I will probably not keep you updated on my resolutions progress every month since it would bore you to tears, BUT most resolutions that don’t have a fighting chance die in January. So I figured I would at least show the progress thus far and hopefully celebrate no dead resolutions yet…
New Year’s Resolutions 2013
Here were the goals I set out at the end of 2012 for the new year:
- Pay off the rent house by December 31, 2013. It had about $23,500 to go.
- Max out both Roth IRA’s for 2012 by April 2013 (needed $8000).
- Max out both Roth IRA’s for 2013 by December 31, 2013 (needed $11,000).
- Budget appropriately for at least 3 vacations – a one week summer vacation, the Financial Blogger Conference again, and the Board Game Geek Board Gaming Conference again.
- Continue staying active. My specific goal here is to get off my butt at least 3 times a week for at least 30 minutes all year long. Since I don’t want to be able to fail by just having a bad week, I have decided that this means that I need to exercise a minimum of 12 times per month to stay on track (144 times or more over all of 2013).
Update as of February 4, 2013
Here is where I stand so far:
- Pay off the rent house. It has about $22,900 to go and we’re saving up right now for the last big payment.
- Max out both Roth IRA’s for 2012. DONE, yay!
- Max out both Roth IRA’s for 2013. Haven’t really started saving for this one yet…figure it will be easier after we pay off the rent house.
- Budget appropriately for at least 3 vacations – I have started fun money savings again, but we aren’t close to being able to pay for all 3 yet. I think we’ll need about $3000 total and we have less than $300 so far…
- Continue staying active. My specific goal here is to get off my butt at least 144 times or more over all of 2013. I only hit the magic number of 7 in January, but I’m still positive that I’ll get this one taken care of…already worked out twice in February…
Mixed Results
Okay, so that means that I’ve completed 1 of 5 of our resolutions so far. Yay! But I really need to crack down on myself and exercise more. The other three left are all about saving enough money, so I am looking into ways of increasing how fast we can save. We’re trying to cut back on some expenses like food. And I am selling off websites that weren’t doing anything for me AND building up my online presence with better sites like my recent partnership with John at Married with Debt. Hopefully I’ll be able to squirrel even more away faster and make quick work of the rest of my 2013 goals.
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How are you doing so far with your New Year’s resolutions?
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Good for you that you completed a resolution already. Many people fail by the second month. I look forward to seeing you complete them by next December.
I too did a resolution of being more active. Due to adverse weather, I was missing days of exercise. So this week I walked 3.5 miles on Monday, missed actual exercise but was quite active yesterday, and today its raining. So I am cleaning out one of our “storage” rooms and setting up the gym we bought for Christmas, along with my recumbent stationary bike in the spare guest room. I really worked up a sweat and feel I did more than my usual walks. The doctor’s nurse re-inspired me. My cholesterol numbers are slightly high and I am suppose to go on Lipitor (which only helps less than 10% of its users avoid heart attacks …and the proof is sort of sketchy?). Twenty percent of people with extremely high cholesterol never have a stroke or heart attack, so cholesterol couldn’t be the only thing that puts you at risk … in science at heory cant stand up if it fails even once, so why do medicines only have to be 10% effective when they have all these side effects? Yep, people die of heart attacks on the medicines, have for the past 20 years. Nah, I will try to get under control with exercise and diet. Great motivator.
Personally I think some goals should never be met or be very hard to meet. I would set the exercise goal up higher and try to walk for 30 minutes every day; then ramp up from there for 3 days a week. You know you will probably not walk in the rain or a thunder storm so you do not need to worry about too much exercise. And just do 5 situps first 3 days, 10 situps next 3 days and shoot for 10-20 situps 3 days a week. Same with push ups and toe touches; all of which should be done only to point of discomfort first 2 weeks, then push a bit. Bet a youngster like you could do 100 situps and pushups a week, maybe even 3x a week. My knees seem to be going, so I am walking and riding bikes; but I am also doing wall pushups due to bad wrists, some situps, and stretching exercises daily…I have arthritis and have to do this every morning as I wake up or I cant move. If you are not in pain, do them now, when you are young; build up muscles and tendons to help aging joints. Yes, today is a painful one, so I am venting, lol
Meeting your financial goals are fantastic. Way to kick butt.
I am trying to come up with my new financial goals. They are a bit weirder than yours, but I like them.
I love animals. I am surrounded by them and like it. I want a larger place, so I can organize them from tropical to desert; like fine art, around the house. Right now they are all sort of in one room and its getting crowded. I need a couple hundred thousand dollars for the acreage I want and hubby isn’t really big into going into debt ever again; so I need to figure up an income stream that doesn’t interfere with enjoying the company of my fish, lizards, dogs, exotic Jungle birds, and cockatiel …not to mention their food supply “farms” (Rubbermaid bins). Yes, I have always been a bit too animal crazy and my empty nest makes it worse. Kids are not going to move back to keep me company (cause they are so darn successful), so might as well “rescue” these poor animals from the deli containers, crowded cages, and inadequate aquariums. Really, I figure I shouldn’t be contributing to the problem like this, but overcoming the challenges of raising such widely different animals makes me happy..and sad. I think half of the animals I keep should never had been domesticated ..they look sort of bored. So I “play” with them by making them work to get their food, let them run “free” or take a swim. It is time consuming but loads of fun for me. Since they all need fresh veggies, I am even putting in a patch of organic alfalfa, petunias, and edible plants for them…and me. I noticed I spend over $25 on various herb salads and greens for them (and me) every 3 weeks (about$32/month not including gas and time to go to fresh market), so why not grow it and save a couple bucks. Besides, visions of them running through a garden, munching on plants sounds cool. Don’t worry, I will keep track of possible parasites and the like. I even have the dogs on hawk patrol most days, and they are in their retirement years(13 an 14).
I love your goals and hope you give some updates. Since you are keeping Crystal Light, maybe we can update the weight and exercise one over there.
Keep up the good work. Hope you enjoy the rainy day! It all sounds great to me.
I am hoping to be able to do Roth’s for 2012. We’ll be right on the income cusp, so I’ll see when we get our taxes back. If we are under, I want to max those out. We do the work 401K thing, but I love the idea of tax free withdrawals.
I love your goal of paying off the rented house. I suspect that when you do, you will absolutely fall in love with all of the passive income that you get to pocket from the rent.
One minor drawback is that once the mortgage is paid off, you won’t be able to take as many tax deductions on the house. Of course, tax deductions are fundamentally “paying a dollar to save $.30″ so I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
Collecting passive income from rental properties might be my favorite finance tactic on earth.