March 2008 Goals

Here's my March Goals:

1. Look for more places to apply: I'm kind of iffy about this one, I'm starting to get bummed out, there really aren't any jobs available here in the south. And the option of picking up and leaving isn't an option. But I'll keep at it, again one job a week, until something comes along.

2. Gain full time employment: Same as last month, I would like to have full time employment by April 1st. *sigh*

3. Step up the posting: I've got some post that I've been thinking of doing for the longest, now I just need to get on that. Last month I challenged myself on my other two blogs to post at least two times a week, and I surpassed that goal, so this month it's this blogs turn. Two posts a week.

4. Post at least another two articles to Helium: I would like to turn some of the post from here into articles and post one from their title selections. Maybe I can figure out a way to knock out two stones in one with this one.

5. Open a high interest savings account with the possibility of a checking account.: Right now I have a toss up between ING Direct Orange Savings/Electric Orange Checking and HSBC Direct Online Savings/Online Payment Account. I would keep my brick and mortar checking account and maybe set up a savings account.

6. Increase my overall net worth by 1250%: I know that might seem a lot but really its not, considering I have about $4 in my account now, that's only an increase to $50 to be in my account at the end of the month.

Goals February Review

Here's how I did on my February Goals:

1. Look for more places to apply: Met and Passed. I applied to 10 more places with in the last month.

2. Gain full time employment: I got an part time job, but have yet to gain full time employment.

3. Find more ways to bring in non-salary income: Counting the Part Time job towards this goal as well. I've tried to doing surveys, and have found one thing out I'm not a survey type of person. Through CashCrate.com I've only qualified for 1 and earned a total of .80 (wow!) and it was irritating, it was a movie survey and basically it was trying to get me to see this one movie, it was very bias to that one movie. I still need to go through Linkworth's and start implementing that, so I'm going to say this is 70% done.

4. Post more articles on Helium: 100% I posted a total of two articles this month.

Goals: February

Well as promise here are my February goals. Since it's a short month, I have to be very selective of what I want to accomplish.

1. Look for more places to apply: This month I want to apply for at least one job a week. I don't want to over do it and have too many resumes out there. There's four weeks in this month so that's another four places I have to find to apply.

2. Gain full time employment: I still haven't heard from my mom's boss. I'm not relying on getting that position, since they can be so iffy. However I would like to have a job before March 1st.

3. Find more ways to bring in non-salary income:I've place ads on the blog from Adsense and the Amazon Associates, but until this blog starts gaining more views I don't plan on seeing any revenue from them in who know's when. I have applied for an online tutoring job, which I need to finish the subject test for. I've also signed up with Linkworth, another advertising deal. And the other day I created an account with CashCrate.com. I'm going to look into survey sites, any suggestions?

4. Post more articles on Helium: This kinda goes with #3 and I'm dedicating a separate post for this one with more details about what Helium is.

Along with my personal goals and writings goals, these are my February goals. Not much but enough to at least keep me busy. Anyone else have February goals?

Goals: January

I just like everyone else tend to make some sort of New Years Resolutions, although I'm not into the label New Years Resolutions. I rather call them goals. Nevertheless, when the new year came about I too was busy making goals. I probably should have posted these goals sometime in the early month, but I like to take the whole month of December too come up with my yearly goals. Unfortunately this December was hectic and busy and I just couldn't wrapped my head around what was happening in the future. I however I was able to make some small goals for January and I wanted to share with you on how I've done so far.

1. Look for places to apply: 100%. Although this is currently an ongoing goal until I find employment. As it stands I have applied to a total of 8 places (although I pretty sure that the number is higher but I can't remember nor find my list as of now.)


2. Start Reading Personal Finance Blogs: 100%. I've started a good blogroll of pf blogs that I tune into everyday. I am still looking for more, especially those with my audience in mind. I haven;t really found any of those. The ones I have found, deal with couples (married and not and with and without kids) or single-parent families since I'm single and without kids, I have to be very selective with what I take from them.


3. Research different savings venues: semi-done. Since I am still without a job I haven't really done that much research into my savings options.


