It has been a crazy, crazy week. I am glad to officially no longer be employed so that I can be pretty lazy this next week and not feel guilty about it. Not that I’m going to get to be that lazy, but I’m going to try.

 

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

April- no

Publish one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- no

March- no

April- no

April turned out to be not any better than March when it came to getting guest blogging done or posted. With my certification out of the way hopefully I’ll get my act together in May.

 

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

April: Yes

Complete the first draft of my novella and start edits.

 

 

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 Dow hit a new high again, so I’m looking forward to the May report.

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

May Numbers

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

 

Right now, my new laptop is being charged against my allowance, without any money from the bonus offsetting it. I may change that. We may also make some changes to our monthly amounts coming up due to severance and unemployment.

 

 

Floating Goals

Find a new job. Thanks to my career coach, I have a really strong resume. I liked it before, but now I’m really happy with it.

Rebuild savings to $5-10k. We’re up to $5,375.

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. Wednesday, we will have a competing company give us a quote, so that we’ll know if we’re really saving money by going through Direct Buy.

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.

Earn my Certified Supply Chain Professional designation. Passed.