I recently purchased an item of furniture via Craigslist from a woman in a nearby town. In the course of our interaction, she stated that she was trying to get rid of furniture because she was moving to a smaller apartment. She stated that she was trying to “downsize”.
Last summer, after our house finally sold, I posted a list of our financial priorities now that we no longer had to deal with the financial obligation of owning a home. I kind of forgot about that post and when I ran across it recently, I was pleasantly surprised to see that we had made progress in most of the priorities that I listed back in July. Eight months have passed since the closing of our home and while we are not rolling in the dough, we have turned a corner of sorts.
I read a very interesting post over at Bible Money Matters about setting your course for next year now. This article was about setting your financial goals for 2010 before it happens ;-). Too often, we tend to wait until the next year begins to start new financial projects. Then, we forget about fixing SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely) objectives in January and we wake up in spring without accomplishing much to date.
During the Holidays or upon the beginning of a New Year, many of us have the habit of establishing our goals for the upcoming year. Personally, I like making my “to do list” at that time of the year as well. Writing down my goals is usually the very first step to achieving them. Writing includes a sense of commitment. This commitment becomes even bigger when you blog about your goals as many readers know about them. Most of the time, my goals are based on my financial situation: I want to improve my savings, pay off my mortgage, increase my income, etc. However, my biggest challenge and what became my main goal in 2009 was totally unexpected back in January.
For some reason I can’t seem to mentally grasp that 2008 is almost over. I feel like I was just writing this same article but back in 2007. I like setting goals for myself. Granted I am not near as good at meeting them as I am setting them, I do like laying out a destination for myself. Goals help keep me focused and heading in the right direction, even if I don’t always achieve them. As the old saying goes, it’s often more about the journey than the actual destination.
Everyone has dreams and goals, some big, some small. I have lots of them, but for me my two primary ones are 1) Be debt free and 2) Have my own company full time. Dream #1 is is fairly recent and became important to be in 2006. Dream #2 has been a dream since I as kid and just kept getting stronger as I entered the work place.
Photo by: Morgue File
The Mighty Bargain Hunter posted an update on how his 2008 goals were going. He says it’s a “tepid start at best“, but I think he’s doing great. While he hasn’t fully met his goals, he’s recognized he has some work to do which is important. He’s heading in in the right direction. Also in his update, he decided to “pick on me” and see how I’m doing on my 2008 goal. Seems we both are off to a “tepid start at best“.
