Goals and resolutions for 2014

Now that the Christmas insanity is over and New Year's partying ended, I've decided to sit down and come up with a few goals and resolutions of my own - seeing that so many financial bloggers are doing it. After all, if everybody else is jumping off the roof, then why shouldn't ... wait, bad example.

My plan is to revisit these goals and resolutions one year from now and see if I missed any of them - and how badly.

 

1: Invest 30% of our income

This isn't exactly new to us - we've been diligently transferring a set percentage of our paychecks into a special account reserved for investments for few years now. It used to be a much lower amount though - if I'm not mistaken we've started with 5% just to see how it feels. Once we got used to losing 5% of our income, we upped the bar to ten - and so on.

 

2: Update my blog on a weekly basis

When I started this blog, I thought I'd update it every month or so. But for some reason I feel the urge to do it more and more often - every comment here or every new Twitter conversation get me fired up like I just made a new friend. I do appreciate people helping me and providing feedback - I just hope this blogging thing doesn't become an obsession for me. After all, it's just a place where I sort my thoughts out and voice some opinions (sometimes rather strong ones) without being called a numbers nerd by my friends.

 

3: Lose 50 lbs. of weight by budgeting

No, I'm not talking about cutting our grocery budget to $50/month and starving myself into thinness (because I tried it before and failed miserably). Recently, I had a bit of revelation. I'm not sure if you've noticed it, but I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to numbers - to me not a lot of things are equally satisfying as balancing our monthly budget or calculating rate of return on some investment (even if this investment is buying pickles in bulk). What if I start tracking my consumption on everyday basis and balancing it against the energy I use - either by increasing my exercise or cutting down on consumption?

 

4: Read a new book every two weeks

As of one of my goals and resolutions for this year, I will pick a book every two weeks, read it from front to cover, and ponder over the material read. To make my life a bit easier, I will favor audio books as they're easier to consume for me as I do chores around the house or commute to work.

Do you have any goals and resolutions for this year?

 

I hope you enjoy my column. If you would like to comment on my goals or tell me how wrong I am, please visit http://moneyramblings.com/goals-and-resolutions-2014/ . Also, let’s chat on twitter: https://twitter.com/MoneyRamblings

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.