My Goals for 2009

Now seems as good a time as any to post my a list of goals I want to
accomplish in 2009. I think everything is quite realistic. So, I now have 364 days left to:

Financial

  • Fully fund 2008 & 2009 Roth IRAs
  • Pay off second mortgage OR refinance into single mortgage (with much lower rate and no PMI)
  • Get my side income up to the point I could live off of it if the need arose (NOT trying to get this to replace my actual income level…although that would be fantastic if it did)
  • Maintain at least a 3 month emergency fund (currently at 12 months, but expect some of this to use used for other financial goals)

Health

  • Get weight to 190 or lower and keep it there (~25 lbs to lose)
  • Decrease caffeine intake – and keep it down (target is around 1 12oz can of soda per day or less)
  • Drink more water (no particular amount – just when I’m thirsty, grab a water instead of a soda)
  • Cook (healthly-ish) meals at home more than I eat out (including lunch)

Personal & Professional Development / Other

  • Read at least 1 non-fiction (but not computer related) book a month
  • Read at least 1 fiction book a month
  • Attend WWDC 2009 (contingent on other financial goals being met/on track in May)
  • Get my passport
  • Write at least one blog post per week on this blog – just to start writing more

Looking Back on 2008

Well, 2008 is almost over and overall, it really hasn’t been that bad.  This year I:

  • Switched to using Apple OS X as my primary desktop environment (after I purchased my first Apple computer – a 13″ MacBook)
  • Remodeled my kitchen (well, mostly…a couple of minor things are still on the TODO list)
  • Canceled my Lowe’s credit card after having absolutely terrible service from them (during my kitchen remodel)
  • Totally paid off my student loan debt
  • Celebrated my grandfather’s 80th birthday and then attended his funeral less than a week later
  • Sold my first “real” software product – Budgee – a budgeting app for Apple’s iPhone
  • Celebrated my 1 year anniversary at my new employer – finally doing software development for a software company, which is what I had been wanting to do
  • Lost ~30 lbs by joining a gym & getting a personal trainer (although I’ve slacked off over the last couple of months…time to get going on that again)
  • Built up a 1 year emergency fund “just in case”
  • Finally got around to visiting old college friends back in Alabama and had one friend finally make it up to Tennessee to visit

While 2008 was pretty fun overall, I’m pretty sure 2009 is going to be awesome in quite a few ways…  Here’s looking forward to a whole new year and lots of exciting adventures to come…

Checking In

Just a quick post to say I’m still around…  I haven’t been updating this blog much because things got quite busy at work and after that settled down, I started working on a small iPhone app that I’ve been wanting for a long time.

On October 14th, I finally released my app (called Budgee) to the Apple App Store.  So far, it’s been a blast – I use the app daily, I’ve heard good things overall from those that have contacted me about it, and I have some interesting things I’d like to do with it in the future…plus several more apps that are in the queue.  If you’re interested in seeing what I’m up to in the iPhone world, the blog I’ll be updating for that (and I will be updating it) is: http://blog.cogitu.com (if you want to see Budgee, it’s here:
http://www.cogitu.com/Products/Budgee/).

Anyway – not much else to say other than I’m still not going to be posting too many updates to this blog in the near future.  I’m really trying to focus most of my free time getting my new iPhone venture up and running at full speed.