Do You Make This Mistake With Your New Years Resolutions

The ancient Babylonians are thought to be the first to make New Years Resolutions.  They made them to find favor with the gods and breaking them was supposed to bring bad luck.  Many of us continue to make New Years Resolutions every year and most of us fail to keep them.  The Babylonians were careful to pick resolutions that they could keep through the year and we should be just as careful.

Every year I make the same New Year’s Resolutions and every year I fail to keep them.  I might make some effort to keep them for a week or two but then other things become more important.  I have really spent some time this year determining what I want to accomplish in the next year.

The Most Common Mistake

Most of us make a very common mistake when we are making our resolution.  We make a resolution to do something to improve ourselves such as losing weight, quitting smoking, saving money, etc but we never really make a plan on how to do it.  We think about it for a week or so but then just flounder because the reason we haven’t done it in the past is because we really don’t know how to go about it.

Making a plan to support our resolutions

One of my New Years resolutions is to put and keep money in my emergency fund.  Well, that’s a pretty good resolution but it is non specific.  I have to ask myself how much money should I have?  How long should it stay there?  Or even more important why haven’t I been able to keep money in the fund in the past?   The easy answer is that I keep having emergencies but if I look closer, I really haven’t had but one emergency this year and that was when my father got sick in April.  I have taken money out of the fund for groceries, to pay bills, and to do car repairs.  All of these things should have been covered in my regular budget but our income for the month did not support the budget.

So if I make the resolution to keep money in my emergency fund, I am already setting myself up to fail if I don’t make some adjustments to my budget.  This year, instead of putting all my savings into my emergency fund, I am going to start a second account to use as an operating account.  Because our income varies drastically from month to month, I am going to start putting money aside specifically to be used to cover those months where our income is low.  In the past, we have just tightened our belts and done without and then dipped into the emergency fund to cover the essentials.

My plan this year is simple, specific and measurable.   I cannot take money out of our regular income for our emergency fund.  We just don’t have enough income to support it unless the economy does a drastic turnaround.   I do have irregular income that comes from my blog, some ebay and craigslist sales.  This income is going to go into my emergency fund.  Any boon in our regular income will go into a separate account to be used in the lean months.

Another Common Mistake

Another mistake I make every year is not looking at what didn’t work over the last year.  The answer this year is easy, I didn’t work.  I have made very few posts over the last 12 months.  My focus has been on other things and I have made less than a decent effort to write or promote my websites or internet business.  This is going to change this year and I am making a committment to write daily on this blog and several others that I maintain.  I am going to set aside time each day to accomplish this.

My Plan

Increase my internet income to $100 per month for the first quarter.

For the second quarter, I would like to double that to $200 per month.

For the third and fourth quarter, I would like to be making $500 per month.

My How

eBay -  I am going to start selling on eBay again.  I pick up knick knacks and collectibles at thrift stores and yard sales and resell them on eBay.  Historically, I have done pretty well at this, usually doubling my investment.

Blogs -  I need to double my traffic on all of my blogs.  It has dropped off simply because I have not been writing and I have lost quite a few of my readers.  I have also not been promoting them.  I will be writing at least three articles per week on each blog and promoting each article.  I actually enjoy this because so much of blog promotion is just getting out and visiting other blogs.  I learn quite a bit and make some great friends this way.

Guest Posts -  I am going to be accepting guest posts on all my blogs on a weekly basis.  I am also going to try to write some guest posts for other sites.

Results

My resolutions this year and goals are rather ambitious.  It will take time and hard work to accomplish them but it is a labor of love and I will enjoy both the process and the results.  I will keep you updated on how my financial goal is going over the months.

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