My 2015 Goals

What is a new year? You’ll get a variation of responses:

The Pragmatist: The amount of time it takes for the earth to revolve around our sun. It is an arbitrary length of time. The moment of passing from one year to the next is nothing more than the passing of any other moment. The passage of time is perpetual and constant. The thought of “resolutions” is as silly as “born again virginity.”

…Yikes, what a cold world you must live in

The Poet: A new year represents a clean slate. It’s an opportunity to start anew. It’s an opportunity for rebirth that must be seized, lest you must wait another year.

…Let’s see your “clean slate” argument stand up to somebody who is already obese, has lung cancer, or is an alcoholic. There are no clean slates in life; we all have a past.

Mr. 29: It’s a chance to make some goals for the coming year. Goals, unlike resolutions, drive toward a specific end over a specific time. A year is a nice section of time by which to measure such goals. It’s also when the area in and around Times Square gets so packed that I have to find another route to walk back to my apartment.

…Yep, I’ll agree with that.

Okay, so here are my goals for 2015. Most of these goals are aligned with my Big Goal Strategy. I’ll try to update the progress toward these goals about once a quarter.

Financial

• Expenses: Decrease monthly expenses to $5,000/mo. (from $9,000 today)

• Dividend Growth: Increase monthly forward dividends to $1,000/mo. (from about $190 today)

• Interest: Increase monthly forward interest to $70/mo. (from $40 today)

• Possessions: Sell the Mercedes and Corvette and purchase a family-friendly and budget-friendly vehicle.

• Debt: Cut non-mortgage debt in half to $16,000 (from $33k today; selling the cars will go a long way in this regard)

Professional

• Occupation: Find a new job in Virginia at 20% or greater salary increase.

• Freelance Writing: Publish at least one article per month, on average, to SeekingAlpha.

• Freelance Writing: Make $1,200 over the course of the year on SeekingAlpha.

Personal & Family

• Fitness: Maintain a body weight around 170 lbs (from 178 today).

• Education: Complete four accounting courses (en route to CPA certification down the road).

• Family: See all members of our families (wife’s side and mine) twice during the year.

• Family: Have another baby!

• Travel: Take at least four ‘real’ vacations over the year.

Online

• Blog Writing: Write 100 blog posts (here’s number one!)

• Website: Reach 5,000 page views per month (from 250 today).

• Online Income: Average $10/mo in online income.

Some of these are total shots in the dark (page views, online income, freelance writing). They sound good, but, admittedly, I have really no clue as to how realistic they are.

Do you make goals for the new year? I know a lot of FI bloggers do this; if so, how do you categorize your goals?