It’s been a busy week at home, though hopefully much of the busy will be over by end of day tomorrow- which is good, because it is going to be a very busy week at work.

It has been productive, though, and I feel good about where we are going into the last week of January.

 

Blogging

The purpose of these two goals is, yes, to grow my blogs, but also to support and highlight blogs and bloggers I enjoy. Just like I will be posting 2 new to me blogs every week in my round ups, the point here is to draw attention to blogs that others might not be familiar with. (Blog swaps will not count toward either of these goals.)

Write one guest post per month. I have sent a guest post over to Heart Like a Dog. Not certain if it will be right for the blog or not, but at least I wrote it and sent it out.

Publish one guest post per month. A guest post from Kim at Eyes on the Dollar will go up Tuesday over at Life by Pets.

 

Writing

Writing fiction is my side hustle, though I have yet to make any money from it. I’ve found that I devote much more time to the blogs than I do my fiction, though, because I am on a schedule. I feel accountable to my readers to get posts up when I say I will. And because I am a procrastinator, deadlines are a must for me. I get the energy I need to work on something from an impending deadline.

I am hoping to transfer the power of those two things- accountability and deadlines, to my fiction this year.

Submit at least one piece to a paying venue per month.

December submission: Yes

January submission: Yes

Complete the first draft of my novella and start edits. Got a good scene written this morning.

 

Finances

A lot of financial goals will actually end up as floating goals- ie they will be things I expect to complete well before the year is out. But I do have some long term financial goals that I think will work for year-long tracking.

Create and track a practice stock portfolio. I started the project and did the first post about it.

End the year “on budget” in the categories I’m tracking.

Category	On Budget
	Month	Year
Groceries	No	No
House	Yes	Yes
Eating Out	No	No
Allowance – E	Yes	Yes
Allowance – C	Yes	Yes

 

We are only $3 over on groceries. Eating out is another story. Given that most eating out is paid for on the credit card, we run about a month behind. I expect we’ll be back under control by the end of March. (December and January both tend to run a little high on the eating out.)

 

 

Floating Goals

Refinance the house. Started the process this week. I’ll be sending in the signed paperwork along with all the supporting documentation tomorrow.

Replace all the windows in the house. This won’t happen until spring or summer.

Publish new photography/flash fiction book. My artist launched a successful Kickstarter project this week. I am very excited for her. We’ll take more after her big convention at the beginning of March.