New Year Goals for 2018

Given my new year goals from last year came in February, it seems only fitting that this years come in March. Although that does make me think I should set a goal of having new year goals in January, but that seems a bit too meta for me. So on with the show!

Goal 1: Increase Net Worth By $150k

This year I am upping the anti. Each of the previous two years I have aimed for $100k and blown it out of the water by almost 30% and then almost 50%. So this year I am banking that previous almost 50% extra into the goal. After all, there is no point in setting a goal that you know you can reach. Well, actually there is, but for this specific one I want to make sure I stretch myself. This is a finance blog, so financial goals should carry more weight.

Goal 2: Sell Our Grandparents Land

I am leaving this one of my new year goals on here, mostly so that I remember it is still on the todo list. I have little belief that the land will go up in value (at least not more than inflation, although I am happy to be proven wrong), but it is also not costing me any money to hold on to it. Currently the small bills associated with the land are taken care of for me.

Goal 3: Max Out Super (but stay under $25k)

Not going to remove this one either, however I am going to change it. Mostly because the government has decided that $25k is the new limit, so I think I will try and comply with that.

I am a fan of this as it provides some very nice tax benefits, and if you haver a self managed super fund, you can still use it for investments. In fact I see one of the benefits of having more money in super (other than the tax rate) as the fact it forces me to seperate money that I can use for shorter term things, vs longer term goals (or leaving to people in my will). It is much easier for me to look at a 10 year investment without having to wonder whether you will need that money for a house deposit before that time is up.

Goal 4: Renovate The House

With a large portion of the renovating complete, I am only going to put a small one here for this. I think I would like to paint the house this year, and also replace the flooring. Everything is looking a bit old and scuffed, so some nice new floors would do the trick (and hopefully cost a lot less than last years renovations.

• Finish painting the house
• Get new floors

Goal 5: Maintain Charitable Giving of 20%

We missed this goal last year, so have already taken steps to improve the situation. It is easy to do calculations when you have completely regular weekly incomes, but it can be much harder when you don’t. To help combat this we set a range of 20-25%. The 25% seems to prove a little too hard to achieve (while maintaining other goals). So this year I will just set it at the 20% and judge myself on how close I get to it. If we are under 15%, it will be a fail, 15% or 16% and I will give it an “almost”, and 17% to 20% will be a just passed to well done.

It sort of makes me think of stake (except stake where people actually want to eat well done!):

• < 15% = blue
• 15% to 16% = rare
• 17% = medium rare
• 18% = medium
• 19% = medium well
• 20% = well done

Goal 6: Increase Fitness & Lose Weight

Last year this goal did not end up where I wanted. So this year I am going to take another baby step to try and make it achievable. I am not the sort of person who will join a gym and start throwing back the protein. So small and manageable is (still) the aim.

This year I want to:

• lose 5kg
• stop buying lunch out more than once a week
• get a physical health assessment

The first goal is a simple one. The second is one way that I hope to attempt to achieve the first goal and help save some money. The third one is a little more out of left field. I am heading towards the other side of 40, and think that it is a good time in life to see if real medical people can see if there is anything that could do with some fixing/work.

Goal 7: This Blog

I started this blog in 2015 with a whimper. A post here, a post there. 2016 was the first year I really took it seriously. My posting frequency wavered a little at the end of the year, but didn’t die. 2017 was not an upward turn, but also not too far down. So I think I will aim to maintain or improve my posting and work on the blog for this one of my 2018 new year goals:

• more frequent posting (why do I think this will always be one of my new year goals!?)
  • at least 1 a month
  • create more posts using the financial statistics we have been capturing over the last 10+ years
• create another, hopefully useful, tool of some sort
  • similar to the Early Retirement Calculator (although that could do with a graph too)
• get to know more Australian finance bloggers!

I will consider 2 of the 3 a success.

Goal 8: Take a Holiday

I like to try and make sure to have a holiday each year. Some years are better than others. Some have multiple little ones, like a few weekends away. Others have a larger one, like a nice 2 or 4 week trip. This year I would like to take a longer trip. You will probably notice it because I will either stop posting, or post a lot more because of all the extra time I have. On the flip side, I could also create some other calculator for the site, which would help fill another one of my goals.

Goal 9: P2P Lending

I want to start my P2P lending journey this year (or should that be P2P investing?). The intent is to go from $100 to $1000, and finally (assuming things go well) up to $10,000 invested in P2P within two years. I know that is not a 1 year goal, but that isn’t my goal. If things go well this year, it may be up to $5000. If they don’t go well, it could sit closer to $1000.

Part of this goal is that I also want to post about my experience with it as well as how and what I did as well as why. So hopefully I will see you along for the ride!

 

Well, that is it for this year. Up to 9 new year goals this time. Three directly relating to finance, and the others are a mix of somewhat financial and somewhat lifestyle or general goals. I wonder how I will do this year – only time will tell!