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Happy December everyone! It's that time of year again where we start planning all of the goals we are totally going to meet in 2024! If you're anything like me, putting your goals anonymously out into the world for all to see gets you motivated to actually complete some of them. (It's the imagined accountability to internet strangers that does it. Once again I've stolen the OP from threads past, and many thanks to LanceHunter for the thread title. I'm pretty bad at making threads and being OP so if there's any info you feel needs to be in this post let me know, otherwise cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war for 2024! Tips for a successful financial year
2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 Incremental Improvements Thread for small win inspiration Also there is this interesting video from youtuber CGP Grey, if having goals following the SMART principle outlined above doesn't work for you. Perhaps having a general theme, at least for the personal goals, may help you?
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Dec 3, 2023 04:15
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if you haven't participated in this thread before!
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 16:04 |
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Decided to stick my goals in a separate post this time. Financial Goals - Contribute Tax Return or 2k to IRA. I'm gonna palm slam some cash into my neglected IRA this year, either with my tax return or 2k, which ever I can spare. - Save money for house. My $250 a week isn't going to change from last year if I can help it, but maybe I'll only note when I add bonus funds over the on pace schedule? - Beg for raise in March. March will be for sure a year since my last raise and since you have to beg for them in my company it'll be time. But.... - Solid Contingency Plan. I have little faith in the continued health of the small company for which I work and I need to decide if I want to continue in my current field or go back to school and if so, for what? Personal Goals - Make a Cabinet of Curiosity/cull subpar artifacts. I've collected too much stuff and am trying to declutter a lot of it through the lens of "would I put this on display in a cabinet and show it off?" I don't have space yet for an actual china cabinet to do this with but I can start preparing for that goal now! - Play and Beat all DS and 3DS games. I've got like 6 DS and 3ish 3DS games left to play. I'm hoping calling out specific consoles will help me stay focused on actually beating games. The only problem is like half of them are long rear end RPGs... - Watch all of my Urusei Yatsura blurays. Same specific plans here. The DVDs I have left are all TV shows, so I'm going to think of them in terms of finishing series this time out. - Play more board games/engage more with people. I've got plenty of board games collecting dust, and I want to get back to interacting with my friends and family more (I curl up in front of the computer by myself too much). Hopefully this won't turn out like my "hang out with friends more" goal did in 2020.  I will probably also keep track of the amount of books I've read out of 5, but don't have a specific goal as I'm largely caught up on my to read stack, unless Christmas gifts change that for me. - Finish a sketchbook It's been far too long since I've finished a sketch book from end to end with some meaningful sketches. - Get back into jewelry making. Another thing I've neglected for too long. As always the overall here will be to finish my existing projects, jewelry or not though. -Travel goals. I have 3 to 5 short day trip/out of the way things I'd like to do and I'd like to do at least one of them I think. Start small on this. I'm pretty sure I've bitten off more than I can chew again, so we'll see what gets accomplished or dropped or changed from this list. Plenty of them are contradictory to each other again so that will be fun.
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Dec 3, 2023 05:18
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I don't know if I should be heartened or dismayed that so many of us are hoarding money for eventual house down payments.
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Dec 4, 2023 18:58
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Hannot posted:Are you going for 20% down? That's been my goal but if interest rates fall more I might go for 15%. I really admire everyone being diligent about this in places where the market's been crazy-crazy. TBH I am going for as much as I can spare for house buying, but the idea is to have 20% and a bunch more for the inevitable repairs that crop up when you first get into a new house. I only started seriously saving last year so I am nowhere near having that amount necessary, but I hope to have enough in 2-3 years and have the pipe dream of the market calming down by then. And no problem! Having the thread for 2023 did help me immensely; especially the monthly update posting. It pointed out which goals weren't helping me and directly informed what I want to do for 2024. I've kinda gotten ahead of myself and started switching to next year's goals, but I'll still be making a wrap up post for 2023 in the old thread. Still questioning if I made too many media consumption goals again this time around, and whether I should make the decluttering goal less specific to my collections. There's only so many mistakes there I can eliminate, but some could use a second pass. If anyone is wondering what the deal with the collections obsession is, it's because it's probably the biggest "waste" of money I have right now and is the easiest thing to change in my budget.
