Finance and Fat » Goals

This Year Ain’t Over – 2010 Weight Loss Update

Eden — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:27:58 +0000

And I’m back. August 4th seems like as good a day as any for the first progress update to my 2010 Weight Loss Goals, written way back on Saturday, January 16th, 2010. Boy, things sure were different back then. I had hope for the New Year! Now it’s just another New Year of Regret. I’m joking of course, I don’t regret things much—maybe I should? I see that I even created a fancy little Google Spreadsheet for tracking all of my amazing progress back then! Funny thing is, I forgot I had done that until today. I’ll see if I can update it, but I’m probably lacking most of the data points needed.

In case you can’t tell from the tone of the above paragraph, things haven’t gone well this year. In fact, as things stand today, I’m a big fat zero on the progress chart for 2010. Seven months later and I stand exactly where I did when I was full of optimism and hope for the New Year. Oh well, that’s pretty much standard operating procedure for me over the past few years (as you can see if you check any of the weight loss archives around here).

But it’s all in the past now. That’s the funny thing about me. I must be too dumb to give up because I’m always optimistic that I can turn things around and lose 50 pounds before the year is over. Well, 50 might be rough, but I’d be happy with 30. In fact, that is my new goal! Look, a shiny new goal! Surely everything will be better now.

Okay, so things probably won’t be better now, but I’m going to try. I really am. I learned a couple of things this year. Like when I was walking regularly and eating lots of vegetables my weight was going down. The one month I managed to do both at the same time, I had lost about nine pounds. So there is hope, and at least I have a simple way to get started. Just some vegetables and some walking…that shouldn’t be too hard, even for me. Only time will tell of course. Hopefully I’ll be back to update this in less than seven months.

This Year Ain’t Over – 2010 Weight Loss Update

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2010 Weight Loss Goals

Eden — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:43:45 +0000

It’s that time of year again! The time of year I pretend to turn over a new leaf and fool myself into thinking I can be productive and fix all the mistakes of the previous year. Of course, I still believe that I can really do it so maybe one year things will come together as planned (I’m hoping it’s this year!).

I’m starting 2010 at about 259 pounds. That’s 8 pounds less than I started 2009. Certainly not good progress, but it beats gaining 8 pounds so I’ll take it. My goal for 2010 is to get down to 219 pounds. That seems to be a long way from 259, and especially considering my poor efforts in 2009, but I believe I can do it.

Here’s my approach for 2010. I’m breaking my annual goal into quarterly goals. So the first milestone is weighing in at (or below) 249 pounds by April 1st. This works out to 10 pounds per quarter, figure about 12 weeks per quarter and I can reach my goals while losing less than 1 pound per week (about .83 pounds per week if I used the calculator properly).

We’re already a couple of weeks into January and my weight is basically unchanged, fluctuating up and down by 1-2 pounds each week so far. Not the most promising start, but these pounds should be the easiest to lose so I’m still confident I can reach the April 1st deadline. There’s probably some irony in choosing April 1st as my first milestone, but that’s just how it worked out so I’m going to go with it.

Look for more regular updates on my progress this year and probably even more frequent updates on Twitter (follow @financeandfat if you’re into that Twitter thing). By the way, I’ll be tracking my progress on a publicly visible Google Spreadsheet.

2010 Weight Loss Goals

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My 54 Pound iPhone Challenge

Eden — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:25:53 +0000

I want an iPhone. I’ve had my eye on one since it was released back in June of 2007. However, I’ve resisted purchasing one because I don’t NEED an iPhone. It is purely a WANT, an indulgence, a waste of money. I could try to justify it, but it’s just an expensive toy.

While it’s true that the iPhone is just a toy, there are no rules in personal finance against buying toys. You just have to be smart about it and, for me, that means planning ahead, saving the money, and paying cash. I can do all of that, but I still haven’t made the purchase.

Yesterday, I decided that I am finally going to do it. However, there is one big caveat. I made a deal with my wife that I won’t buy an iPhone until I get my weight down to 210 pounds.

