More on goals

I’m a goal oriented gal. This year, I don’t have resolutions as much as I have things I’d like to do. The goals I’ll talk about in this post are health, professional and financial goals.

So, I’ve been a bit of a couch potato for the last few months. Fall tends to do that to me. So, I’ve jumpstarted my fitness regimen with the goal of getting my body fat to a level I”m happy with. I’m not overweight but I like being a little leaner than I am.  For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been going to the gym pretty regularly (at least 4X weekly). The snow caused me to miss 2 days of exercise but I returned today to get my workout in. It wasn’t too long (less than an hour) and I got in the major muscle groups that I wanted. I think if I keep up my workout regimen, I will be back to my summer 2013 fitness level i.e. lower body fat percentage, able to run longer distances, etc. I don’t intend on bulking up but my goals are more along the lines of getting lean and trim. Wish me luck! 🙂

At work, I’ve been tasked with a pretty big project and I’m terrified but humbled at the trust my boss and co-workers have in me. I don’t want to let them down and the fear of failure is driving me to work a lot on this project. It’s a greenfield software engineering project which means I’m responsible for the database & system design and implementation. So, it’s basically my Software Engineering class all over again but this time, with real world consequences. I can’t wait to tell my CSCI 4050 professor (Dr. Kochut) about this. lol. Good thing I paid attention (for the most part) in that class. 🙂

The  bad part of my increased responsibility at work is that I had to tender my resignation for a project I signed up to assist with which saddened me.  I told the project lead that I would be busy but I didn’t anticipate  getting extra work from my day job on my plate (which I don’t mind) but obviously my day job comes first.

Financially,  a few unexpected expenses happened so I’m back to square one. It’s unbelievably frustrating to feel like I’m spinning my wheels at times, but objectively I know that I’m in a better place. In 2013, I made contributions to my Roth IRA accounts. With better planning, I would have been able to max out my contributions but this year, my goal is to max out my Roth IRA contributions.

With my 401k account, I’m experimenting with my asset allocation since the account isn’t big enough to make me worry about losing it all. The biggest challenge is not freaking out whenever the stock market freaks out. I need to remember I’m in this for the long haul! 😛

If you don’t have 3 – 6 months worth of living expenses saved up (as an emergency fund), you’re one disaster away from living on the government teat or financial ruin. So, this year, another of my goals is to building back the emergency fund.

As you may or may not know, I funded my second BS with student loans. What I owe now is well above the average of $28,000 but that is also because I routinely received refunds that were used for school supplies. Once I transition to full time status later this year, I plan on making more than the minimum payments required and continue to pay off interest accrued through the year.

That’s all I have for now. I just got back from the gym and I’m ready to get started on homework. Yay! #not