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Dec 10, 2023 20:16
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Discendo Vox posted:I'll assume it's kosher to list primarily non-financial goals, thread title notwithstanding: It is, most of my goals were non financial last year and I wound up OP to both the 2023 and 2024 threads  The major things that changed financially for me year to year there was realizing house buying isn't going to happen as fast as first anticipated and that I may have neglected my IRA... for... like... five years so I have a few more financial goals this time. Hanging around in BFC more and reading the retirement/investments thread is definitely making an impact on me and my thoughts regarding my money.
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Dec 26, 2023 14:57
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Happy New Year goons, it's never too late to make resolutions and positive change! Had some good stuff happen so far, and I'm choosing to call my impending car repair a holdover from 2023's bad juju. I'm more mad that I'll probably have to dip into the house fund to pay for it, but I at least have money to do it.
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Jan 1, 2024 22:08
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You know, I should probably do the January round up a little earlier too, as I am feeling quite unmotivated at the moment. Might as well productively procrastinate! Also I'm on desktop atm which makes formatting updates so much easier. Financial Goals - Contribute Tax Return or 2k to IRA. Tax appointment isn't until late February so it will be a while for this one. - Save money for house. -800, had to dip in to it for car repair as expected. - Solid Contingency Plan. I am currently considering Data Analysis as an option and just barely started going through an online tutorial for the basics of SQL to see if I like it. Personal Goals - Make a Cabinet of Curiosity/cull subpar artifacts. I got interested in my coin collection again, and I'm very slowly weeding out duplicates. there's some sentimentality caught up in it which makes it difficult for things I logically know I should get rid of. What also sucks is I don't have a good place to get rid of stuff to yet, coin shops seem to be thin on the ground here. - Play and Beat all DS and 3DS games. Still stalled out in Pokemon Black. - Watch all of my Urusei Yatsura blurays. Nothing yet. - Play more board games/engage more with people. We had one game night, it was fun! - Books read. 1/5 - Finish a sketchbook. Have scribbled a few ideas, not really made any good sketches that aren't haphazard scribbles. - Get back into jewelry making. Nada. -Travel goals; do a day trip. Not yet.
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Jan 28, 2024 20:54
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February update I guess. Financial Goals - Contribute Tax Return or 2k to IRA. my taxes are done and refund didn't change much so I'm just waiting for my 1k ish to show up in my bank account so I can do this. - Save money for house. -800, don't know if I'll have to dip into it again for a further 200 of car repair and I haven't made up the deficit yet. - Solid Contingency Plan. Haven't made any progress on the SQL tutorial or much of anything here. Personal Goals - Make a Cabinet of Curiosity/cull subpar artifacts. I've been picking out things here and there from random collections, but haven't had time to sell or donate anything. - Play and Beat all DS and 3DS games. Still stalled out in Pokemon Black, haven't touched any video games at all really. - Watch all of my Urusei Yatsura blurays. made it to disc 4 in box set 1. Will I make it by the end of the year? Who knows! - Play more board games/engage more with people. Played a board game with my parents. Their generation doesn't really seem to like modern board game design all that well, or maybe it's just my parents. - Books read. 2/5 - Finish a sketchbook. I sat and did a couple, that's about it. - Get back into jewelry making. Still no, though I finished painting some pins this category is meant for making my own poo poo from scratch. I have finished or nearly finished 10 or so mini painting projects which is good? -Travel goals; do a day trip. Not a day trip but I did put metal detecting on a local beach in this category and did it on a freakishly warm day. It was an okay experience. The most notable thing I found was an Amazon employee pin just sitting on the surface. This month was a month of distractions and my health being a bit bleah did not help matters. At least I got some non jewelry craft projects done. Hoping to get some of the cleaned out items actually gone and out of the house in March.
