February 2018 Goals Report
**Please excuse the formatting - blogger is not cooperating and for some reason will not let me use default colors for this post. This will be fixed for next month's goals post**
Every year we set goals to improve ourselves, our situations, or to help those around us. While setting goals is the first step (as Tony Robbins said in the quote above), accountability is what holds us to these goals and pushes us to achieve them. This is our February Goals Report.
Financial Goals
- Gain employment (Race) 🗹
- Race signed a job offer in mid January and had his first day of work January 31.
- Save 50% of our income
- For the first two months of the year, we saved 72% of our income if you include the mortgage, but only 36% not including the mortgage. So either we are not quite there, or really overachieving depending on how you look at it. We have been counting the mortgage as saving since it is increasing our net worth, but will continue to provide both numbers. Our budget puts us on track to saving ~49% of income without the mortgage and 63% with the mortgage.
- Increase passive dividend income by 25%
- Year over year for the month of February, our dividend income has increased by 5.3%. This is slightly less than the increase for January, but since different stocks pay out different months, this is not the best indicator. Our goal is to increase dividend income for the entire year and thus a YOY of a month is not necessarily the best estimate. So far this year we earned approximately 10% of the amount needed to reach our dividend increase goal. We are currently on track for a 10.3% increase for the year. This is a good increase, but we will have to continue saving more to hit our 25% goal.
- Increase net worth by ~14%
- While the markets were hot in January, they cooled off considerable in February, which wasn't unexpected. We are up around 1.9% at the end of February. We expect this to rise a little upon paying off remaining students loans, extra mortgage payments and additional savings. While this seems low, we believe 14% is still within reach.
- Earn $2,000 tutoring
- February was much more successful in picking up tutoring sessions. I earned $199.21 which is around four times what I earned in January and puts me almost back on track to meet my $2,000 goal. I have $1,750.79 left to earn this year.
- For anyone else interested in a little side income, here is a list of where I get my students from:
- Varsity Tutors- Provides several opportunities daily. You must pass a short (~5min) qualification test in order to tutor preferred subjects. Pays less than finding students on your own, but there is no work on your end to gain students. If you use the link above to join, you will earn an extra $40 for signing up!
- Take Lessons - Allows you to post your profile. Students will contact you if they are interested. Much fewer opportunities than Varsity Tutors, however, you are able to set the amount your students will pay. You will get a higher percentage of that amount based on repeat customers.
- University Tutor - Allows you to post a profile. Interested students will contact you. While fewer opportunities than Varsity Tutors, the income potential is much higher here. You pay no fees to list and pay no third party, meaning you get to keep everything that you charge.
- Rolland Tutoring YouTube
- Rolland Tutoring Blog, Facebook, and Twitter
- Earn $
100$15 on YouTube/Blogging -- PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! - Sadly, this goal was drastically lowered. Due to YouTube's policy change, we will no longer be monetized until we reach 1,000 subscribers. If you haven't already, please subscribe to help us! The AdSense revenue so far has not added up to much, but we will still continue trying to earn using the blog.
- Without YouTube, we will be looking at a goal of around $15 from the blog and YouTube. If we hit the subscriber count this year, we will readjust our goal.
- This year we've earned $13.72. We may still get paid once more for February as this is the amount we've earned in adsense so far. We are hoping to increase view times and subscribers to the point of getting remonetized in the next year.
- Sell $150 worth of Random Lily soaps🗹
- We sold $150 worth of soap this month. We received a second bridal shower order that pushed us over our goal right away. While this sale was unexpected, we are excited to see our etsy sale worked and will continue to push periodic sales and coupons throughout the year. At this time we are not raising the goal to allow us to focus on our other business ventures, but may revisit this later in the year.
- Stay within the budget
- Generally yes, we did way better at staying within the budget this month. See our February Budget Report for a detailed view. We went over on utilities again which may mean we need to increase this amount at some point, but we are entering warmer months meaning lower heating bills and less electricity (no heating blankets or space heaters) so we will wait a few more months before adjusting. Everything else has been pretty on par and even below our budget limits which is helping us make up for last month's Sam's Club craziness.
Business Goals
- Post 150+ videos to Thriftism YouTube channel
- We posted 11 videos this month and 19 so far this year. This is still a bit short of what we needed to publish to stay on track, but we are getting closer to hitting the monthly goal and 150 videos is still well within our reach.
- Post 52+ blog posts
- 5 blog posts this month which is on track with what we should be publishing. That brings us to 7 this year. We will still try to put out more content and a wider variety, but much of our efforts have been going to promoting YouTube.
Reach 200 YouTube subscribers🗹Re-Monetize YouTube- We are at 512 subscribers. This is a substantial increase from 100 and puts us well over our goal of 200! Sadly, YouTube removed our monetization. We will continue producing content, but will have to push harder for more subscribers. If you haven't already, please take the time to subscribe. Since we reached our 200 goal, our new goal is to get remonetized. This means 1,000 subscribers (we're halfway there) and 4,000 hours of watch time. We are about 35% on the watch time. Our plan to increase watch time will be to increase videos published and continue promoting to friends, family, and on social media.
