The Car Repair Fund & Other $$$ Goals for 2008

With little fanfare and lots of honesty, here are some of my goals for 2008:

1. Income: 225 percent increase

I've started working as a stringer (freelance reporter) for Money magazine and Florida Trend. I will continue to look for additional sources of income.

2. Establish Car Repair Fund: $1,200 yearly or $100 a month

This is a top-priority. The family car was replaced this year, but not before three-rounds of major (big-ticket!!) repairs busted the budget. We have a newer used car, but I'm budgeting for repairs.

3. Florida 529 college plans for my elementary and middle-school children.

4. Vacation Fund: $1,200 yearly or $100 a month

5. Emergency Fund: Increase by 500% percent

Other Goals:

1. Write 500 words of fiction/poetry or creative non-fiction per day

2. Shorten the to-do list; but complete more items on that agenda

3. Arrive on-time for appointments and assignments

4. Spend more time with my children and extended family

5. Increase blog traffic by 300 percent.

6. Write letters to friends & family

7. Relax, meditate & pray more

8. Stay in the moment

9. Be grateful

10. Laugh more

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Previous Posts

Today:

Hearts, Diamonds & Dollars: Tips from Warren Buffett & Cotton Threads
Yesterday:
10 Little Budget Hits from Bankrate.comHow Worrying Costs Me $6,500 a YearAirhead vs Workaholic: What I Learned about Money from Writing

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Deep Breaths & Shallow Worries: 10 Holiday Changes for Next Year

Looking ahead at a new 2008 calendar, here's how I would like to handle gifts for birthdays, holidays and other shopping-related occasions during the next 12 months. I plan to wrap this list in a stress-free package of self-containment.



1. Purge. We have so much stuff. If my walls could talk, they'd grumble and crumble about the weight of ownership. Next holiday season, I'd like to purge the closets before buying any more games, movies or books.


2. Keep better track of time: I want all of my cards and packages to arrive on time, but I don't want to pay any extra money for air freight or special delivery. Solution: I want to use the bundled software program in my laptop to remind me of birthdays, anniversaries and other milestone events. The system that I now under-utilize, provides pop-up reminders, whistles and bells tied into calendar-linked deadlines. The program, however, is not tied to any upload -your-life online service, so I don't have to worry about privacy issues.



3. Make Gifts: I am so impressed with my mom. She spent hours and hours in a pottery studio and has made all of her holiday gifts. (More on this later). I enjoy embroidery and other forms of needlepoint. There are a wide range of crafts that make pretty, practical and frugal presents.

4. Write letters to friends. Cards are fine. Mass-dispatched holiday newsletters are cool. Emails and e-cards help make timely connections. But I'd like to just breakout the stationary and write good old fashion letters to several friends. I want to be a pen pal. I want to open the mailbox and find real letters.



5. Set up a community service event for my kids. Next year, I'd like to work on a family donation of time and effort to those in need. Nothing too big, just an afternoon or two of giving back and sharing.

6. Bake. I have a few close friends who make delicious breads and cakes. My middle son is also a baker. I'd like to spend a day (with my kids) baking goodies for friends and neighbors.



7. Buy gifts in bulk: I have friends that save lots of money through bulk purchases of gift items. For instance, one friend found a good price on dinner platters and purchased several as wedding presents. Likewise, I want to keep our gift closet well-stocked with a supply of children's gifts and house presents. It really saves money not to scramble for last-minute gifts.

8. Hold a swap party. I'd like to get together a group of close friends and tell everyone to bring a bag of clothing and household trinkets that they would like to get rid of. Then we could all swap, purge, take home and donate our extras to charity.



9. Relax: In my house, the eight days of Chanukah seemed to just fly by. I now worry that I spent more time with my keyboard than with my family. Next year as a gift to myself, I plan to manage my time better.

10. Stop the worries: I even worry about how much time I spend worrying. My 9-year-old daughter even has a prepared mantra that she offers whenever I look at her with my worry eyes. She says: "Yes, you are a good mommy. You spend lots of time with us. You give us lots of attention. Yes, you are....."

