Day	Amount	Place	Category
Tuesday	$10.00	Adoption	Misc
	$19.25	stamps	Misc
	$200.00	New Phones	Bills
	$21.50	Rx	Medical
Thursday	$38.75	CostCo	Groceries
	$63.00	Saffron	Eating Out
	$53.50	Gas	Car
Friday	$48.50	Safeway	Groceries
	$15.00	Qdoba	Eating Out
Sunday	$84.00	Gas	Car

I don’t feel super well today. Not really certain why, but I’ve had a headache all day and pills have not helped.

It’s been a pretty okay wee. Our contract with Sprint is finally up, so we decided to go with pay as you go phones. (Post about this on Tuesday). So while I don’t normally post things here that come in the “Bill” category, we figure this $200 will be all we pay for the next 6 months or more.

I have really been rethinking my goals and what I want to do not just with my blogs but with my writing and creative projects in general. I have some kind of crazy thoughts running around in my head that I hope to be able to share here once things get a little more firmed up, as it has definite personal finance implications.

 

 

We are over half way through 2012. I revised some of my goals because life took some turns I wasn’t quite planning on when I came up with them.

1)      Be paid for publishing one piece of fiction

Submissions so far: 2

Responses: 1 rejection 1 acceptance

The anthology I had a piece accepted to is now available to buy on Amazon. It’s called Conquest Through Determination.

2)      Pay All Adoption Expenses in Cash & Still Pay for C’s College Out of Pocket

We’re doing good here. This was helped tremendously by getting 3x as much in life insurance from the MIL than expected. Our savings is still growing, and we’re in really good shape

3)      Attend FinCon12. Pay for the trip with money from allowance/side projects saved/earned BEFORE the conference starts. Goal: $600

FinCon was awesome. Not all of the money came from allowance/side projects, but it was still easily affordable, so I’m calling this a win.

4)      Become a member of Yakezie (6 month anniversary is Jan 21)

I did not make Epsilon class. My Alexa ranking had gone too high. I think there will be one more class this year, so we’ll see if I can get my numbers back down to under 200k. I need to join the teams again, as that helps tremendously. And now that we’re done with all the house stuff for the adoption, I should have more time to participate.

Current ranking: 267,247

Back up a little bit.

5)      Make money from my blogs.

AdSense earnings: $28.81 at the end of August, with $0.25 made so far this month. (They won’t send me any money until I hit $100.)

One of the things that FinCon really brought home for me is that I’m not actually in this for the money. For now, I’m leaving the AdSense blocks up, but they’re getting moved further down the page. I’ll keep tracking, but making money isn’t why I blog.

6)      Be healthier

I didn’t walk twice every day this last week, but I did most days. During the crazy budget season, I really need that break mentally and physically. Today, C set up the recumbent bike in our basement for me, so I have an easy way to exercise come the yuckier weather.

I’m doing well on the diet and still losing weight. In fact, I might be losing weight a little too fast. I may need to eat a little bit more during the day. I often end up a couple hundred calories under my target each day.