by third-quarter of the year. - I’m averaging 4-5 per week, with some posts on the weekends. This might have been a too ambitious goal, and I might keep it at the level I’m at now. Quality over quantity, and that takes time.
- Contribute to at least 1 blog carnival a week, and HOST 1 carnival a month, starting 3rd quarter of the year. - I’m kind of undecided on this goal, as the carnivals never seemed to bring me very much traffic. I might try to host some later on though to see if that makes a difference.
- Officially join the M-Network (sometime, hint hint!) and continue to network with existing and new PF Bloggers. - Still hoping!
- Get a guest post published on The Simple Dollar, No Credit Needed, and Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. (More wish than goal). - Again, I’m not so sure this is as valuable as I originally thought. Guest posts are a great thing, but talking with some of the other bloggers I hang around with, it seems to be a great thing FOR THE OTHER BLOG. Undecided on this.
- Get enough advertisers to break-even on the expenses for the blog. - Done! I’ve made enough to cover the (existing) expenses for the blog for the year!
On a personal note;
- Fully fund my 401k - Working on it.
- Fully fund my wife’s and my Roth IRA - Also working on it.
- Start a 529 fund for both children - Not started
- Pay off all credit cards - Making good progress here. Emptied off 3 more cards.
- Increase our emergency fund to 6 months of money. - I’ve got this one to about 4 months, because I concentrated on this in anticipation of a job change (and possible layoff). Now that THAT isn’t going to happen, I’ve got a lot to MAYBE move towards credit cards and stick with the baby emergency fund.
Final Thoughts
I started this blog because I like writing and wanted to share back some of what I’ve learned with the world at large. In that time I’ve fallen in with a great bunch of ruffians that I’m happy to call friends, and that has made the time spent on the blog even better.
I’ve also gotten good comments, e-mails, and reviews from many of the people around the ‘Net, so THANK YOU. It makes writing all worthwhile to get your feedback.
How are YOUR goals going for the year?? We’d love to hear about them. Leave a comment and let us know.
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April 2nd, 2008 at 11:14 am
There’s a school of thought that states that if you haven’t paid off your credit card debt, you’re wasting money by contributing to your savings account.
Here’s a little math lesson (I won’t bother with formulae, but I did use them).
Let’s say I have a credit card balance of $5000 at 10% interest. Assuming I want to pay it off in 3 years (general rule companies use to calculate your minimum payment), I will need to make a monthly payment of $161.34.
Assume at the time I start paying off my credit card debt I have $500 in savings. Let’s say I make a monthly contribution of $70 to my savings account, which has a 6% APR accrued monthly (you’re more likely to see quarterly, but for arguments sake we’ll assume we have a very generous bank). Thus in 36 months, I will have contributed $3020 of my money to savings.
If I stick with this strategy, I will pay the credit card company $5808.24 in total. I will have $3366 in savings with interest growth. I have paid $808 in interest to the credit card company and earned $346 from the bank. My net personal loss is $462.
Now, let’s say instead that I put that $70/month towards my credit card bill for a monthly payment of $230.72. It will take me only 2 years to pay the balance down to $0. In that 2 years, my $500 savings account has grown to $564. Then for the remaining year I put $230 into my savings account (this will round out the 36 month period - we’re comparing apples to apples now). Thus in 36 months, I will have contributed $3260 of my money to savings.
With this new strategy, I will pay the credit card company $5706.18 in total. I will have $3450 in savings in interest growth. I will have paid $706 in interest to the credit card company, earned $190 from the bank AND KEPT $102 for a net loss of $414.
So by paying down credit card debt before contributing to savings, your net loss is decreased AND you will have more money in savings in the long run (in this case you have $84 more in the second scenario than in the first).
So if you have extra cash, put it toward paying your credit card bill faster. Once your credit cards are paid off, then worry about savings. “But what happens if I need that $50 that I put towards my credit card bill in the event of an emergency? It’s not in savings!” you ask. You still have access to that $50, just through your credit card (this is assuming of course that you’ve hung up the credit card already, so your credit limit is now your emergency fund cushion).
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:15 am
PS - sorry for the novel.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:48 pm
@Greta, I LOVE responses like this. Don’t worry about the length of it, the content is fantastic. I couldn’t agree more. The only reason I built up such a savings fund was in anticipation of the (possible) job loss. Now that it’s pretty certain that I won’t have to worry about that I’m going to be re-targeting it to bills in a short while. Otherwise, that is where it would have been already.
Thanks!