August Goal Results + September Goals
Since it is well into September, perhaps you can guess how my August goals turned out! That isn’t to say that August wasn’t a great month in many ways, but I missed my major personal finance goal for the month.
1. Create a real budget and stay within it: No. I only just finished putting my August transactions into our budget. This was a HUGE fail.
2. Run 70 miles: Yes, I made it to 76!
3. Go to yoga 8 times, including one free class: I only made it 7 times… so close! And no free class.
4. Read 1 book and get to at least 30% on Atlas Shrugged: I just haven’t been reading muchlately. Running/yoga and, uh, Dawson’s Creek is still taking up a lot of my free time. Also, we bought and downloaded the latest season of Dexter! Our hiking trip was more aggressive than planned, and while I carried my kindle around (up and down mountains!), I only read about 5 pages.
5. Get our Christmas plans nailed down: Yes! Tickets are booked. We paid about $800 for two tickets, and… we are flying out of Las Vegas, then we get a direct flight from there to T’s hometown. All options were inconvenient and expensive, but this was the best choice.
————————————-
After that bit of fail, I’m keeping this month’s goals really simple and short. I did write these awhile back, but it is already almost half way into the month, so I already have a good idea how they are going!
1. Reduce food spending from August: Bring lunch every day and don’t eat out again until the end of the month when we go out of town. This is surprisingly easy when T is out of town.
2. Go to yoga 3 times: I’m going to be out of town a lot, so this is pretty low
3. Get presents for September birthdays: My baby nephew will be six (!) and my dad will be too old to politely share on a blog. 
I’m almost done with my nephew’s presents
4. Update spending tracking & net worth: I actually did most of this, but didn’t do the accounts/net worth stuff.
I’m also running a lot, but I have no idea how many miles it will be. I built up to 32 miles this week, but this will probably be the highest. I want to be at about 35 miles per a week by the time I start my marathon training program in November.
Stay tuned for some real posts!
You know, this whole year has been a Ma-hooo-sive fail on the create new budget front. I’d pretend it was because I got two raises but I’d be flat out lying. I barely even tried the first time and haven’t at all the second. Though, I just started the second so I still might-could. :/
Let’s uh, wallow in that together?
And congrats on the mega win on the running, that’s great!