Sunday Evening Post #85
I’ve spent all of today in bed playing on my lap top and watching bad movies On Demand. (Fast Five for the win.) But I did manage to get myself on my desktop in order to put together this Sunday Evening Post for you.
last Sundays’ street style tacos with spanish rice
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.
January- yes
February- yes Money Tune Tuesday @ Daily Money Shot
Publish one guest post per month.
January- yes
February- no
I need to get better about asking people if they want to write guest posts. I have to be as proactive about that as I am in writing posts.
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: Yes (rejected)
January: Yes (rejected)
February: Yes x4
Complete the first draft of my novella and start edits. I meant to write today, but I’ve felt like crud, so instead I’ve spent the day doing samurai Sudoku.
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. Latest post went up Feb 7.
End the year “on budget” in the categories I’m tracking.
Final February Numbers
|
Category |
On Budget |
|
|
Month |
Year |
|
|
Groceries |
No |
No |
|
House |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Eating Out |
Yes |
No |
|
Allowance – E |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Allowance – C |
Yes |
Yes |
We’re over by about $10 for the year on groceries and $5 on eating out. Otherwise, we’re doing pretty good.
Floating Goals
Rebuild savings to $5-10k. In the last couple of weeks, we have spent $23,000. It makes my head ache just to think about it. We should have the cushion rebuilt by the end of April, May at the latest.
Replace all the windows in the house. We got the information for the vendor Direct Buy contracts with for window replacement. Next step will be to get someone out to give us a quote.
Fix the plumbing issues. We have a number of little plumbing issues all of which we really need to get fixed.
Publish new photography/flash fiction book. My artist is in. Now we just need to start working out the logistics.
Refinance the house. DONE.
Looks like you've made good progress on many of your goals. You've got me thinking about building in an accountability factor as I rebuild my home buyer blog. Will reporting on their progress help people buy homes?
I think it might help people keep track of where they are in the home buying process, especially if they are first time buyers. Since this was the 3rd time we were going through mortgage paperwork, we knew most of what we needed, but I remember as first time buyers, learning all the things they wanted (pay stubs, bank records, etc), it took us a while to get things because we weren't expecting it. And then, with all of those mounds of paperwork, it can be pretty easy to forget what part of the process you're in (especially if they come back for "just one more" piece of paper). So in that sense, I think a place where people could track their process would be very helpful.