I love spring flowers in bloom!
Is it just me, or did April fly by? It seems that I just did a March goals update. My son is out of school in just 3 weeks! I have a lot to accomplish before then.
Fortunately, I have some good news to report with my goals this month. The only bad news is….say it with me now….my eating out budget. I have an explanation for that one though (don’t I always?).
Let’s get to it.
Personal Finance Goals
Read a personal finance book every month. I’m doing OK. I’m still reading Dave Ramsey’s How to Have More Than Enough. I’m having a hard time getting through that one. I’m also reading (Not) Keeping Up With Our Parents, and it’s holding my attention. On my reading list before the end of June is Live Well on Less Than You Think, A Christian’s Guide to Investing, and Your Kids Can Master Their Money. I have no doubt I’ll get through them. I read in spurts, and when I get in the reading mood, I can whip through books pretty quickly.
Pay off credit card debt by September. I’m ahead of schedule on this one. After paying taxes wiped out my emergency fund, I determined that I would save a $1000 baby emergency fund and then pay off the rest of my Citibank card. I’m happy to report that I have my $1000 emergency fund saved, and next week when we get the Economic Stimulus Rebate, we’ll be using $562 to pay off the credit card! Yay! The rest we’ll use for a vacation.
Make a budget at stick to it. I’m getting better at budgeting. We went over in eating out again (more on that in the next section). But we came pretty close to sticking to the rest of the budget. I’m pleased with our progress.
Limit eating out to four times a month. I didn’t meet this goal. A lot of it was due to me being sick. I think my husband picked up dinner for a week. Yikes! Fortunately I’m on a healthy eating kick at the moment, so fast food is out right now. I’m looking forward to a more successful May.
Save 5% of our income. I haven’t run the numbers, and I think I’m a bit inconsistent. But I’m happy with our savings right now.
Get Health Insurance. I’m happy to report that as of tomorrow my family will be back among the insured. Our kids have strict instructions not to break their arms today.
Update Our Will. I’m thinking we won’t get around to this for a couple more months.
Blogging Goals
Hit 2000 subscribers. I hit this goal in April! I’m totally blown away! Thanks to all who have subscribed! If you haven’t subscribed and want to, you can subscribe by RSS here (what’s RSS?) or get Being Frugal delivered to your email inbox every day by filling in the information here.
Plonkee thinks I can hit 5000 subscribers by the end of the year, so that’s my new goal. It’s ambitious, but why not aim high?
Guest post at least once a month. This month I posted Bible Money Matters.
Learn the ins and outs of SEO. I’m coming along here. I still have a lot to learn, but I’m moving in the right direction.
Continue to post authentically and from the heart. I think I’m doing OK here, too.
Other Exciting April Happenings
The biggest event was being cited by CNN. That was a lot of fun! And I’ve enjoyed getting to know all the new readers that came over from CNN, too. I even heard from an old college friend who found me via CNN!
I also did my first audio interview at Help My Cash Grow. That was a lot of fun, too. I’d never used Skype before, and I can say it’s worth checking out! Thanks to Anthony for doing the interview and introducing me to Skype!
Top April Referrers
I realize April isn’t quite over yet, but I don’t think there will be too many changes to this list in the next few hours. If there are, I’ll post an update Saturday. Thanks to everyone who sends traffic my way!
- I’ve Paid For This Twice Already
- Tipnut
- Gather Little By Little
- Frugal Dad
- My Two Dollars
- Moolanomy
- Money Rules, Debt Stinks
- Mrs. Micah
- Blissfully Domestic
- The Wisdom Journal
And thank you readers for another great month! I love reading your emails and comments, and you have no idea how much I learn from your ideas! I appreciate each one of you!
Photo by chris_starscream.
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Congrats on all the success! I finally went the RSS reader route to keep up with blogs, so I think I helped you hit 2000! Fun :)
Hey – I got filmed by CNN at the Hermosa Beach Ren Faire I entertained at last wkend. I think Ren Faires – to go to – or to have as a theme as an event – would be great for kids. I think you could probably negotiate group rates, if necessary – (always remember group discounts if you go large). Or you could hire a Ren entertainer quite inexpensively to show up in costume and sing songs, etc. Ren Faires include pirates, too – so you could get pirate activities & puzzles from http://www.doverpublishing.com (they have free downloads) as favors and give away small (foreign ?) change as favors –
When I was a kid I used to hire myself out to run birthday parties and run games for the kids. I still think party games are a great idea & much neglected. Think how much fun Musical Chairs is!
We need to get creative!
Thanks for mentioning us referrers! Glad I could help send some your way. I always tell folks to check out your blog because I consider you my “frugal cousin!” Here’s to a wildly successful May for Being Frugal!
Congratulation on meeting most of your goals and the explosive growth at Being Frugal. I am glad to be part of the top referrers list. Keep up the good work!
What a great list of goals! I have yet to publish something like this on my blog, but plan to for May—one of the reasons I started a blog in the first place was to keep myself ‘honest’ in terms of my saving and debt repayment goals. Putting it out there in black and white could help!
I’m also trying to grow my readership, so I’m happy to see that you’ve met your subscriber goal, too! I hope to be there someday soon!
This is a great summary article! You really give inspiration that is more than just the numbers.
Congrats on getting to 2000!
Good job meeting the rest of your goals too… though tell the kids to not break their arms tomorrow either ;).
Congrats on meeting your goals- that’s fantastic. And thanks again for guest posting for me- I really appreciate it!
Sounds like you’re doing great! Getting health insurance, paying off the credit card – and even having enough left over for a vacation sounds perfect :) And nice work with the 2000 subscribers – I’m very impressed (and inspired!)
Seems like April has been a fantastic month for you and the blog! :) Glad I could be a little part of it by sending on some traffic.
Hooray for healthy eating kicks! Keep it up! :)
You’ll get to your fewer eating out goal, Lynnae!
(Don’t make me come over there and start cooking dinner for you!)
…Wait. That didn’t sound very threatening…
;)
Congrats on doing so well with your get out of debt plan. I will have a few years to get out of the hole that I’ve dug for myself. It’s encouraging to hear about someone having some success in this area.
Congrats Lynnae! It seems like a great month for you! I appreciate your traffic to my humble spot as well. May we all prosper in May!
Wow! Glad I made the list!
Congratulations on hitting your 2000 goal. I’ve just started creating a life insurance blog, and I hope to have as many people as you do some day. Good luck!
It seems you have come a long way from starting the blog for a year now. 2600 subscribers is an achievement for such young blogs. I have created goals and plans of my own to obtain a stream of passive income but I just hope I can stick to it to see if it can be successful.