4. Research different retirement venues: I want to have a good knowledge of retirement fund terms so that I know what I want when I look at my employer's benefits package. Semi-Done!


5. Set up a preliminary budget: This was really so I know how much I income I will need to accomplish certain goals. Done!


6. Keep the bank account in the positive: Although there isn't much in there it's still positive> Done!

Summary: I didn't really have that many financial goals for this month since I don't have much finance to deal with. But the ones I did have, I've manage to complete about 80% of them. But that means the ones that weren't completed have to be pushed to February.

Since January is now over I can share with you my 2008 goals as they stand now:

1. Get a decent paying job - if need be get a part time job


2. Get own apartment


3. Get license and car (I've managed to put this off until now, but it's starting to become more of an hassle to be in the south without a reliable mode of transportation.


4. Open an high-yield savings account (which with the stock issues now I need to get on this as soon as possible)

5. Monetary goals: I'm holding off on making these until I receive employment and I have an knowledge of my expected income.

With that in mind, what are my February goals? Still working on those. I should have them ready by tomorrow if not Monday at the latest.

The Job Search: an Update

Although yesterday's post could be seen as an update of search for my job search, but it was more like a post for posing an question for this subject. I decided to go for the job. After posting a similar post on a more friend's only post, a friend of mines gave this advice:

There's something that both Nana and Momma have told me over the years that may apply here: If you really want a job, some things just won't matter.
When it comes to dealing with potty issues, I'm pretty sure you'd be fine after you got used to it.
You're resiliant and I think you'd probably get into the swing of things after a few weeks. Also, you have your mom. She's been doing this for I dunno how long, so at least you aren't going in completely new to the whole thing and you have someone to go to when you get nervous. I've heard you talk passionately about some of these kids- about them as people and about the way they're treated at home. You care. That right there makes you more qualified than some people I've seen in a similar job posistion.
I've got faith you can do this.

I really took this to heart. Sometimes I don't always have self-confidence in my own skills and capabilities. It's always great to have a love one say I know you can do it. Last night I wrote up a cover letter (which was a bit of a hard thing, because I wasn't quite sure what she wanted they are so lax and not all that professional so I was afraid of over doing or not doing it good enough.) This afternoon I sent it alone with my resume to her. I haven't heard anything but I figure they are waiting for others to apply to. Now that I have it in my mind I really want this job. It's less then what I want to making, the highest would be $22,000 a year (before taxes), roughly $1,833.33 a month. When I started my job searching I did a preliminary budget, and all though there were a good amount of unknowns, I have figured I would need at least $23,769.60 (after taxes), breaking it down to about $1,980.80 (after taxes) a month. That means if I got this job I would have to find a part-time job that would net me roughly less than $2,000 extra a year ($147.74 extra a month). That's not that much more of a gap. But that's going with the idea that they would give the highest. I highly doubt that, since I don't have any experience per se.

I've already started thinking of some ways to try to earn the extra $200 a month. I would hope that the revenues from this site would help, but I'm still too new on the scene. Plus I haven't done any advertising for the blog, I'm waiting to I can regular post about personal finances (which means I need to get a job to have finances in which to talk about) But until then, I have to look to other means. In this post I gave some ways I was trying to earn some money. One of them was the selling of my paperbacks online. Yeah that didn't work out so well. I did a price check on the ones I have and saw that people were selling them for pennies. Granted I hadn't spent a lot on some of them, but I wasn't willing to let them go for pennies. So I've rethought the idea, there is a used bookstore, Edward McKays, (which when I was looking for the link for them I saw they were hiring...I applied for 20 hours, unfortunately it doesn't say how much the pay but I think that would be a good part time job.) I could sell back some books there. Although I think I would get cash and book credit, which is good that way I could use the credits to buy more books and not spend any more money. New books, without spending any money...works for me!

I could also try and find some seasonal work, which means I would have to temporarily cut back on some of the budgetary items, savings, until I found such a job and then put all the earnings from that job to it's respective areas. This would be a last resort scenario sense I need the money right now.

Tomorrow I'll give an general goal update.