Another month in the books, and based on how busy I've been the last few weeks, I'm not sorry to see it go. Work has picked up, and grad school has REALLY picked up. I'm in an accelerated part-time MBA program at GMU, with two night classes a week after work. Each class meets for 3.5 hours per week (6:30 to 10:05!), and I've probably got to put in at least twice that amount of time to get the work done outside of class. I'm so exhausted by Thursday. To top off the work and school one-two punch, I'm also still trying to keep up with the blog and meet all my New Year's resolutions. Anyway, enough complaining, here's how I did:
FINANCES: Put $2000/month away in savings (target of $24,000 for the year and max out a Roth IRA ($5500/year).
We put another $4,380 in savings this month, bringing our yearly total to $8,398. That amount is kind of misleading because we got our tax return this month. We really should have been up in the $5,200-$5,400 range this month. I ended up spending $450 total for two tickets to Montreal over labor day weekend (which was actually an insanely good deal, and I'll get paid back for one of those tickets), another $150 for a race entry fee, $300 for a photography class for my wife, $120 to get a passport renewed, and a bunch of small but unexpected expenses. February was an expensive damn month.
I'm revising the goal from January. With a crazy wedding season looming, no more saving for a $4,500 trip. We have three weddings to go to this summer, two of which have bachelor parties in Canada (one in Montreal and one in Vancouver), and one of them is in Maine which promises to be about a $1,500 trip for the wife and I. All in all, I estimate we will spend between $3,500-$4,500 on wedding-related expenses this year. UGH.
I just opened a Roth IRA, and the yearly contribution limit is $5,500 which I fully intend to meet. More on this to come in a future post.
FITNESS: Do 15 pull-ups in a row before Christmas and complete a Tough Mudder by August.
I went to the gym yesterday to see where I'm at with the pull-ups. I did 10 in a row, probably could have squeezed out one or two more as well, but it would have been ugly. I feel pretty good about where I am right now. I still hate pull-ups, but I'm seeing some improvement.
I made some progress on the second half of the goal by signing up for a Tough Mudder (hence the $150 entry fee I mentioned). I'm doing it with my Dad who, at 63, physically puts most people my age to shame. Speaking of shame, NONE OF MY FRIENDS WOULD AGREE TO SIGN UP FOR IT. #sad #supersad #theywillbedeadby40. Anyway, June 14th. Get pummmmmped.
CREATIVITY: Average 4 blog posts a month by end of the year and complete at least 3 "projects" before next year.
I did more reading of blogs than I did writing of blogs this month. I've been consuming all the information I can find on building wealth responsibly, personal finance, and investing in general, and there's a lot of information out there. Despite that time dump, I still managed to pump out 5 blog posts. I'm changing the goal from 2 posts per month to 4 posts per month, which is pretty much a layup. I NEED AN EASY WIN OK!?
I also posted one project! Check out these shelves I made for the wife, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.
CAREER: Become a GS-13 by September.
Not much movement on this front. I did speak with my boss to see how to get this process started but I haven't had the chance to follow-up on his advice. This is definitely a huge priority for me, The position comes with a nice pay raise and added responsibility that I wouldn't mind at all.
SPIRITUAL: Find a Church by April and volunteer for Habitat for Humanity by the end of the year.
I FAILED! Still no church for me. I totally missed on this goal, and I'll be honest, I didn't even know I set the 1st of March as the deadline!! I'm going to push it back one month and get off my ass Sunday mornings.
At a school meeting a couple weeks ago, we were discussing different volunteering opportunities that students could take part in. One of them was Habitat for Humanity. I'm kind of holding out hope that I can volunteer with my classmates.
Whole 30: Complete the Whole 30 Challenge (again!).
We already completed the Whole 30 challenge in January and it was awesome, but since I haven't been as strict with my diet, I'm starting to fall back into some of my old bad habits. No, I haven't been eating fast food, but I'd estimate that only 50% of what I eat is Paleo and I can definitely feel a difference. Ideally, I'd like to do Whole 30 around the same time I do the Tough Mudder in June, but I'll set a loose goal and say that I'd like to do it once more this year.