- Grow Twitter to 1,000 followers
- Currently at 985 - so close to our goal. If we hit 1,000 quickly, we plan to change up this goal to continue growing our audience. Thanks for all those who are supporting!
- Write London Guide Book
- Finished the transportation section of the guide. No change since last month.
- Write Munich Guide Book
- Template downloaded.
- Begin ThriftyFit Series on YouTube
- Still in brainstorming process, but will be coming soon.
- Create math practice workbook
- Outline created and first chapter currently being edited. This math book will contain both instructional, as well as practice materials for 1st grade math. I am planning to make it available in both ebook and hardcopy formats with the ability to print from the ebook if I can figure out the settings when I publish.
- Post 52+ videos to Rolland Tutoring YouTube channel
- Didn't focus on videos this month (so no videos 😢), but I did publish a few free worksheets and began the math book outline. I will attempt to publish more practice problems in the coming month.
- Post 52+ videos to Reviews with the Rollands YouTube channel
- No reviews posted. As mentioned last month, we will likely be combining our reviews with the Thriftism channel as we mostly review budget friendly events, places, and products. Also, we only have limited time so I would prefer to put time and effort into a channel that may be remonetized.
Fitness Goals
- Lose 10 pounds by May 1, 2018
- Argh! Maybe this wasn't a good goal?!?! Still staying flat.
- Lose an additional 5-10 pounds by December 1, 2018
- We will re-evaluate after the May 1 goal to determine what number seems fitting.
- Complete 1 - 30 day workout challenge 🗹
- We finished our 30 Day Yoga challenge! No it wasn't 30 days in a row, but we actually got through every day in the challenge. We are looking at possibly starting another one since it's a great stretch. Click the link above if you're looking for a great beginner's yoga challenge.
- Workout 4x/week
- February was not nearly as good as January, but we still worked out 3 days a week. Not quite 4, but closer. I download Nike Training Club app on my phone and started a workout plan to help remind me to workout 4 days, but will likely try to continue fitting in yoga as well.
Mental Goals
- Read 6 self-improvement books
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (On chapter 2)
- Life & Debt: a fresh approach to achieving financial wellness by Leslie Tayne (Also on Chapter 2)
- Read 6 additional general books
- Inferno by Dan Brown (~25%)
- Attend church 1/month🗹
- We attended with my Grandma, but haven't made it to our own church this month.
- Complete 2 Coursera courses
- Have not started this goal yet.
- Master Spanish on Duolingo (all gold bars) - Ashley 🗹
- Completed 1/15/18. However, I am still at 59% fluency so I will continue practicing throughout the year to improve my Spanish skills and will try to keep the bars golden throughout this year. Haven't improved fluency on here, but keep practicing. Lost levels when gone on vacation and working to get those back.
- Complete Duolingo or book Spanish lesson 3x/week - Race
- Haven't worked on this since returning from vacation. Starting again this month.
Fun, Travel, Social, Relationship, House, Hobby Goals
- Host 2 game nights
- None have been hosted so far.
- Attend 1 monthly social outing
- Hosted dinner two nights at our house and went to Zumba on Tap with colleagues.
- Visit family 1 time each month
- We visited one of my Grandmas this month and will try to visit another one next month. We are also hoping for some of Race's family to visit next month too.
- Travel to Mexico 🗹
- DONE!! Traveled in January to Puerto Vallarta. Watch for videos and posts for Thrifty Traveler coming soon.
- Complete one additional trip - Location TBD
- We are still unsure of when Race will be able to travel again and are waiting on that before decided on our second trip. A few options for longer trips are Peru or back to Europe (maybe France?). If he is unable to travel for extended periods of time, we are looking at heading back to New York for a long weekend or maybe Canada or maybe Disneyland???
- Create and purchase England trip photo book
- I started a photo book and have a few pages made. It is probably around 50% finished.
- Create and purchase Germany trip photo book
- Not started.
- Handmade Christmas - at least 75% of gifts given are hand made
- Haven't started gifts yet, but have done a handmade baby shower gift!
- Make wax melts
- Not started.
- Make candles from kit received for Christmas
- Not started.
- Can 40 quarts of green beans and 100 quarts of tomatoes
- We will begin this goal in late summer (once the garden begins producing).
- Complete 1 house project (finish basement, reside the house, reshingle the roof)
- Have not decided on which project yet.
- Install basement windows
- Too cold for window installation.
Contribution Goals
- Volunteer 10 nights/ month max
- Ashley volunteered 5 nights this month shared between Society of Women Engineers and uCodeGirl. Both are outreach for STEM fields for middle school through college. This is still no where near the 10 max, but seems to keep me incredibly busy.
We would still love to hear any goals you have for this new year. If you would like to be held accountable for your actions or just want to share your thoughts for the year, feel free to share. You can update your progress with us every month too!
If you aren't familiar with our goal series, be sure to check out our posts:
Comments
Post a Comment