Every year I have the opportunity to take a look at my goals and objectives post from the previous year to see my mindset a year ago and how I may have done with my goals and objectives at the time. I think it really is an opportunity, because most people don’t have actually keep themselves accountable. Granted, my system is pretty loose as I don’t review the post the post every X months, it is better then no system at all! In 2014 I gave myself the following goals and objectives:
Personal Life
The Wife and I are going to be working hard on having another child. It is weird to think about it, but I started this blog 2 years before my son was born and he just turned 3 on December 1. A few weeks after we closed on our home in January of 2013 we found out that The Wife had suffered another miscarriage (I wrote about the first miscarriage, but not the second). So we are going the old fashion route for another month or so, and then we are bringing in the big guns. I’ll admit I don’t know exactly what that entails but I am sure it includes doctors and tests.
Since our daughter was born in September you can summarize that around last month of trying it the old fashion way worked out. Thankfully. I wish I made this blog a bit more personal as I would be able to actually compare developmental milestones, but I never kept a record of it the first time around. Notwithstanding, she seems a lot calmer than our son, I am very curious to see if that sticks!
I started Crossfit mid-last year, and I am hoping to compete in my first team competition in 2014. I don’t have ideas of grandeur; I just want to complete the work out given to my team. I am signed up already with 2 guys I don’t know, so just need to make sure no one backs out! Speaking of “health” goals I would like to figure out a way to manage my time a bit better to make sure I get at least 7 hours of sleep a night versus the 6 I am currently averaging.
I was pretty bummed when I got booted from my team! The two individuals I was doing it with moved to a different crossfit gym (box) and they wanted to fill the team with people from that gym. I understood but was pretty bummed. So I failed that along with the sleep goal.
The Wife bought me the first level of Rosetta Stone for Greek. A goal is to complete it and see how it goes from there.
FAIL.
Professional Life
Career
Notwithstanding, my goal for 2014 is to have a conversation with the partners about my base pay. My fear is that they see the conversation as an ultimatum when it is not. Going to need nerves of steel when I book that meeting lol.
I had the meeting about 2 weeks after that post and it went amazing. I received a pretty signifcant raise spread over the course of two years.
I have talked about it for years, but I think this is the year I get my CFP. Since I am a licensed attorney I can look into just self studying and taking the test (I am not required to take any classes).
Never even really looked into it.
Law Practice
Every year for the past 2 years I have talked about my law practice website. I know it won’t get me clients, but there is no reason that every professional shouldn’t have one. The worst part about failing in this goal is that I know how easy it really is! My goal is to have this up and running by the end of January. If I read this post in December 2014 and it is not done – then future Evan – you owe The Wife $200+ Shoes. There now I will at least feel pain if it isn’t done.
Success – Thankfully!
Blogging World
My goal is to bring down my costs. Again, while I am profitable I just don’t need services I am not using. I am hoping to read this back in December and think it was nuts that I wrote and implemented the goal b/c I am crashing servers left and right with traffic but that is likely not to be happening.
Success – I cut my expenses in half. Previously, I was paying for a virtual private server which I didn’t know how to run so I had to hire someone that did. I changed hosting services to a much more managed system for around the same price so I was able to cut down the freelance IT.
I also would like to check up my meta information for every post I created.
Fail.
Other than back-end stuff I think I am good with just continuing my usually 2 or 3 posts a week with a few guest posts sprinkled in there
2014 Posts really seemed to be more about my situation. I have gotten much more into investing type posts.
Online Income World
I have a great side business with a partner, but it has consistently decreased in revenue and income over the past few quarters. It is still ridiculously profitable, but decreasing revenue is freaking frustrating. I’d happily throw money at it, but I don’t believe it to be a “money” problem. If I am going to give myself a goal here it is to proactively email advertisers on a more often and regimented basis.
Haven’t really came up with anything that solved this problem in 2014. I am going to mark this as a success, however, as I figured out a system to increase activity despite income probably decreasing for the 3rd year or so in a row.
Financial Goals for 2014
My goal is to complete 3 $5,000 goals
I completed two of these goals and decided to abandon the goal since I had accumulated some debt and that should take precedent over smaller investment goals.
Review the following for inefficiencies
- Home Owner’s and Auto Insurance – My firm hired a P&C expert who has offered to do all the work for me!
- Cell Phone Plan – I am out of contract in April and The Wife in September. Currently, we are on a Sprint family plan but something in my gut is telling me there are more efficient options. I am thinking either a no-contract option/MNVO or combining our plan with another couple for a more efficiently used family plan.
- I have got to switch from oil to gas in our new home. Oil costs are nuts!
I took a look at the auto and home owner’s insurance and it seems I have a pretty good rate – success (but wish I was able to save money). I just wrote an update to switching to a prepaid cell phone – success. Lastly, earlier this year I calculated just how much I would save switching from oil heat to gas heat and then later in the year I actually switched from oil to gas heat – success.
Later this week I’ll have the opportunity to write my 2015 goals and objectives.
