A third of the year has come and gone, so I’d thought I’d check in on the progress of my 2011 goals thus far. Here is what I wrote at the end of last year about my goals for 2011:
Here are my 2011 Resolutions:
1. Lose 20 pounds by the end of the year – I am aiming to weigh 150 pounds by December 31st.
2. Volunteer for a charity at least twice a month – I seemed to have replaced charity time with blogging in 2010, oops.
3. Build up the emergency fund to at least $15,000 – right now it is at about $8200.
4. Max-out 2 Roth IRA’s for 2011.
5. Pay off at least $8,000 of our mortgage principal – that means it needs to be at $60,000 or less by the end of the year.
6. Make AT LEAST $15,000 through blogging – my true target is $25,000.
Here is My First Quarter 2011 Goal Update:
1. I weighed in for Weight Watchers Online on January 4th, 2011 at 176 pounds. That means I actually had 26 pounds to lose by the end of this year.
I currently weigh in at 156 pounds, so I only have 6 pounds to go for my original goal! But I’ve changed it to be 150 pounds by July 4th and 140 pounds by the end of the year, so I really have 16 pounds left. 
2. I haven’t volunteered at all really. I go to work, blog, and hang out with friends and family on the weekend. That’s become my whole life, but I just joined Love Drop to incorporate some giving with all of my online work.
3. The emergency fund is at about $11,000. We are on track!
4. We just maxed out 2 Roth IRA’s for 2010 and have been contributing monthly to one Roth IRA for 2011. We are slightly behind schedule…
5. The mortgage is at $66,000 right now. I have a feeling that this goal may only be achieved by an end-of-year extra cash dump, which is okay to me.
6. I’ve made about $6000 so far, so I think that the $15,000 goal will be no problem and I’m on track for the $25,000 one as well!
How are you doing on your 2011 goals? Take a look at what you might have been aiming for when you commented last year…
Wow! $6,000 in 3 months? That’s awesome! Great job Crystal. Sometimes I actually find myself being jealous of your monetary success and your blog popularity, but you really work very hard at it, and you deserve it. Thanks for setting the bar high for the rest of us!
Amazing success you’ve had so far! No doubt it’s all due to hard work and you should be proud that you’re making progress. Many people set goals and rarely follow through with them. Good luck and much success!
-Ravi Gupta
I maxed out my 2011 Roth in March. It’s a good feeling to know that I’m done with it before the first quarter was over. Now I’ll have more money for cash and/or other investments.
excellent progress as usual Crystal.
on your Charity comment, you are right one doesn’t necessarily have to physically go to a place and join a charitable cause. one can do it sitting home while blogging as you propose. giving can come in many shapes / forms. one can give their physical time and skills, or money, which enables many other causes. you are doing the right thing by doing what you are good at, what you truly enjoy, all while making a difference (contributing to a greater good). great job as always and keep it up.
You’re doing amazing at attaining your goals after just the first months!
My new years resolution was to start to exercise and try to adopt a healthy lifestyle. With the exception of eating too much ice cream, I have significantly improved my health in the last 3 months! I just finished the P90X program which was tough, but was well worth it.
Looks like you are on track to achieving your goals. Congratulations.
You’re doing really well Crystal…I love to see your mortgage payoff progress!
@LifeAndMyFinances, I wouldn’t put so much into this if I wasn’t serious about turning it into my full time job. Don’t be jealous – I’m exhausted most of the time.
@Ravi, thank you for your kind words as always!
@Kevin, I hope you rake it in! Congrats on finishing up your 2011 Roth so soon!!!
@Sunil, thank you. That really made me smile.
@Dave, congrats on completing the P90X program!!! I’ve heard that one is intense…
@krantcents, thank you! Thanks for being a regular reader and commenter as well. I love seeing my regulars!
@Laura, I’ll keep you updated.
In fact, in a few weeks, I’ll have a post about the fact that Chase has offered (and we accepted) to refinance our mortgage for free!!! We’ll hopefully be closing by the end of the month at a new 4.5% rate instead of 5.375%. They are refinancing us for another 15 years, but there is no prepayment fee, so it’ll simply end up saving us about $3000-$4000!!!
Looks like you are doing great! I’m hoping to get more involved with Love Drop too. Hoping to work out more in the next 9 months and get my personal blog off the ground.
Congrats crystal, you’re killing it as usual. Keep up the good work and you’ll be able to blog at home in no time! (full time!)
@Jenna, let me know about that personal blog when you get it going.
@Jeff, thanks Jeff!
Crystal, I continue to be in awe of your success. I hope to follow in your footsteps!
Jenna, let me know about your personal blog too!
@Denise, thank you! I couldn’t be this successful without my readers like you!
Great job on all fronts, Crystal. I’ll be discipline is a key part of a lot of your success. One has to be focused and determined too of course. With me, the motivation and desire is there, and results are there when I’m able to be disciplined. If not, the goals aren’t met. I know the developmental area:)
@Squirrelers, if you call discipline me telling myself I can’t go to sleep until blah, blah, and blah is done, than yep, I’m disciplined.
My only blogging/income related goal was to be earning $250 per month from my blog by the end of 2011. No money earned so far, and really no attempts by me either.
For whatever reason, it seems that people who read personal finance blogs care much more about finding ways to mercilessly cut costs, instead of learning more about living an extremely rich life and not necessarily cutting costs all the time.
It seems that I have vastly over estimated my target niche, which is severely endangering my blog related goals.
Great work on the goals, especially the weight loss one. Despite the rankings and the data goals, losing weight and feeling better will yield the best quality of life improvement. Keep at it!
I love your weekly round up but it’s great to see your quarterly goals moving in the right direction! I hope you meet them all for the year!
@Bogey, I actually started this blog to show that you don’t have to cut all the fun out of your daily life to afford a future too. I think there are a bunch of us pf geeks who feel the same way even if we are in the minority, lol. Good luck finding them and getting their attention!
@101 Centavos, thank you!
@The Saved Quarter, thank you – I do too.
Great job Crystal!!!
You go to work, blog, and hang out with family/friends? Add in the gym/12 beers and we got the exact same lifestyle lol.
That’s a pretty heft emergency fund, what’s the plan for it?
$6,000 is very good. I’m about a grand ahead of you, are you going to take that? In all seriousness though, I noticed that the summer months get slow as it relates to online income. Have you thought about this?
@Amanda, thanks!
@MD, the emergency fund is for any medical emergencies that pop up or short-term job loss. $15,000 would be able to cover us for 1 year or more if only one of us was unemployed or 6 months if we both were and cut expenses. It also would cover 2-3 major medical emergencies since we have insurance.
My blog income only started last summer, so I didn’t know that those months are normally slower. That may lengthen the time before I blog full time, but it’s not a complete game changer.
For volunteer opportunities that you can do online look at United Nations Volunteers Online.
Lots of one-off or lifelong projects. Choose by project, country, hours or issue.