Month: January 2018

Write goals so you can track them! And changing your mind is OK!

By Jover January 5, 2018

I am not usually a person who sets concrete goals or even writes anything down as a New Year’s Resolution. But thanks to the personal finance community, I actually tweeted a list of 6 goals for this year when Bridget (@moneyaftergraduation on Twitter) asked us to tweet them to her in late December.

  1. lose weight, obv
  2. achieve 1/4m NW
  3. draw down my travel miles/points through actual travel, not point expiration
  4. give up unhealthy/unproductive habits (especially driving for Uber)
  5. actively meet new & interesting people (Hello #FinCon18)
  6. begin a creative pursuit

Boom! #6 is right here. Thank you, Penny (@picksuppennies on Twitter) for the push to just get on it… And this one is related to #4 below because I am now sitting at home on a Friday night instead of driving around random drunks!

So clearly Goal #1 is not personal finance related, per-se, but I’ve got to lose some weight this year. I’m a big guy at 6’5” tall and “299+tax” but laughing about my weight hasn’t made it go away.

But back to my finance-related goals for 2018. I rounded out 2017 with a Net Worth (NW, not like Kanye’s kid, North West) of around $215k, everything included. This was a huge jump ($88k) in 2017. Assuming markets hold up and don’t crash, I foresee hitting this $250k goal easily, but I’m already assuming that we see a drop in 2018… because it HAS to happen sometime, right? 250 shouldn’t be a stretch, but it miiiiight be.

#3 is travel hacking related. I started in March 2016 with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card and have quickly rolled through TEN cards in the past 21 months. I’ll get around to writing a more detailed post (or posts) about this topic later, but let’s just say I have accumulated quite a pile of points at this time. Better get around to using some of them, or else what’s the POINT? GET IT?! lol

#4 deserves a multitude of posts, but for the past 3 years, my main hobby outside of work and the PF Twitterverse has been driving around random strangers, aka Uber. Besides not really paying very much, after all costs are considered, it also led to very dangerous habits such as screwing up my sleep schedule (highest paying rides are after 2AM) and spending additional hours sitting in my car and being sedentary, on top of my already-sedentary desk job. Look for major changes here in 2018.

#5 is probably my most exciting goal/resolution, because I already have plans to blow this one out of the water. FinCon18 is being held in my home state of Florida. (By the way, it is soooo weird to say that I’ve spent more of my adult life in Florida than my native Indiana.) I’m happy to welcome so many of my FAVORITE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD to Orlando on September 26-29th, and I hope to meet so many of you then. I’ve already mentioned this on Twitter, and hopefully some of you will take me up on this offer: Since I live in Florida, I will be driving to the Conference and would be so very happy to provide airport pick-up service to my FAVES instead of relying on random Uber/Lyft drivers or some overpriced Taxi.

I also have a “creative pursuit” idea related to FinCon. Let’s just say I’m not graphically gifted, but I think I should be able to pull off the idea or get someone else involved to make it happen. But it’s an idea that I think AT LEAST 50% of FinCon attendees will LOVE, so I kinda have to make it happen, at least in concept.