It’s time for another update on my 2022 New Year’s goals/resolutions. I should have posted an update in September, but we were just returning from a big cruise. Then it was a rush to get the kids ready to start school and for me to get to FinCon.
The beauty of doing an update now is that I have a little time before the holidays to close out the year strong. Also, by this time of the year, I know which goals are completely lost causes and which are going strong.
Setting goals is useless if you don’t review them and check your progress.
So let’s check in on where I am now. As I write this, it is October 16th. About 79% of the year is over. I should be at about 80% of all the goals below.
Here’s my updated spreadsheet:
Money Goals
Make $70K of income
I passed that goal earlier this week, I guess. I didn’t even notice it. The dog boarding business has been much better than I expected. With my other income streams of blogging and a part-time customer service gig, I’ve achieved 101% of my goal. It’s looking like I will end somewhere between $85,000 and $90,000 this year.
Save Money for Wife’s Retirement
We have put saved $13,173.00 this year for my wife’s retirement. Our original goal was to have this in cash, but the interest on I Bonds is so good that we diverted some money there. Because each of us can contribute to I Bonds, I put some in my name, but I didn’t include it here. We also sold a condo that gives a lot more of a cash cushion. Since we don’t need to have $100,000 in cash, we’re investing it. That gives us cash flow which is more important than cash in retirement.
We’ve spent a lot of money this year. We finished a basement and went on a Disney cruise.
I don’t think we’ll make this goal as I initially set it. However, I’d say we surpassed it in the spirit of the goal.
Business Goals
KidWealth.com
I’m at only 7% of my goal to get to 50,000 page views on Kid Wealth. That’s not good enough. It’s hard to predict when something may go viral, which usually brings attention that continues. So far, nothing has gone the slightest bit viral, so it’s slow going.
I sound disappointed there, but I’m encouraged by how the site is growing. At the beginning of the year, I didn’t know what I would do with the site, but I’ve since found a lot of direction. At FinCon, I met more than a dozen people who create personal finance content for kids. It was completely different than my typical Lazy Man and Money audience.
My goal was to have 75 articles published by the end of the year. That’s roughly 1.5 a week. I’ve published 56 articles. That’s 75% of the way to my goal. I’ve got a chance to reach it.
Content Audit/Article Refresh
I’ve made no progress in refreshing articles for Lazy Man and Money. Writing articles for two blogs is a lot of work. I don’t see having the time to go back and rewrite old articles too.
This is one that I’ll mark as a failure, but I’ll probably keep this around for next year. It’s something that I need to do.
Look into Dog Training
Earlier in the year, I looked very briefly into dog training. There are a hodge-podge group of certifications. It’s hard to find out which ones are useful. I could do the very easiest ones to add a little window dressing to my dog boarding profile on Rover. I don’t think it makes sense to offer to train the dogs that I’m boarding.
There’s a dog and cat CPR class online through the Red Cross. That’s low-lying fruit.
I’m not very motivated to add dog training to my profile because I’m already doing more business than I expected.
Personal Goals
Lose Weight
I added eight pounds on the Disney Cruise at the end of August. I’ve burned most of them off, but I’m still about ten pounds off of my goal here.
I lost a lot of my body fat gains. I have to go back to my extreme Lazy Man diet and pick 3 or 4 thing to focus on each week. Usually, that works best for me.
Drink Less
Between the Disney Cruise and summer hot tub season, I’ve been back to having a few regular beers. I’m keeping it mainly limited to Bud Light, which at least has a low alcoholic content.
I know I’m drinking a lot less, but I’m no longer keeping track of what I drink. So I think this is a success, but without quantifying it, it’s hard to say.
Make a Bucket List
I didn’t explicitly work on my bucket list, but when I returned from our five-country European Disney cruise, I created a travel log spreadsheet. I can tie this into a bucket list.
My 8-year-old made a bucket list for the summer at school, and we were able to complete it. It had great things like surfing, a water balloon fight, etc.
Programming with Python
I bought Python Programming for Beginners: A Kid’s Guide to Coding Fundamentals (affiliate link). I haven’t opened it. I purposely bought a book aimed at kids so I could share it with them.
Buying the book is a great step, but it doesn’t help if you don’t read it. It looks fine on our bookshelf for now. We’ll see if I can find the time to open it up and read it.
Family Goals
Get Organized
I’m not making any progress on this. I need to sell some stuff, and I never seem to have the time to do it.
Travel Four Times
In March, we completed our Puerto Rico trip. Everyone in the family loved it, but I thought it was just okay. After we returned, we learned that our kids’ school was switching languages from French to Spanish. It looks like we’ll be going back more often.
In June, we went to Block Island for a few days. Then we spent several days in New Hampshire. I wanted to go to a Jack Johnson concert, and it’s a place we vacation often.
We completed the Disney cruise as our most extensive travel of the year. We were gone for 17 days. I want to go to our Aruba timeshare, but it will not happen this year. We sold the week off and will use the money to pay the maintenance and have a little money left over.
Parenting Goals
The kids are back in school, and we’ll see how they are doing at the parents’/teachers’ conference in November. It’s hard to know how that’s going until then.
YouTube Channel
The kids picked up their phones and recorded three videos. They are ad hoc and silly, but it works. That’s what I was looking to get them to do.
I bought a tripod on Amazon’s second Prime Day. The kids are excited as they can set up an area to talk about Pokemon and Minecraft. We may not get to 20 videos, but this is finally moving in the right direction.
Drone Flying
I brought my DJI Mavic Mini to Block Island but never got it in the air. So far, I’ve only got it to hover in my living room for a few seconds. That took about an hour of learning how to set it up and about regulations and things like that.
I haven’t done anything with it since then. I thought about bringing it to Europe, but I’m glad I didn’t. I wouldn’t have gotten to use it much.
Computer Programming
My recently 10-year-old is in the local Lego robotics group, and it’s going “okay.” That’s the response I usually get. They’ve been giving them non-robotics homework and learning about green energy. Extra homework hasn’t been getting positive reviews. They are using Scratch instead of Python, so that’s not ideal. It’s still real programming, and he enjoys it when he’s doing it, so I’ll take that win.
The 8-year-old loved his week of robotics camp. We signed up for Lego robotics for him too, but his age group isn’t starting until January.
I will count this as both kids having done 20 hours of coding, completing the goal for the year.
Specialty Camps
When I last reported, they were about halfway through the summer camps. The sailing camp at the time didn’t go well with the older kid, but after a few days, he made the most of the two weeks. He was having fun by the end, but I don’t think he wants to do it next year. The fourth grade has a sailing curriculum, so he’s done it with the class, and that’s going better. We’ll see how he feels in March when it is time to sign up. He knows he will do the theater camp as that was his favorite thing ever.
The younger kid loved the sailing camp and wants to do it next summer. It’s great when some things work out.
Final Thoughts
I’m feeling terrific about where I stand on this so far. I need to focus on Kid Wealth, weight loss, selling stuff (organization), and Python.
I won’t focus on trying to make new income streams, travel, or much of the kid stuff.
Leave a Reply