Monthly Goal Check-in #9 – @ 10/1/2016

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We are officially down to the last 3 months of the year. This tends to be a very busy quarter for me on all fronts. With the exception of this year (which has been insane since it started), my busy season at work usually kicks in around mid-October and extends through January for annual business planning.

Based on the past 9 months I actually think this year’s busy season is going to feel like a cake walk. You wouldn’t believe how easy a 60 hour week feels after working 80-90 hours a week for months (with the occasional 100 hour week). Seriously, the past few weeks have been confusing, I find myself twittling my thumbs wondering if there is something else I should be doing.

The good news is that this new found free time is much appreciated (especially by my wife :)). She started joking about how she felt like the mistress and that the CEO of the company I worked for was my real wife (since he was getting more of my time than she was). As in I only got to sneak around with her for a few hours on nights and weekends. Luckily she is super supportive and is starting to see that all this hard work and the insane hours are paying off (more on this next week).

On the personal front, this time of year is also super busy with the holiday season kicking into full gear. I haven’t seen our full calendar yet, but we are usually lucky to have 2 weekends free between October and December. Lots of holiday parties with friends and family. Let’s not forget the work holiday parties as well. It tends to be a very fun but an exhausting time of year, but we do have a 10 day trip to St. Thomas to look forward to at the end of the year.

October is also the time of year that I start planning and forecasting our income and expenses for the following year (keep a look out for a post in the next couple of weeks). It’s also a time when I start thinking about goals that I want to tackle next (as in 2017). One thing I can say for sure is that my goal list will be much smaller next year . The plan is to keep it to 3-5 goals. This year I went a bit overboard with my goals, but I want to get much more concentrated next year.


My Personal Accountability & Check-in

Below is where I stand with the 12 goals I set for 2016. You can see that I have added some additional color formatting to visually see the progress made in each passing month.

September 2016 Goal Check

As we close in on the last 3 months of the year, many of my financial goals will be completed, and I will be shifting my focus to my fitness goals in order to finish the year as strong as possible. It will be impossible to actually achieve those goals 100%, but I would like to at least aim for 70% or better.

I will admit that I am probably guilty of setting too many goals this year. Typically, I try to keep it at 5 or less, but I was feeling super ambitious. I haven’t completely given up on anyone goal, but there are a few that I have moved to very low priority.

Let’s briefly take a look at each one:

Goal #1 [250 CrossFit/Hot Yoga Workouts or More, 51.6%] – Although I continue to make progress on this goal, I am significantly behind pace. This is something I take full responsibility for and realize that I am prioritizing other activities over working out. However, I have averaged about 14 workouts a month so far this year. I may not hit the 250 workouts, but I will complete far more workouts than I would have, had I not set this goal.

The career and financial goals have taken priority. As much as I hate to put my health aside, I saw a narrow window of opportunity that I had to take advantage of, and as you have all read it has paid off is spades.

Goal #2 [250 Days Eating Primal of nutritional consciousness or More, 31.2%] – I continued to replace a few of my meals with a shake this month, which counts as points towards this goal.

Goal #3 [Earn $270K in Gross Income or More, 97%] – We are currently on track to now bring in $325K as of our October Forecast. This goal will be accomplished by mid-October.

Goal #4 [Publish 52 new Blog Posts or More, 100%] – This was officially completed in September. Based on my current publish rate, I should actually end up publishing 64 to 70 posts for the year.

Goal #5 [Pay Down Mortgage Principle by $25,000 or More, 100%] – As expected our recent refinance had us blow past our goal of $25,000. According to our accelerated plan we don’t need to make another additional payment until April of 2017 (due to our cash-in refinance) to stay on track for the 7 year and 3 month payoff of our mortgage. We are currently on hold with making new payments until then.

Goal #6 [Contribute $24,650 to Pre-Tax Accounts, 80%] – This one is pretty much on auto pilot. Not much to think about here.

Goal #7 [Vacation 21 days or More with My Wife, Friends, and Family, 100%] –  Although officially completed, we still have 3 months to go. I do plan to take a day coming up for a long weekend at the lake. Then we don’t have anything on the calendar until December when we go to St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.

