Happy New Year everyone! It's that time where we try to lay down a plan for what's to come in the next 365 days. As noted before, a lot of what was supposed to be done in 2018 wasn't. As such, a good chunk of this year's docket is just carry over, but we'll go through it anyway just for the sake of record.
Stephen King
Back log
Hearts in Atlantis
Castle Rock Season 1
Sleeping Beauties
Strange Weather
The Outsider
On Writing
Secret Windows
The Plant
Dreamcatcher
Black House
Cell (movie)
Mr. Mercedes series
The Dark Tower movie
New additions
Castle Rock Season 2
It part 2
Elevation
Brad Thor
Backlog
Path of the Assassin
State of the Union
Blowback
Takedown
Netflix
Back Log
The Punisher Season 1
Daredevil Season 3
Jessica Jones Season 2
New Additions
Luke Cage Season 2
Iron Fist Season 2
The Punisher Season 2
Legends of Tomorrow
Back Log
Season 3
New additions
Season 4- Once again, I'll have to wait for this to hit Netflix in order to watch it, but the plan is to binge it when it does happen. It may not be current, but I'm going to make a point of getting through it quickly this time around.
Anime
Back Log
Attack on Titan season 3
Rurouni Kenshin (?)
Archive restoration (?)
Reviewstream
Back Log
Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition rule books
JLA trade paperbacks
The dividend income reports will continue and I will also continue to post the latest episodes of "Let's Get it Right".
Oh, and I, of course, aim to finally finish "The X-Files".
Goals
Savings challenge
I neglected to mention it in the 2018 review, though I did bring it up on Twitter, but this year I completed two savings challenges. The 52 week "dollar a week" challenge and the "penny a day" challenge. These were two that I had started back in the day when I was still trying the whole "self employed content creator" thing. With my new station, I was finally able to put those to an end.
This year I plan on keeping the momentum going by taking on the extension of the first challenge. It turns out that some people push the weekly challenge to two years. Rather than stopping at 52, they just keep going, putting aside $53, then $54, then $55 and so on. For all intents and purposes, I'm doing this challenge twice, as the plan is to move the slated amounts to my primary savings account, as well as the online savings account.
Bring dividend forward income to $400
Right now, my forward income sits at about $70. I wanted to find a number that was feasible, but still somewhat challenging. With purchases and DRIP, I think that this meets that criteria. If I break it before, that's awesome, but right now, that's where I'm setting the goal post.
Max out IRA contribution
When I first opened the IRA, I mentioned that the odds of me doing this were slim. Truth be told, that's still the case. This is more of a mental thing. I figure, if I set my sight on that, it will push me to get as close as I possibly can. Even if I don't hit the goal, I think having this mindset will still be beneficial in the long run.
$300 in Side Hustle
This is something that I haven't really talked about, but I want to add it to the itinerary anyway. Right now, my main side hustles are Apptrailers, Epoll, and Reviewstream (there's also the Patreon, ad revenue, and the Amazon affiliate links, but they haven't really brought in income so they're side hustles in name only....SHINO.) Epoll will bring about $60 at best. App trailers is nice, but if I'm going to pull this off, Reviewstream will have to be a factor. This should be a motivator for me to write more and make sure I cross that threshold. Again, I think that this is a goal that's feasible, but will still present something of a challenge.
Car
As of now, I am without vehicle. It's something I am aiming to remedy. I've given serious consideration to getting a bike, which is odd as I've only ridden once since elementary school. It's cheaper, better for the planet, and everything is fairly close by here. It makes a lot more sense now than it did when I was living in Maryland or Kansas, but I figure I'd still need to get a car at some point. I'm not looking forward to adding two more monthly expenses to my cash outflow, but if I can knock the car payment out quickly enough, it might not be that bad.
Walk the Year Charity Miles Challenge
I'm a big fan of the Charity Miles app. I plug it frequently and was even going on daily 4 mile walks for a while. I haven't been doing a good job as of late and I'm hoping that this will get me back on the horse.
Fun fact, we're one day in and, because I didn't walk today, I'm already behind schedule. Auspicious.
Read 26 books
I noted before that I got no reading done. I really want to amend for that this year. I know that 52 books is the average, but I figure that starting small will work out better. There's another reason I only have this many books coming into play, the next goal.
Read 26 graphic novels/trade paperbacks
I've been trying to get back into comics lately. Rather than go back to the individual issues, I want to shift my collection to trades so that I can show them off on a bookshelf. Rather than argue about whether these count as books, I'm putting them in their own separate category so that I can get the best of both worlds.
Swagbucks
I had heard that this was a great side hustle, but it hasn't really panned out for me. The site brings my computer to a crawl (my laptop is a little on the old side,) which means I only log in when I have to. As that hasn't worked, I want to try to put it to use in order to up my philanthropic game. You can donate points to different causes and organizations. Since I have the account anyway, I figure this will at least put the account to better use than it has up until now. As the point cost isn't as high as the other rewards, I'll be able to "cash in" more frequently.
3 year goal
Oh, we're going beyond just the year. I want to try to think in the long term, and as such I've got some goals that go beyond.
For this one, I want to bring my forward income to $6,000 a year. This will bring my dividend income to Spoony's Patreon income level. It's important that I hit this goal as soon as feasibly possible. I have my reasons.
It sounds lofty, but I'd like to think that I can pull this one off.
5 year goals
House
I've only ever been a renter, but the idea of being a homeowner has really grown on me. That down payment scares the crap out of me, but I figure with enough prep time, I can take it.
3x Salary Saved for Retirement
Back in January, MarketWatch posted an article stating that, by the age of 35, you should have twice your annual income tucked away for retirement. Millenials....did not take kindly to this information. While it was mathematically impossible for me to hit this goal after discovering it, I did resolve to hit the next marker, which is having 3 times your annual income tucked away by 40.
Funny thing is, I'm quite confident that I can pull this off. Technically, I am still behind, but I have been viewing these past few months as a "head start". I'm maxing out the 401k and pumping money into the IRA, both of which will generate increasing amounts of income as time goes on. Add to that the fact that my birthday is in March and that gives me three more months before the 5 year challenge technically even starts.
Now, you might be asking where the stock portfolio fits. It does and doesn't come into play as far as my retirement is concerned. The dividends are designed to help finance and carry me through my golden years, but I'm not counting the portfolio into the overall total. I could use market value, but that's way too fickle a beast. As such, I'm viewing it as its own thing that is only tangential to the overall goal.
I'll admit that this is a lot, but I'm confident and fired up. 2019 is going to be huge. 2018 had its perks, but this is where I push myself to my limit, and then break past it.
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