I think this is a great way to incentivize my weight-loss by adding a tangible reward. It’s something I really want and it’s also easy to put up pictures of the iPhone as motivation/reminders for me to stick with my exercise and diet routine. It also gives me plenty of time to save the money, decide for sure that I really want to buy one (of course I do, but it sounds good to say that), and hopefully enough time for Verizon to start selling the iPhone so I won’t be stuck with AT&T.

To be clear, I’m not only losing weight for an iPhone. I want and need to lose weight and I’ve been working on it, unsuccessfully, for the past two years. This is just another tool in the motivational toolbox that I’m trying out. If weight loss was only about rational decisions, I would have lost the weight already. It’s obvious that I need more help on the emotional/mental side and that’s what I’m hoping this little game will do.

As of my last weigh-in, on June 30th, I was 263.4 pounds. Losing 54 pounds will put me just under 210. Obviously, this will take some time. Averaging 1 pound per week means this could take more than a year. However, I have a lot of weight to lose and I think I could get it done a lot faster if I really work at it. This will be an interesting test of the benefits of external motivation and whether I will do better than I have so far.

I’m going back to weekly weigh-ins and reports on this blog so please check back in to see my progress. Also, please let me know if you’ve tried a reward system when losing weight and how that worked for you and if you have any tips for success.

My 54 Pound iPhone Challenge

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My 2 Big Goals for 2009

Eden — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:33:00 +0000

Based on the poor progress of last year, I’ve decided to keep things simple in 2009 and only focus on two big goals.

1. Lose 50 pounds

How I’ll get there:

I had the most success last year when I was part of a friendly weight-loss competition with some of my family. We helped motivate each other and knowing we would share results each week was extra motivation to stick with the plan. We did this for about four months and it worked well for all of us. Unfortunately, over the rest of the year I gained back all the weight I had lost and then some.

We are trying the competition again this year, so far we have about 10 people signed up, and our plan is to keep this going for the whole year. We are also putting in some small amounts of cash each month ($5 per person) and giving it to the ‘biggest loser’ on a monthly basis. This is a little extra motivation, which doesn’t hurt, but obviously the important part is getting in shape and staying that way.

As of January 6, 2009, my official weight for the start of the competition is 267.6. Sadly, that is almost exactly 20 pounds heavier than I was when I wrote about achieving my first weight loss goal about a year ago—on January 7, 2008.

I’m frustrated that not only did I fail to lose weight last year, but actually gained 20 pounds when I was supposed to be focused on losing weight (that is one big reason for this blog after all), but I have to get over that and move on with things this year.

I need to take my frustration and turn it into increased effort and change my attitude this year. I can no longer accept being over weight and thinking that everything is okay just because I haven’t been hit with any major health problems (yet). I know my current lifestyle is leading me down the wrong path and I need to make some big changes before it’s too late. I’ve been overweight for about 3 years straight now and I’m getting seriously concerned about the long term effects on my health and well being.

I said my goal is to lose 50 pounds…and while that would be great, it is really just an arbitrary number. What I really want to accomplish this year is to become fit and to make exercise a regular part of my daily routine. I know now that just putting in some extra effort for a short while will get me some results, but without continuing that extra effort the weight will just come back on. I need to change from a mostly sedentary life to a regularly active one.

Rather than just making diet or exercise plans, I’m going to try to focus my time this year on developing new habits that will lead to health and fitness. For the short term, I just need to get off my butt and do any kind of exercise. For right now, that is going to mean using my treadmill and doing equipment-less exercise like pushups.

I’m also considering joining a gym, mostly because I have an inexpensive one right next to my office and it would give me access to more equipment. I’d really like to use an elliptical trainer rather than a treadmill so I’m also checking Craigslist for a good deal on an elliptical machine. For me, that’s a better way to get my heart rate up and it takes a smaller toll on my joints. Jogging can really be tough on the knees when you have an extra 50 pounds of weight to carry!

I’ll be updating my weight progress once a month and I’ll be writing a lot more this year about fitness and diet. I’m looking forward to making some big changes this year!

