2015 Goals Update #7

July brought about some tough decisions for Pat and I to make and starting next week, one of those decisions will be starting….preschool. We don’t have the money in our one-income budget (which is just my husband’s income and is what we live off of), but over the past month I had been doing a lot of research and running numbers to hire a virtual assistant because it became clear that I was running on empty. This money would come from my blog’s budget and not our household budget. 

Then after leaving Mass one Sunday morning, I opened the Church bulletin to see the preschool registration form and after discussing it with Pat, we realized that I was planning to spend almost to the dollar amount every month to hire a V.A. what it would cost us to send both our boys to preschool through our Church. 

It was a tough decision because 1) it means less money is going to be applied every month to our debt-payoff goal (which is where any profits earned from my blog were going originally) and 2) we will be shelving our homeschool curriculum for now. But, I realized that this is an amazing opportunity for my boys to learn and grow in a way that I simply cannot teach them right now and this will hopefully help me once Charlotte is born in October. 

Blogging

My blogging income isn’t too impressive this month as compared to other months only because I had a lot of expenses this month — but totally worth every penny spent! 🙂 

My total income after expenses was….$987.91 which is still pretty awesome to me! 🙂

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Here are my blogging goals specifics:

• Finish creating my pinning schedule and strategy.  ( I seriously love using Boardbooster and if you’re not already using it, you can  sign up here for a FREE trial! 🙂 
• Create my Facebook sharing strategy. (I’ve made some great headway with this finally! And I’m actually taking Amy Porterfield’s Jumpstart Your FB Marketing Strategy Class so I’m excited to learn from her! She’s kinda a FB guru! )
• Keep pageviews at 200,000 and increase to 500,000 by the end of the year. (You can read how I more than doubled my pageviews here.) (FINALLY! I made it! 🙂 My pvs in July were: 215,432. )
• Professional blog design. (Currently working with Pixel Me Designs) (Done)
• Find three brands to establish a working relationship with for underwritten posts. (I have two done! I’ll be sharing this month a great way to stay home for date night. 🙂 )
• Complete media kit by April 1^st. (Done) 
• Complete Business Plan by April 30th. (Done) 
• Finish my next book by my birthday (March 29^th) and publish by June on Amazon. (Done – Grab it here.*)
• Increase my minimum writing goal from 500 words per post to 700 words per post. (I managed to make this one happen consistently this month.)
• Keep editorial calendar with at least two weeks months of posts, written and scheduled & a month out with planned posts. (Managed to make this one happen this month!)
• Attend one blog conference. (Waiting on FinCon.)
• Research and implement better SEO tactics and improve search engine traffic on my site. (Done…for now. 🙂 )
• Bring Alexa Global rating below 100,000 and U.S. rating below 15,000. (My ranking in the US actually stayed the same, but my global went back up the list. 🙁 ….. Global is currently:198,936 and U.S. is currently: 43,372)

Free fun at the library! (Seriously, if you’re not taking advantage of the fun your local library offers, you should be! It’s not all about kids either — I’m planning to next year take a sewing class there!) 

Personal

I was so thankful for my friends and family this past month. They are such amazing people that have helped me pull through this rough patch. I’m a firm believer that we have to find things to be grateful for everyday and develop an attitude of gratitude, and I’m truly grateful for the amazing people in my life. The ones that know when to ask questions and when to just be quiet. 🙂

Here are my personal goals specifics:

• Begin working out using the Tupler Technique to fix my diastasis. (I am following the workouts in Lose Your Mummy Tummy *) (I have had to stop doing these but I’m going to leave this on the list as I plan to pick it back up after I have Charlotte.)
• Work out three times a week for ten to fifteen minutes and then increase length of workouts to thirty minutes to an hour and to simultaneously increase the intensity. (Changed to the goal below)
• Spend 30 minutes every day in active play with the boys (walking the neighborhood, playing hide-n-seek, “monster”, or other games they want to play). (This won’t be happening too much anymore as last Thursday I spent the day in the hospital trying to stop contractions! So doctor’s orders — mama can’t be doing too much crazy activity… :-/ )
• Write in gratitude journal every day. (I am using Money Saving Mom’s gratitude journal, Choose Gratitude * – amazing!) (Done.)
• Read daily Bible reading and journal about the scriptures read every day. (Done.)
• Schedule a paid date night and paid family night/event once a quarter. (The boys and I took advantage of the free fun the library offers — getting to see the firetrucks was the best thing ever to them! The hubs and I didn’t have much in the way of a date night since we really hustled this month with our debt payoff.))
• Increase daily water intake to full eight glasses of water a day and continue detox regimen with lemon essential oil. (Nailed it for this month!)
• Spend thirty minutes to one hour two times a week working with Conner on preschool learning activities. Spend same time working with Collin on tot school activities. (We’ll be shelving this for now since the boys will be attending preschool.)
• Drastically reduce the amount of personal time spent on Facebook, by leaving groups and un-liking pages that just clog up my newsfeed. Use the News Feed Eradicator extension for Chrome to keep me from being sucked into Facebook’s “should-have-left-it-in-high-school” drama. (I got a little sucked back in with FB earlier this month, but got myself back on track by the end. 🙂 )