My goal for 2008: Deep breaths and shallow worries.

My Previous Posts

Today

How a Red Spiral Notebook Helped Me: The Power of Written Goals

Yesterday
Are You Frugal or Just Downwardly Mobile, in Denial or Just Poor?
Recycled Cinderella: Same Outfits, Different Holiday Balls
Saving Money with CFLs: A Formula for Bright Lights & Lower Expenses

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Digg!

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How a Red Spiral Notebook Helped Me: The Power of Written Goals

Last year, I made a few notes in a thin red notebook. I was prompted by those sermons uttered by business gurus: Write down your goals!!Use specific language!!Target real numbers!! That's the mantra. For instance, here's what Bo Bennett, author of Year To Success recommends in his book:

"Take time to write down your definition of success. Be specific. Do not use phrases like 'lots of money'...instead say 'annual income of X and total new worth of Y.' ...Write this down and save it somewhere where you can access it one year from now." --Year To Success page 2.

So in December of 2006, I started a little experiment in a red one-subject, 70-sheet, college-ruled, spiral notebook that was made in China. I didn't record all of my goals, just a few targets for this blog. And even then, a few of the pages were ripped out during the 12-month period. It was a half-hearted, short-lived goal-setting effort.

But about a month ago, I re-discovered the red notebook and for the last three weeks of December 2007, I've renewed the goal-setting effort with weekly targets for blog traffic and links. And now I wish that I had carried out this goal-setting exercise for 12 months and in all areas of my life. Here's what happened:

Links (based on Technorati data)

Jan. 1 '07: 106 links

Feb. 1 '07: 117

Dec. 1, '07 130

Dec. 17 '07 144

Total Link Growth

January to December:

up 35.8 percent

Dec. 1 to Dec. 17:

up 10.7 percent

Traffic Growth:

December 31, 2006 to Dec. 1, 2007:

up 41.7 percent

The Lesson: The process of writing down specific goals about links and hits led to measurable improvement in my blog's performance. What's more, the growth was especially strong during those short periods when I actively recorded my progress in the red notebook.

Hindsight: I wish that I had taken the time to make specific, number-based goals in every area of my life, including:

• salary goals.


• debt reduction goals


• savings goals (by the week, month and year)


• poetry and short story submission goals


• daily creative writing word count goals.

The Forward Action Plan: I'm not worried about the lost opportunity. What's done is done. (Thank Goodness, I'm learning to Let it Go!) But going forward, I will plan to plan and stick to the plan! In the next two weeks, I'm going to have a one-woman goal-setting conference. I've graduated to spreadsheets and graphs. But just for good Karma, maybe I'll buy another red spiral notebook and write down a few objectives or maybe, I'll just borrow a few pages from my current book.

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My Previous Posts

Yesterday

Are You Frugal or Just Downwardly Mobile, in Denial or Just Poor?

Recycled Cinderella: Same Outfits, Different Holiday Balls

Saving Money with CFLs: A Formula for Bright Lights & Lower Expenses

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Digg!

Help! I Can't Pay My Bills: A New Book for 2007

Setting do-able goals for 2007, tops my agenda. With that to-do list in mind, I interviewed the author of Help! I Can't Pay My Bills for a few financial tips. We had a fun chat that developed into my latest column in the Miami Herald.

The problem is poor preparation, said Sally Herigstad, a certified public accountant and author of a forthcoming book titled Help! I Can't Pay My Bills (St. Martin's Press/2007, $13.95).

Many families jump into goal-setting and budget-planning sessions without a detailed review of household expenses, Herigstad said. She has met families who have incorrectly estimated their monthly grocery bills and other basic expenses. That creates a major cash flow problem.

''We know that we are sometimes short of money, but we don't know why,'' she said.

Source: Making Ends Meet, (by shr) Miami Herald

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The Frugal Duchess Boutique
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