Goal #8 [Save 50% or More of After Tax Income, 100%] – This will be something that moves around each month. I just finished putting together my September 2016 financial report and that has us forecasted to hit 50%, but the reading for September itself is 40%.

Goal #9 [Write 12 Posts on Other Blogs, 25%] – Three guest posts have been submitted and published. Here they are if you would like to take a read:

1 – The AC Interview Series with Gen Y Finance Guy

2 – Financially Alert Friends – Interview #3 with Dominic @ Gen Y Finance Guy

3 – 10 Guidelines to Financial Independence with Gen Y Finance Guy

I am behind on this goal, and honestly I think I will be lucky to hit 50% before the year is up. But I will do my best and forget the rest…

Goal #10 [250 Entries or More in Wife Gratitude Journal, 22.4%] – No progress, I have tried to keep it very organic and writing things as they naturally come to me. I have 56 entries so far.

Goal #11 [Increase Net Worth by $112,000 to $430,000 by 12/31/16 or More, 100%] – I currently have us forecasted to actually increase net worth by $178,000 for the year, which would be an increase of 56% over our 2015 ending net worth.

Goal #12 [Earn $12,000 in the Blog, 33.3%] – This is a lifetime income goal. We have officially hit $4,000. Check out the details I share in my 2 years of blogging post.

Goal 13 – Earn VP Title C-Suite Position [Bonus Goal] – Now skipping VP and going straight to the C-Suite. I just found out that this is going to be announced in October (still waiting on official announcement), but the financial benefits will not be effective until January of 2017. The title with be Chief Information Officer, it comes with equity (post to come soon), and a 40% bump in compensation.


That is where I’m at so far in 2016. I am very pleased with the progress I’ve made and am very much looking forward to updating everyone in another month. In the meantime, keep charging forward with your own goals. Don’t give in or surrender. Take it one day at a time. Measure your progress and I promise you will surprise yourself with what you can accomplish in month, quarter, and year.

Sometimes the progress we make doesn’t seem visible or worth the effort. But over time it really starts to add up and compound. Think about it this way…imagine you are trying to improve just 0.3% per day. That is not a visible amount of improvement, but it adds up to almost 1% improvement every 3 days, and by the end of the year you will have improved over 100%.

Onward & Upward!

– Gen Y Finance Guy


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Gen Y Finance Guy

Hey, I’m Dom - the man behind the cartoon. You’ll notice that I sign off as "Gen Y Finance Guy" on all my posts, due to the fact that I write this blog anonymously (at least for now). I like to think of myself as the Chief Freedom Officer here of my little corner of the internet. In the real world, I’m a former 30-something C-Suite executive turned entrepreneur turned capital allocator. I am trying to humanize finance by sharing my own journey to Financial Freedom. I believe in total honesty and transparency. That is why before I ever started blogging, I decided that I would share all of my own financial stats. I do this not to brag, but instead to inspire motivate, and also to hold myself accountable. My goal is to be a beacon of hope, motivation, and inspiration, for you, the reader, by living life by example and sharing it all here on the blog. My sincere hope is that you will be able to learn from me - both from my successes and my failures! Read More

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6 Responses

    1. Jason – I actually don’t plan to negotiate any employment agreement. However, if I move on to a new company in the future, this is something I would consider doing.

  1. Sweet salary bump. I’d be interested in hearing about the vesting terms on your equity comp if you’d consider writing about it.

    1. Hey Jenny – thanks for stopping by. I do have a post in the hopper to talk about the equity deal. The short answer is that it vests over 5 years. More to come in a separate post.

  2. Awesome to see the progress you’ve been making here, looking forward to see you’re new and streamlined goals for 2017 Dom!

    On an exciting note, I’m almost or at least close to caught up on your posts.. Keep on keeping on and hope you’re well leading into what sounds like it could have been a crazy period 🙂

    1. Hey Jef – I was actually out at the Lake for Thanksgiving, which is where I set my goals for the next year. I only set 5 goals for 2017. The theme for 2017 is “Go Big or Go Home”, among others.

      I will be sharing them in a post sometime before the end of the year.

      Things have really slowed down, at least relative to how crazy the first 9 months of the year.

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