2. Pay off all credit card debt

How I’ll get there:

I recently wrote about finally getting our credit card debt out of the five figures. As of the start of this year, our total credit card debt is $9,776.07. That means we need to average about $815 per month of principal paid to be done with the credit cards this year. In reality, we need to add on about $50 per month for finance charges, though that will of course decrease as the year goes on. I’ll make my plan to pay $850 per month on the credit cards and to throw any extra money we have toward them.

We shouldn’t have any problem accomplishing this in 2009, but I also thought we’d get this done last year so I can’t be too sure yet. We are tightening up our budget even more than we did last year and we are continuing to cut unnecessary expenses from our lives. I think those efforts combined with some extra income from side business will be enough to accomplish this goal.

That’s it for the big goals this year. I want to keep things simple and really focus on these two things. I hope I’ll have more success than last year. Best of luck to all of us with our goals this year!

My 2 Big Goals for 2009

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2008 Goals Review and Preparing for the New Year

Eden — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:33:00 +0000

One year ago, I listed my goals for 2008. Here’s a review of my list from last year.

Pay off all Credit card debt – Failed! We paid off about half the total for the year. We could have done better, but there were too many times during the year that we slacked off on the budget and just spent more money than we needed to on unnecessary things.
Get body fat percentage under 25% – Massive failure! My weight loss efforts for the year turned into a rather sad joke. In the first few months of the year, I was down about 20 pounds. I finished the year up about 13 pounds. Absolutely horrible. Losing weight and making exercise a habit is my primary goal for 2009.
Increase our emergency fund to $5,000 – Pass. I decided this was too much to save for now while still paying off the debt. I have increased the cash float in my primary checking account, which helps make budgeting easier and can serve as an emergency fund if needed.
Earn $20,000 (gross) from side businesses – Not bad. I didn’t make it to $20,000, but if I include the ’selling stuff’ category (ebay, yard sales, etc) I got a little over 3/4 of the way there. I don’t have any new side business lined up yet, but I’m going to really work a lot harder at this in 2009 and try for $20,000 again.
Start a Roth IRA with at least $1,000 – Partial success. I started a Roth IRA, but only funded it with about $500. Again, I decided to hold off until more debt was paid.
Buy life insurance – Mostly done. We added some life insurance, but not as much as we would like yet.
Write a will – Fail! No excuse for this, we need to get this done in 2009.

I’ll be posting my 2009 goals soon. I’m going to try to keep the list shorter this year and try to get back on track with regular reviews so I don’t get complacent and lose track of what I want to accomplish this year. I hope you did a lot better on your 2008 goals than I did!

2008 Goals Review and Preparing for the New Year

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2008 Goals 3 Month Progress Review

Eden — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:27:28 +0000

One of the great things about writing this blog is having a public place to post my goals and easily review my progress each month (also publicly). I started 2008 with 2 ‘big’ goals and 5 ’small’ goals. Here is a look at our progress so far.

Big Goals

Pay off all Credit card debt – I started the year with $18,504.78 in credit card debt. After 3 months I have $16,381.98 for a reduction of -$2,122.80 in 3 months ($707.60 per month). At that rate it will take about two years to pay off the credit cards. That still isn’t fast enough, but the pace is improving over the last couple of months. With 9 months remaining in 2008, I need to average about $1,820 principal paid per month for the rest of the year. It’s amazing how short the year feels when I look at it this way, but I still think I can get this done.

Get body fat percentage under 25% – I started the year with 39% body fat according to my new scale (the absolute accuracy of that may be debatable, but this is my baseline number). As of my last weigh-in for March, my body fat was 36.6%. That leaves 11.6% to lose this year, which means I need to average 1.29% lost per month for the rest of the year.

Small Goals

Increase the emergency fund to $5,000 – I set up an auto-transfer of $150 from every paycheck to the emergency fund. That alone is almost enough to reach $5,000 ($3,900 from the transfers). As of today, the emergency fund is still under $1,000, but that is due more to me moving some accounts around and taking some money to prepare to pay some taxes.

Earn $20,000 (gross) from side businesses – I consider any money we earn outside of our regular ‘day’ jobs to fall under this category. For me, this would primarily be freelance web development work and websites; for my wife this would mostly be tutoring and test scoring. We have earned $2,699.55 toward this goal through March. Still behind the pace we need to be at, but we are getting closer.

