Archive for the 'My Progress' Category

Quick Post On Goals

I wanted to write a quick post because one of my viewers was having some difficulties with his RSS feed and said he wasn’t getting them correctly. If anybody is having difficulties with it, please let me know. I’ll do my best to correct it ASAP.

I’ll just do a quick one on my goals for June. I’m going to lay them out now, including what I’ll reward myself with if I complete them, as well as what I’ll “punish” myself with for not completing them.

I like writing goals as if they’ve already been accomplished because it sets an impression on your subconscious mind that you’ve already achieved them. I advise you to do the same, as well as reading them each day at least once.

My Goals For June

  1. I completed writing and setting up “7 Reasons Why You Need To Start Drinking Tea” (7-day e course for www.crazyfortea.com). I’m currently on day 6.
  2. My waist is 31″. It’s currently just above 32″
  3. I have made $650 total in passive income. Currently at $470 but these first few days have been very slow. Unfortunately the summer months are notoriously slow months for people making money on the internet. That just means I have to work a little harder. This will be a hard one to hit.
  4. I have 95 pages written on www.crazyfortea.com. Currently at 88.
  5. I have $300 in my savings account. Currently at $60 – but I realized I need more for emergencies. This will be hard since I have to save up for vacation (3 weeks today), to get my car fixed on Tuesday (another $100) and for a golfing tournament to support cancer (another $100).
  6. I have finished the “getting started” newsletter for The Road To A Perfect Life. Another 7 day e-course but for this website. That’s going to be your treat for this month :)
  7. I am running the bleachers 3x without stopping. In other words, sprinting 1,296 steps without stopping. Just a few seconds to catch my breath as I jog back down the bleachers.
  8. I am doing 9 strict pull ups with a 40 pound vest on. Currently at 6. I’ve been averaging 1/2 of an extra pull up each time I workout – or roughly 1.5 per week. I’m going to need a heavier vest soon :)
  9. There’s something else I might do this month that will both create another form of passive income as well as possibly help my readers out with loans, but I have to look into it a bit more before I do that so it’s not exactly a “goal” at this time. I’ll update you on it at a future date.

So there are my goals for the month of June. In reality I have to accomplish all these within the next 3 weeks (besides the $600/month goal) because I’ll be missing a week because of vacation.

If I DON’T succeed in them all, I’m going to refrain from watching any type or TV or playing Playstation 2 for a week. I really don’t do either of those all that much, but they distract me once in awhile.

If I DO succeed in them all, I’m going to spend $50 on myself. It’s probably going to be a new tea kettle or something anyway (waiting for it to get back in stock).

I ask that you hold me to these goals and what I have to do if I do or don’t succeed. I will gladly do the same for you. Just contact me (look in the sidebar for the form) and let me know your name, e-mail address, and the goals for the month. On the first of July I’ll e-mail you and see how it went.

PS – 1) I apologize if there are spelling or grammatical errors in this post. I wrote it in about 10 minutes because I just got home from work and have to be up in a few hours to go back to work.

2) I promise to write another high-quality post on Monday (e-mail subscribers will get it Tuesday morning probably) and stop with all this stuff about me ;)



May – The Best Month Yet!

I think the snowball has finally started to pick up some speed for me. I feel like I’m at the beginning of the road for the wonderful compounding effect.

I made much progress in May in creating the perfect life. Here are some of the stats:

Health

I’m dropping weight, my abs are starting show through, and I’m getting stronger than ever. I still can’t lift weights because of the tendonitis in my elbows, but for some reason I can do practically any bodyweight movement.

I’m doing almost all my bodyweight exercises now with a 40 pound vest, and have increased the reps every single workout the past 3 weeks.

As for hill sprints, I’m doing them at my local high school stadium and running the bleachers. There are 12 rows with 36 steps in each row. I’m currently doing a workout in which I sprint up a row, come back down, jog to the next, sprint up, etc,  all the way to the end.

I then take a break. This break is where I’m adding my intensity. Each day I do bleachers I take 5 seconds off the break I get. Right now I’m doing this 3 times, for a total of 1,296 steps.

By the time I go on vacation 3 weeks tomorrow, my goal is to run the bleachers, 3 consecutive times, with no break at all.

Then I start adding a weighted vest :)

Wealth

This is where I really get excited. I’ve made a very big increase in my road to financial independence. Here it is.

Expenses - My total expenses for the month of May were $703. However, I’ve made some big changes that will come into effect in June.

I took $1000 out of my Forex account because it’s not doing very well. The trading adviser is doing very poorly so far, and I’ll probably be canceling the account very shortly. He says “everybody loses sometimes” but he loses 8/10 times and doesn’t manage money very well. No professional investor should lose that much. Obviously I won’t be recommending him.

Some of that money was taken to get my credit cards down to under $250. This means in June I’ll only be paying $25 instead of $50 for each of my 3 credit cards. Monthly payment saved – $75.

I also got rid of another $10 monthly expense, so for June my monthly expenses will only be $618. Not bad for 1 months work right? However, I think I’ve gotten my expenses to the bare minimum, so I won’t be going much lower than that.

I significantly increased on the passive income I’m receiving as well. In April I made a total of $345. Here is a layout of what I’ve made in May.

Google Adsense – $410.93

Clickbank – $27.77

Commission Junction – $28.40

Vitacost - $3.60

Total – $470.70

An increase of $125.70!

Those are what I made between this website and www.crazyfortea.com

I came out to be 66.9% financially free, as compared to 52.6% last month. Quite an improvement!

All I need is another $148 to achieve financial independence. Since I just started another income stream, being an online affiliate, I believe that’s possible. My reward for achieving it is going to be going out to eat with my girlfriend for lobster and getting a bottle of champagne. I’ll be sure to take pictures :)

Once I hit that goal, I’ll tell you what my next goal is and my reward for hitting that. I can’t wait until that day comes.

Happiness

Although this is kind of impossible to measure, I can tell I made some great progress in this area, especially with my girlfriend. I bought and listened to the audio CD of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus which I think really improved our relationship. We only had 1 argument the entire month, and it was over something trivial. It also only lasted a few minutes.

Overall I think my happiness is getting much better. Although I’ve always been a happy person, I’m starting to see the beauty in things that I never saw beauty in before.  I’m beginning to look at people I normally never liked in a different manner. I’m succeeding in all areas of my life. Things are really looking great, and my happiness is improving each month.

Well that’s about it for May. In June I hope to tell you that I’ve succeeded in becoming financially independent!



Congratulations To Me!

I just wanted to write a quick post to say that I’ve finally hit my first major goal in my quest for financial independence.

When I first got the notion to start building up my wealth, I made a lot of short term small goals, and my larger goal was to get to the point of making $300/month of passive income, which would be roughly half of my monthly expenses.

Well, I just checked everything and right now I’m at about $306 for the month, still with 3.5 days left in the month, so I’ve hit my first major milestone!

By the end of the month I should be at 50% financial independence, which would mean that between decreasing my expenses and increasing my income, I’ve added almost 10% since last month.

I just wanted to write this to motivate my readers and say that you CAN do it. I never thought I’d reach this point in a million years, but I have. You might be thinking ” who cares it’s only $300/month, but it’s still the fact that right now I’m roughly 50% financially independent.

The investment I was talking about the other day should be starting on Monday, so at the end of next week I’ll report back on that.

If you haven’t started any ventures to succeed in your quest for financial independence, start right now. Every day that goes by is a day lost.

Your Perfect Life Awaits,

Jeremy




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