I acknowledge that this post is going up late enough on Sunday night, that for some of my readers, it is actually Monday morning.

This last week was not hugely productive for me. But hopefully I got my “bum” week out of the way, and I will be able to be more productive with my time from now on. However, the first few days of this coming week will be focused on studying for my professional certification. I take the test for my Certified Supply Chain Professional designation on Wednesday afternoon, so I’ve been pretty focused on studying for the last couple of days, and will continue to do so right up until the test.

 

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

March- no

Publish one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- no

March- no

March was a failure. I’ll see if I can get myself back on track in April.

 

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 (2 rejections)

March: No

Complete the first draft of my novella and start edits.

Over 800 words written in 1 hour today.

 

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. The post went up on Tuesday. So far, I am still “up”, but not as much as I was last month.

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

April Numbers

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

 

I have not paid the credit card bill yet. However, this week was full of eating out, and we’ll be going out again next weekend. This was all planned, as it is a time of many birthdays among our group of friends, but our eating out in April feels pretty ridiculous. For May we’ll be trying a no eating out challenge (with a built in exception for a friend who just lost her father).

 

 

Floating Goals

Earn my Certified Supply Chain Professional designation. I have the test scheduled for Wednesday, April 24.

Find a new job. I have had a couple of phone interviews and should be hearing in the next week or so about scheduling in person interviews.

Rebuild savings to $5-10k. We’re up to $4,795, and another $1k is scheduled to go into savings next week.

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.

Get an Exterminator. I have ants in my kitchen and my bedroom. They need to go.

Publish new photography/flash fiction book. My artist is in. Now we just need to start working out the logistics. I will be back in contact with her this week and hopefully we’ll start working on it.

Refinance the house. DONE.