Goals Update for End of February 2009

February was a super busy month, both in striving to accomplish my goals and for other reasons. I finished painting my condo, which comes with a super awesome feeling of accomplishment. Every apartment I lived in had white walls, so this definitely provides me with a home feeling more than a temporary living arrangement feeling. I purchased a new laptop, which I’m using right now. I’m super happy with the purchase and once I get used to the feel of the key board, I will hopefully be cranking out posts and working on my online ventures. Now for the goal update.

Personal Finance Goals

• Fully fund 2008 Individual 401k ($0/$8,207.00) – I filed my 2008 tax return towards the end of the month, which required actually calculating the final value that I can invest in my individual 401k. The value ended up being around $2,000 less than what I had expected (due to the driving mileage expenses), which will make it easier to accomplish this goal. I should have a rather large tax refund coming within a week or two because of the first time home buyer credit. As soon as I receive the tax refund, I will begin investing in this account. I will probably have this goal accomplished before the end of March. I am fully set up with Vanguard Small Business and have linked my bank account, so there is nothing holding me back from funding this account.
  
• Fully fund 2008 Roth IRA ($0/$5,000) – As soon as I knock off the individual 401k goal, I will work on funding this account. I have until April 15th to contribute to this account.
• Fully fund 2009 Individual 401k ($0/$1,056.00) – I will not begin funding this account until after the previous two goals are accomplished. My Individual 401k account target goal for 2009 will increase every month as I make more money from tutoring (and hopefully many online ventures).
• Fully fund 2009 Roth IRA ($0/$5,000) – I will not begin funding this account until after the 2008 tax filing deadline.

Alternative Income Goals

• Turn blogging into a source of income – During last month’s goal update, I stated my mini-objectives for developing some income from blogging, I have made some progress, but still have not generated one penny. I have my free money page all but completed and will have it posted by the end of this weekend. It should be a great resource for anybody looking to earn some free money in a variety of different ways. I will be posting some affiliate ads on my site by the end of the month (I will not put links on my page for a product that I don’t use myself). As of right now, I have to generate about $35 to cover my first year of hosting and the domain name. I also purchased a laptop, which cost $530. I’m hoping to generate enough income from blogging to cover this cost.
• Increase monthly page views and subscribers – At the end of last month I had a daily high for page views of 22 and only 9 subscribers. In February, my high for page views was 42 and I now have 17 subscribers (thank you everyone for subscribing, I hope to generate a community feeling at this blog so don’t be afraid to comment). I increased the number of carnivals that I participated in this month and even wrote two guest posts. I will try to guest post once a week or once every other week to drive more traffic to my site. I’m beginning to see search traffic trickle in, and I will be spending some time upgrading my SEO to generate even more search traffic. By the end of the year I will try to host a carnival or two as well.
• Replace tutoring income through a company with my own personal clients – I have made no attempts at tutoring on my own. I failed to email my old professors about tutoring, but I hope to do so in the near future. I previously blogged about expanding my tutoring business and outlined a good path for doing so.

General Goals

• Travel to two cities I’ve never been to – I don’t currently have any plans set in stone for traveling to two new cities, but it is still early. I do have a tentative weekend for a trip to Atlanta to see my Braves dominate the Phillies and Mets.
• Get in shape – I’ve lost about 1 pound since the beginning of the year. I will most likely have to start eating healthier at lunch if I want to get my weight down to a good running weight. I’ve been swimming and will have to swim more often for the near future as my circuit training and stair climbing put a wicked hurt on my knee. I’m hoping this doesn’t last long as I want to start running minimally as soon as possible. Hopefully it will warm up enough soon to start biking again. I can’t wait to get back on those hilly roads.

I’m still on target for meeting all of my goals for 2009. I wouldn’t mind getting ahead of the game a little in March. I always like to be ahead of the game. I have a feeling like March Madness will prevent me from doing so. I can not wait for March Madness. I’m seriously thinking about being “sick” for the first Thursday and Friday of the tournament. Would I be wrong in taking off work to sit around and watch basketball all day? I don’t think it’s wrong as I would spend most of the day keeping myself updated anyways. What do you all think?