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!

By Eden, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 2 Comments, Categories: Goals

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Buy life insurance – Mostly done. We added some life insurance, but not as much as we would like yet.
7. 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!

By Eden, Tue 6 Jan 2009, 2 Comments, Categories: Goals

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.

By Eden, Mon 7 Apr 2008, Categories: Goals

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.

By Eden, Tue 18 Mar 2008, Categories: Goals, Monthly Report

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 – 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.

By Eden, Mon 4 Feb 2008, 4 Comments, Categories: Goals, Monthly Report