Category Archives: Goals

Reasons To Save Money

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Money is a powerful tool, it can either make or break us.  Since this blog is called Money Reasons, I’ve decided to list reasons to save money. 

Money Reasons

 

Reasons to save money:  

  • Retirement – This has been beat into the ground, but I want to have a fairly decent retirement!  Even thought my retirement is far away, I think I’ll start rebalancing my portfolio every year.  At the very minimum, once a year!
  • Emergency Fund.  Who knows when disaster will strike again!
  • Vacations – Someday, I even want to travel overseas,at once!!!  Or go back to Disney!  We had a wonderful time and made some great memories.
  • College Savings – In the nearish future, I want to help my kids pay for college .  I’ve been investing in a few 529s, but I still have a long way to go.
  • Car Purchases – I don’t want any more car loans!  The next cars I buy will be bought outright!!!
  • Home  Repair – Things break (water tank, furnace, AC, new carpet, flooring, sinks, etc), and some day the roof will need reshingled.
  • Kid’s Sports – they add up!!!
  • Sense of security – It’s nice to know you have money invested in things that could appreciate greatly in value.

Money is a funny thing.  After all, it’s really just a small piece of paper.  the value that we assign to money, floats with thing going on in our economy and world.  And yet it’s what we all go to work for most of our lives. 

Do you have any additional “Reasons for Money” that I may have missed? 

If I had enough money, I’d travel the world and mainly manage my investments.  What would you do?

2010 Resolution #3, Maximizing Who I Am

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My last resolution is more of a stretch goal, and it won’t be easy…

What do I mean by “Maximizing Who I Am”?

My stretch goal

 

Ever since graduating from college, I started wondered what I would be like if I ate the perfect foods, slept and exercised the perfect amounts, developed my brain in a perfect way, etc.  I wondered what I would be like… would I be a few inches taller?  Would I be smarter than I am now, perhaps a little better looking too…  How different would the perfect version of me be?

It would be very fascinating to know!  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not faulting anybody (especially myself) for not being perfect.  After all, to be raised perfectly and do everything perfectly is practically impossible.  But what if I start trying for that elusive goal?  What would happen…?

Well, that’s what my final 2010 goal will be.  I’m going to try and maximize who and what I am.  I hope I finally be able to grow those few extra inches that I’m missing!  Okay, so that won’t happen, but perhaps I can improve other things to almost the perfect level…  That’s what I mean when I say “Maximizing Who I Am“, I can’t be the perfect me, but I can strive to be the best I can be.

This goal actually ties back into my first two goals, both are necessary steps to “Maximizing Who I Am”.

  1. 2010 Resolution #1, Losing Weight While Saving Money and
  2. 2010 Resolution #2, Stop Being a Pack Rat

What areas do I need to work at to be a better me?

  • Exercise.  Both aerobic and anaerobic.
  • Sleeping the proper amount of time.  I’ve been a “Night Owl” ever since my college days.
  • Organization Skills.  I’ll use a Planner, tasksheets, spreadsheets and calender programs.
  • Challenging my mental processes (reading, experiments, blogging, games, etc)
  • Spending more quality time with my Kids, and with patience!
  • Working more Effectively at whatever I’m doing (this could be when I’m at work, or at home).
  • Be more Sociable with my friends, neighbors, and countrymen (joking on that last one, although I could say community and that would be fair game).
  • Develop a greater sense of Humor.  Both laughing and making witty jokes (at least I hope they’ll be witty).
  • And lastly, Making Better use of my Time!  This would be the Carpe Diem thing…

How do I go about measuring these areas?

Well, that is a mixed bag!  I plan on measuring my weight loss and exercise routine in spreadsheets.  But how do I measure the other pieces of the puzzle I listed above?  Well, I’m thinking of keeping an written Daily Journal, then post my progress once a month on this blog.  During the post, this will force me to reviewing my performance to see if I’m accomplishing these personal mini goals or not.

And there you have it!  My New Year 2010 Resolution Goals are finally listed (I’m hearing the “Mission Impossible” theme song as I’m typing).

Let get it ON! 🙂

2010 Resolution #2, Stop Being a Pack Rat

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No, my house and car isn’t stuff full of junk.  I don’t have multiple cars on blocks in my driveway or backyard.  But I am a mild packrat…

Not my car!!!

I need to get rid of the following things or at least manage them better:

  • Stacks of unread magazines in my office.  I know that I won’t read 80% of them, and yet there they sit on my table taking up space.
  • Another one of my weaknesses is saving mail that isn’t critical, especially credit card mail.
  • My garage isn’t optimized either.  While this isn’t a big deal, it’s something that has annoyed me for way to long.  While there is a semblance of order, there’s a table way back in the corner of my garage that shouldn’t be there.  It has stuff stacked on it that I no longer remember what they are.  In my garage, I do have shelves with things organized on them, so my garage is somewhat organized, but it’s not the best it could be.
  • A Snowball of collected things during my life is clustered in a small portion of the basement.  I’ll never looks at some of this stuff again, if I don’t clear it out.  I can probably sell some of the stuff on ebay.
  • Saved emails. This is truly one of my worst areas.  I save my emails thinking that I’ll need them someday at work (and occassionally I do need them).  What I need to do is purge the junk and keep the potential important emails.
  • Old clothes that are in bad shape or slightly ripped. The logic here is I can use the ripped clothes for rags or work clothes.  And I do use my old clothes that way, but I don’t think I need such a stock pile.  This might be me being frugal though.  I’m on the fence about this one.

