Meeting even the smallest of goals is cause for celebration!
Can you believe it’s April already? The first quarter of 2008 is now behind us. How time flies!
I have lots of goal updates to give you, so I’ll get right to it!
My S.M.A.R.T. Goal for 2008
My goal was to read one personal finance book a month for the whole year. So far I’ve read It’s All Too Much! and Your Money or Your Life. Right now I’m in the middle of reading How to Have More Than Enough by Dave Ramsey. I’m a little bit behind on my goal, but I can definitely catch up.
Financial Goals
In January I set six financial goals for myself. I have some good, some bad, and some ugly news to report.
- Pay off credit card debt by September. This is the good. We’re still on track to meet this goal. Our current balance is $762.53. Four more payments, and we’ll be DONE!
- Make a budget and stick to it. Here’s the bad. We did OK in some areas and not so OK in other areas. Our food budget went over. Surprisingly, we came in under budget in gas for the car. Overall, we did spend more than we earned, but we also bought a vacuum cleaner. And we didn’t go into debt for any purchases.
- Limit eating out to 4 times a month. This is the ugly. That’s all I have to say.
- Save 5% of our income. How we did on this depends on what you define as savings. We did set aside actually more than 5% of our income last month, but we’re paying it all to taxes this week.
- Get health insurance. We filled out the application for group insurance through Jim’s job, and we should have health insurance again sometime next month.
- Update our will. I haven’t addressed this goal yet.
All in all, I’m not super-pleased with my progress, but at least I’m still working toward my goals. That’s better than I’ve done in previous years. And we’re off to a great start, as far as not eating out much in April. I’ve done the menu planning and grocery shopping for the week, and I’m getting back into the swing of a routine again. Spring break really threw me!
Blogging Goals
In addition to my financial goals, I set a few blogging goals for myself.
- Hit 2000 subscribers. I thought this goal was really ambitious. I am astounded at how quickly Being Frugal has grown between January and now. This week I’ve consistently had over 1700 subscribers, and today I’m really close to 1800. I think I’ll hit this goal with room to spare. If you want to help me achieve this goal, feel free to subscribe by RSS or email. Don’t know what RSS is? Read about it here.
- Guest post at least once a month. Again, I’m doing really well on this goal. In March I guest posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. And in the next two weeks, I have two guest posts scheduled at Small Cents. I’ll let you know when they go live!
- Learn the ins and outs of SEO. Well, I’m not sure if I’ve learned anything, but more and more people are finding Being Frugal through the search engines, so I must be doing something right! :)
- Continue to post authentically and from the heart. Again, I think I’m succeeding in meeting this goal.
Other Exciting News from March
- I hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance #144. It’s the biggest of the finance carnivals, and I knew I wanted to host someday, just to say I did it. When David at My Two Dollars couldn’t host on his scheduled day, I stepped in. One more blogging aspiration completed!
- I was interviewed last week by DebtKid at the Lending Club Blog. That was a lot of fun! I also won $100 in their contest, too! I think the money will be going to the rebuilding of my emergency fund.
- Lifehacker linked to one of my posts. Actually, the Lifehacker post was more about Frugal Dad’s Square Foot Gardening post, but it was still exciting. And you should go congratulate Frugal Dad. I hear he got over 10,000 hits from Lifehacker!
March Top Referrers
I always like to thank the sites that referred traffic to Being Frugal. I’d love to list everyone, but the list would be waaaaay too long. So I’ll give you the top 10.
- I’ve Paid For This Twice Already
- Gather Little By Little
- Money Saving Mom
- Moolanomy
- Free Money Finance
- Frugal Dad
- Money Rules, Debt Stinks
- Single Guy Money
- My Two Dollars
- Five Cent Nickel
Thanks to everyone for sending traffic my way! And there you have it! All in all, March was a pretty good month! Hopefully April will be even better!
Did you set any goals this year? How are you doing?
Photo by bfick.
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That 10,000 day was a fun ride! Now if I could just catch that lightning in a bottle…
You’ve had great successes! I really think you can achieve all of your goals! You’re already a step ahead because you thought through and wrote out your plan!
OK, no eating out more than 4 times this month! I’ll come over and cook dinner for you if need be!!! ;)
The SEO one is a tricky one for sure! But yes, you must be doing something right! :) Nice job!
Sounds like you’ve had great success with your blog. As for your financial goals, just keep plugging. The one I have the most difficulty with is eating out. I spend way too much at fast food joints and restaurants.
Wow! It seems like you’ve already got a lot done toward your year’s goals and it’s only March. Nice work!
I jumped in as a subscriber to help you there. Keep up the great blog!