Start a Roth IRA with at least $1,000 – Done! I opened a Roth IRA with an auto investment of $100 per month. I will attempt to fully fund this later in the year, after the credit cards have been paid off.

Buy life insurance – Still have the quotes, need to follow up with our insurance agent.

Write a will – Nothing done with this yet. I want to do it, but our financial lives are so simple and our assets so small this is a low priority.

That’s it for 3 months into 2008. We aren’t off to an amazing start, but we still have a decent amount of time left (although time seems to be going faster and faster), I still think we can accomplish these goals.

2008 Goals 3 Month Progress Review

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2008 Goals Two Month Progress Review

Eden — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:56:38 +0000

One of the greatest things about writing this blog is having a public place to post my goals and easily review my progress each month (also publicly). I started 2008 with 2 ‘big’ goals and 5 ’small’ goals. Here is a look at my progress so far.

Big Goals

Pay off all Credit card debt – I started the year with $18,504.78 in credit card debt. After 2 months I have $17,364.96 for a reduction of -$1,139.82 in two months ($569.91 per month). At that rate it will take almost 3 years to pay off the credit cards! Obviously that would be a huge failure given the goal to pay off the credit cards this year. With 10 months remaining in 2008, I need to average about $1,736 principal paid per month for the rest of the year. That is still possible and I think it can be done, but time is running out!

Get body fat percentage under 25% – I started the year with 39% body fat according to my new scale (the absolute accuracy of that may be debatable, but this is my baseline number). As of my last weigh-in for February, my body fat was 36.7% for an average of 1.15% lost per month. I need to average a little under 1.2% lost per month so I am just about right on track for my goal this year.

Small Goals

Increase the emergency fund to $5,000 – I set up an auto-transfer of $150 from every paycheck to the emergency fund. That alone is almost enough to reach $5,000 ($3,900 from the transfers). As of today, the emergency fund is at $875.11. That is lower than last month, but not because I have been spending the money, I am just changing accounts so some of the money has a different name now. I will be building the fund back up soon.

Earn $20,000 (gross) from side businesses – I consider any money we earn outside of our regular ‘day’ jobs to fall under this category. For me, this would primarily be freelance web development work and websites and for my wife this would mostly be tutoring (at least for now). We have earned $1,722.59 toward this goal through February. We need to pick up the pace here, but I anticipate a couple of larger projects to come through later that will get us most of the way there.

Start a Roth IRA with at least $1,000 – Not yet, but soon!

Buy life insurance – Still have the quotes, need to follow up with our insurance agent.

Write a will – Nothing done with this yet. I want to do it, but our financial lives are so simple and our assets so small this is a low priority.

That’s it for 2 months into 2008. We aren’t off to an amazing start, but we have 10 months left so there is still plenty of time to achieve our goals.

2008 Goals Two Month Progress Review

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2008 Goals One Month Progress Review

Eden — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:00:48 +0000

Big Goals

Pay off all Credit card debt – We started the year with $18,504.78 in credit card debt. After 1 month we have $18,034.11 for a reduction of -$470.67. At that rate it will take us more than 3 years to pay off our credit cards! Obviously that would be a huge failure given our desire to pay these off this year. With 11 months remaining in 2008 we need to average about $1,640 per month of principal paid. That is still possible and I think we can do it. It will require a little more dedication to frugality and some more efforts to earn extra money.

Get body fat percentage under 25% – I started the year with 39% body fat according to my new scale (the absolute accuracy of that may be debatable, but this is my baseline number). As of my last weigh-in for January, my body fat was 37.6%. I need to average a little under 1.2% lost per month and I exceeded that in January so I am on track for this goal. I expect it to get more difficult the closer I get to 25% so I do need to increase the intensity if I want to be sure of reaching this goal.

Small Goals

Increase our emergency fund to $5,000 – I set up an auto-transfer of $150 from every paycheck to our emergency fund. That alone will put us close to $5,000 ($3,900 from the transfers). As of today, we have $1,372.07 in emergency funds. If we can hold steady, we will reach this goal in 2008.