While this isn’t a huge problem for me, it would still be a nice area for me to conquer.

How am I going to accomplish this goal?

  • Each day I’m going to allocate 15 minutes a day to throw away the junk in my packrat areas.
  • Once I get through my packrat areas, I’m going to throw away useless items when I first receive them.  Ex.) Free Magazine subscription and credit card offers that I don’t read.
  • I’ll deciding what I keep or throw away by asking “Will I use this (whatever… mail, magazine, etc) in the next week, month, year.  If “No” to all 3, then pitch it.

As long as I do the three steps identified above, this should be the easiest goal to accomplish.

Are you a packrat in some way or another?

If not, then what techniques do you use to avoid the packrat life?

2010 Resolution #1, Losing Weight While Saving Money

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This is my most important Resolution for 2010.  If I fail at all other 2010 Resolutions, I must not fail at this one! 

Here are the Reasons why:

  • My weight is a health risk.  While I’m not huge, my weight has raised my blood pressure, and needs to be lowered.  High blood pressure puts too much strain on the heart. 
  • My kids need me.  Being out of shape makes it hard for me to keep up with my kids.  I want to able to play soccer, basketball, and just plain old play outside with them. 
  • It’s expensive, both in the short and long terms.  By short term, I mean that I don’t need to spend money on extra food when I’m so heavy already.  By long term, I mean if I don’t get into shape, I’m in danger of having a heart attack, diabetes, or other weight related diseases.  Neither is necessary, and need to be fixed now! 
  • I want to enjoy life more fully.  Let’s be honest, when you are in shape, you can do much more than if you aren’t (and often times, it’s cheaper to boot).  I need my health to do fun activities like skiing, tennis, golf, basketball, wave running, boating, hiking, jogging, biking, etc… the list just goes on and on… 
  • Increased energy level.  When I was in shape, I had a lot more energy than I currently do.  This is life energy!  Use it or lose it as they say… 
  • Being thinner (unless to a fault), make you more attractive.  It’s that first impression thing…  If you’re more attractive, people will like you more just by default.  Being healthy puts you in that group.  In fact, I’m often amazed at how a heavier girl can sometimes lose weight and be a total knockout!  I feel bad for young girls (and boys) that are really physically beautiful, but never fully realize it because of the diet that their family practices.
  • Life Insurance is cheaper if you are in shape.  If you are in shape and don’t smoke, you can get life insurance at a very cheap rate (barring any other serious problems…)
  • Reducing the change of back problems.  Yes, I have back problems and my extra weight isn’t helping matters.  While being think won’t prevent you from having back problems.  Being heavier definitely will add stress to your back, thus increasing the likelihood that you will have problems.
  • Weight loss can lessen asthma symptoms and make healthier lungs.  This one I heard from a friend.  I have allergies, so hopefully this will help me too.

 How I’m going to save money:

  • I’m still doing my Lunch Experiment, so I’m not going to spend money for a special diet program.  It would be easier that way, but I want to keep doing my experiment.
  • This year I’m not going to join a gym (besides I have free weights in the basement just laying there waiting for me).  I going to workout 3 days per week (Monday, Wednesday & Friday), for less that 30 minutes per day.
  • Since I’m dieting, I’ll eat less food, that should help me keep costs down.
  • Ideally, I’ll get sick less often, which means less doctor visits.

Now that I’ve mentioned the reasons why, below are my personal details and the spreadsheet that I’m going to use to track my weight loss:

 Personal Details:  I’m 5′ 10″ and I weight 235 (I’m not a round 235 though since I use to lift weights), by normal standards I’m considered obese.  So my goal for the year is to loss at least 40 lbs. (any more than that would be icing on the cake!) 😉

Click here to enlarge this Obesity Chart

Click here to enlarge this Obesity Chart

 

 

This is the amount of weight (in lbs.) that I want to loose in each of the months below:

       
  Jan 9  
  Feb 5  
  Mar 4  
  Apr 4  
  May 3  
  Jun 3  
  Jul 2  
  Aug 2  
  Sep 2  
  Oct 2  
  Nov 2  
  Dec 2  
       

 

Here is my Weight-Loss spreadsheet to track my progress:   The weekly table below is the one I’m going to use record my progress every Saturday, with my results posted on the following Sunday mornings.

             
  Date
Weight/lbs.
Loss/Gain  
             
  01/02/10   135   0  
 
 
 
 
  01/09/10  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  01/16/10  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  01/23/10  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  01/30/10  
 
 
             
  Total Loss for the Month : 0  
             

 

Now that I have the tools and monthly target goals in place, I’m ready to roll with this Resolution! 🙂

-D