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Feb 29, 2024 14:55
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March Update. Financial Goals - Contribute Tax Return or 2k to IRA. Got an appointment with my financial guy at the end of April, though realistically I could have probably dumped this in on my own. We'll see where it actually goes but it looks like I have 1.5k that I'd like to invest someplace better than the house fund below. - Save money for house. -800 from January still, dunno how to make this up exactly. - - Solid Contingency Plan. No progress. Personal Goals -Make a Cabinet of Curiosity/cull subpar artifacts. I feel good about the direction my coin collecting has gone. I need to sell some figures though, but things are too much in flux (and I'm doing too much overtime) to be able to drop poo poo to the post office should anyone actually buy my crap. - Play and Beat all DS and 3DS games. Up to grinding for the Elite Four in Pokemon Black, sooo close to the end. - Watch all of my Urusei Yatsura blurays. A few episodes farther, still on disc 4 in box one though. - Play more board games/engage more with people. Should I count Easter? Imma count Easter as it was celebrated with new people and was a great time. Also did the usual trip to see friends in Baltimore, though idk if routine visits should count for this. - Books read. 3/5 and lol I basically hate read the book of this month, didn't really like it at all. - Finish a sketchbook. I vaguely remember doing a scribble for some art project on a page. - Get back into jewelry making. Still at the same 10 craft projects complete and due to circumstances I've had to pack up my jewelry poo poo for now. -Travel goals; do a day trip. Again, not one of my specific day trip goals but I was allowed to metal detect on a friend of a friend's property. It was a former dump/farm so lots of unidentifiable rusty machinery bit and normal poo poo for rural American areas like the most interesting find of the day; a couple bullet casings. Still have my little health blip to contend with, but I've been doing really good on the clean out of junk as I have to get all my poo poo out of the basement for a house project, while at the same time moving in to my partner's place. Feeling good and positive about getting stuff rolling though! Turbinosamente fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Apr 1, 2024 01:35
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April update. Financial Goals - - Save money for house. -800 from January, that I may just give up on making up. My expenses will be changing radically as I've just moved in with my boyfriend. I'll try to keep my $1000 a month savings plan here, but it may have to go down to 900 or 800. Numbers will definitely be dialed in this May. - - Solid Contingency Plan. No progress. Personal Goals -Make a Cabinet of Curiosity/cull subpar artifacts. Coin collection cuts are going well, and I was able to cash some in for a great coin to add to the collection! As expected trying to sell my excess plastic figures is a mixed bag, but there's a couple other things I can try. Also in light of moving we're gonna garage sale some poo poo to get it gone. - Play and Beat all DS and 3DS games. No progress. - Watch all of my Urusei Yatsura blurays. A few episodes farther, still on disc 4 in box one though. Yes this is the same as last month too. - Play more board games/engage more with people. My eclipse party went great! Too bad the sky was cloudy and we couldn't directly see poo poo. - Books read. 3/5 still plugging at Journey to the West - Finish a sketchbook. Don't think I did anything here. - Get back into jewelry making. Still at the same 10 craft projects complete definitely didn't do poo poo here. -Travel goals; do a day trip. Nothing. I just want to get back to some semblance of normal for this month. Been sleeping like poo poo and still dealing with health things on top of it. Plus I don't deal with change well so the move has been stressful. Not proud of this month.
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Apr 30, 2024 13:05
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 16:04 |
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I definitely wouldn’t sweat intraday equities market moves, especially in a 4 fund portfolio. If it makes you nervous stop lookin at it I knew some one who drove themselves nuts checking their retirement accounts too often and getting very dismayed seeing number go down. So this is sound advice. Heck, I only look at my 401k once or twice a year to get depressed that it's not larger. Just did this last week in fact! I also try to semi ignore the IRA and brokerage on my online banking page as I scroll past to pay bills or whatever.
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May 2, 2024 01:44
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