Earn $20,000 (gross) from side businesses – I consider any money we earn outside of our regular ‘day’ jobs to fall under this category. For me, this would primarily be freelance web development work and websites and for my wife this would mostly be tutoring (at least for now). We earned $860 toward this goal in January. If we stay at that rate every month we will only get about half of the way to our goal so we need to find ways to increase these earnings soon.

Start a Roth IRA with at least $1,000 – We have done nothing with this yet. I don’t expect to look at it until the credit cards are paid off.

Buy life insurance – We haven’t made the purchase yet, but we did get some quotes and will likely get this done soon. I know, waiting isn’t smart, but we’ve gone this long without we can hopefully survive a few more weeks or so.

Write a will – Nothing done with this yet. I want to do it, but our financial lives are so simple and our assets so small this is a low priority.

That’s it for the first month of 2008. We aren’t off to an amazing start, but we have 11 months to get things done so I feel pretty good about our prospects for success.

2008 Goals One Month Progress Review

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Life is better today because I started ‘NOW’

Eden — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 03:37:01 +0000

Start now. That is the best advice I can give for anything you want to change about your life. No matter what it is you want to do, take at least a few minutes today to do something that will get you started on your new plan.

I have lost 18 pounds since I started this blog in September. I still have plenty of pounds to lose, but I woke up feeling good this morning- I feel lighter and the same clothes that were a tight fit a few months ago are loose and will soon be too big. I would not feel this way today if I hadn’t made the effort back in September to start something. I started small, only trying to walk for 5-10 minutes per day and limit my calorie intake, but that was what I needed to get the ball rolling and start building momentum.

Setting a goal to walk for only 5 minutes may seem somewhat small and meaningless, but if you are coming from walking 0 minutes per day, 5 minutes is a huge improvement. The point is, no matter what the situation or what your goal is, changing your life can start today and it can start with something small.

Choose something you know you can do. Don’t wake up one day after months of inactivity and decide that you will jog for 30 minutes and lift weights. That is not realistic! Diets can fail for many reasons, but I believe the problem with a diet is the difficulty of making massive changes overnight. You aren’t building new habits if you take that approach. You are trying to force yourself to behave in a new, uncomfortable way- the odds of success are very slim.

No matter what you want to change in your life, I encourage you to start it now. Take the time to write down your long-term goal (perhaps losing 60 pounds or paying off $25K of debt). Think about where you are now and think about what you can do now (or at least today). Choose something that you can take care of in 5-10 minutes. It could be something simple like walking down your street and back, making an extra payment on a credit card, starting a budget, or getting a how-to book at the library- whatever you can do today, in a short amount of time, that will start you down the path to reaching your long term goal.

Decide what you will do today, then do it today and repeat it tomorrow.

There will be setbacks, there will be days you fail to keep up the pace, but the point is to build new habits. After a few weeks have gone by you will find yourself with a new point of view and that long term goal will seem a little bit closer.
Start now!

Life is better today because I started ‘NOW’

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Getting started on our 2008 emergency fund goal

Eden — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 16:00:35 +0000

I didn’t mention it before, but I got a raise at my day job about 2 months ago. It wasn’t huge, about 7%, but I’ll certainly take it. By the way, I started by asking for 15% so either money is really tight at work or I’m being phased out.

Anyway, the point is that I made no plans of what to do with the extra money except to ‘pay it toward debt’. I’m pretty good about sending all excess money each month toward debt payments, but I also want to protect myself against spending inflation thanks to my now higher earnings so today I set up an auto-withdrawal to my long term emergency fund account. I left a little extra on my new ‘take-home’ pay (what gets deposited in my primary checking account) and sent $120 to my emergency fund. That will put us very close to the new emergency fund goal by the end of the year and as I also hope to have the credit cards killed off later this year so I will be able to finish funding the account then.

You’ve heard it before, but I’ll say it again, paying yourself first is always a good thing. If you find yourself fortunate enough to see an increase in earnings this year take the time to actually DO something with the extra money rather than just giving it a general purpose or category in your head. Directing it to another account immediately will allow you to easily continue your lifestyle and start saving for something important.

Getting started on our 2008 emergency fund goal

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