Goals Update: Two Months Down, 10 to go…

Time to see how things have progressed on my goals for 2008…

Eliminate all credit card debt by the end of June 2008. Current credit card debt is $10318. I’m aiming to achieve this goal slightly ahead of schedule, by about a month, according to the snowball plan I started in November.

At the end of February, the balance was down to $2750. This morning, I’ve already knocked another $750 from that. So, with $2000 remaining on the total balance, I’m hoping to use the next paycheck and a little from savings to wipe it out for good and mark it up as a completed goal before the next progress report.

Eliminate PMI from the Mortgage by the end of December 2008. Right now, it’s costing me over $1000 per year. For what? Nothing. To meet this goal, I’ll have to contribute an additional $160 per month towards my mortgage.

With the added biweekly $25 my wife is now tossing in towards the mortgage, this goal is also rapidly approaching completion. We’re a little over one third of the way to eliminating PMI already.

Pay off my auto loan by the end of December 2008. Current balance is $7418. This is also included in my snowball plan and it’s scheduled to be paid off in October if all goes as planned. I’m not looking to speed this up; just finish it off.

I’m just making the payments on this one… Balance is now $6920.

Increase my 401k contributions to 15%. This way I’ll receive the maximum match allowed from my employer. Right now, I’m contributing just under 10%. I’ll plan to make this move once the credit card debt is eliminated. Achieved 12-27-2007

I achieved this goal before the year even started. Woo-hoo for me! Too bad I’m down 3.5% on the year even with the added contributions…

Increase my passive income. Now that I’ve dumped my largest client, the hockey team, I’ll soon find myself bringing in a lot less income. But, I also find myself with a lot more free time. Free time that I should use to optimize my other ventures to make up the difference; except now I’ll focus on more passive income streams because, in all honesty, I’m tired of working so much. Right now my 100% passive income hovers around $50/month. With the least effort possible, I’m looking to triple that in 2008 and pick-up a few low maintenance clients as well.

Getting there… January brought in $79.48 and February brought in $74.09 of totally passive income. I’m not quite there yet on this goal, but I spent a lot of time this past weekend tweaking things to ensure that March is even higher.

$10k in savings. This is my lofty goal. I’m not sure it’s even possible. Right now my ING account is holding a mere $1k. No matter how far rates fall, with a 5-figure balance working in my favor I’ll have to be making atleast $1/day in interest and for whatever reason, I like that. I’d also like to pay for some still needed interior renovations in 2008 with cash and this is where I’ll draw from.

Still tanking. Not sure I even want to talk about this one… No, but really, I think that once the debts are eliminated, progress on this one will take off and I still think it’s possible to reach $10k by the end of the year.

Run a marathon. This is a goal that I just added into the mix last week. To be happy, I’ll need to keep a pace between 7 and 9 minutes per mile.

I laced up my sneakers for the first time yesterday and went out for probably for a little over a mile. My back hurt almost immediately and afterwards my legs were really tight, but that’s to be expected on day one. Hopefully it goes a little better tonight. By the end of this week, I hope to be putting in atleast 3+ miles per day as I build up my stamina.