Financial

We had so many things hit us the past month – our A/C broke (thank God for my handy hubs that managed to fix it himself for $70!), our dryer died, and my hubs’ truck needed repair (another thank God moment for amazing friends that see your hubs broken down on the side of the highway and pull over to help — THANK YOU EMILY! 🙂 ). 

We did manage to pay off one of my student loans this past month so now we just have ONE LOAN LEFT!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 We hustled like crazy and threw every extra penny we had towards the debt monster this month and it was actually more than I expected it to be.

Hopefully, we’ll have this balance completely paid off by the end of this month — fingers crossed! 🙂   

Here are our financial specifics:

• Pay off student loans by December 31^st. Total balance at the beginning of the year: $20,106.81 (Student loan balance as of today 7/31/15: $3,631.18)
• Contribute the max allowed percentage to hubs’ 401(k) plan and continue contributing $30 a week to my Roth IRA. Will increase my contribution amount if goal of paying off student loans is met before the end of the year. We will be decreasing the amount contributed to our emergency fund in order to build up our retirement funds. (Done.)
• Go back to carrying cash only for all purchases. (Okay, I started the month off strong but then faltered again towards the end of the month.)
• Plan and implement a spending freeze. (Still have not done this…..)
• Set aside $10 every week towards our Christmas fund for a debt-free Christmas (it will be our third one!). (Done! We have enough Swagbucks* earnings to pay for Christmas this year). 
• Complete Financial Peace University by September 30th. (We completely fell off the wagon with this one this past month. I’m hoping we can jump back on again since it’s becoming more and more of reality of defeating the debt monster!)

Reading List 

Start Here: Beginning a Relationship with Jesus * by David Dwight and Nicole Unice – I’ve actually had this book for over a year in my Kindle library (I got it during a free promotion) and I’ll be honest, when I read the introduction, I was a little nervous that I may have grabbed up the wrong book. My thoughts were “man, this is a book for people that know nothing about Jesus, what could it possibly teach me?” Well a lot it turns out. Even though this book is for new/non-believers it is a great journey into why it is that you are even in a relationship with Jesus in the first place. I highly recommend that all Christians read it – no matter how close of a relationship you have with Jesus, because it just might challenge you in some amazing ways. 🙂

The Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages * by Shaunti Feldhahn – If you’re married, read this book. I keep very few books but this is one book that I’m holding onto because the advice that is given is incredible! In case you’re unfamiliar with Shaunti and her work, she does years worth of research for her books and takes great pride in bringing you the best, most helpful information. 

Time Management Mama * by Sarah Korhnak & Beth Anne Schwamberger – I love listening to the Brilliant Moms Podcast and this book is such a great extension of the amazingness that is these ladies. They not only share their tips for managing their time as WAHMs but also share from many other moms what their tips are. If you’re a WAHM struggling to find balance, give this one a go! 

Six Dollar Family: From Six Dollars to Six Figures * by Stacy Barr – I finally finished reading this book and if you’re looking for some new ideas on saving, this is a great book. There is some overlap with the savings tips so some of the tips you may have heard before but she definitely gives some good ways that I totally never thought of! 

Drumroll Please!!! This was by far my favorite book —

People Over Profit * by Dale Partridge – Okay, if you’re a blogger or a business owner add this one to your must read list! I’ve been following Dale for a while on his blog and when his book came out I just knew I had to read it. It’s so good that my husband who literally NEVER reads is reading it. I’m going to leave you wondering about it because I sincerely think you should read it — we really can change the world of business! 🙂

Have you grabbed my new book, Real Life on a Budget yet? If not you can grab it here. 🙂 

What big accomplishments have you mastered so far this year? Share them below – I’d love to cheer you on!

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