Plans for 2012 – A New Challenge?

With it being a new year, I’ve come to the realization that this is my first year without school… and I’m bored! I managed to spend the better part of the last few years working a ridiculous amount of hours, to finally have it just end, which doesn’t really mesh well with my personality.

For this year, I’m trying to find a way to fill this time with things that help me build my career… A couple of the idea’s I’ve been floating around (though haven’t really decided on), include:

Start a Web Consulting Business

I’ve got both a solid background in business and online marketing, and I do this for a day job (fairly successfuly… at least I like to think!). I believe I have a lot to offer small businesses, however, I struggle with finding how to even ‘start’ it. A lot of people have done this, and my ultimate goal is to be working fully for myself in the future. I guess the question on here, is where do I even start?

Where I think I’m good, is that I know my stuff pretty well, and have a proven track record. So its not whether or not if I can do it, per se, but rather, how do I start. I keep seeing all these people starting their own small business, and slowly growing them — so why can’t I?

Some of the area’s I struggle with, is how do I even figure out how much I’m worth per hour. I can do the math on my current salary, and make about $35/hour — is this too low, too high to even charge? I’d almost want to nock out a few ‘freebie’ clients, to prove my client base.

Build a Web Business

This may be the more lofty goal, as it is all about selling an actual, tangible product online. This would be a full fledged functioning business — sites like thinkgeek.com and threadless.com come to mind, where they have a full on ‘vibe’ to them, and provides real value. The reality here, is I’ve never started/ran/operated my own business, and am at a loss for things to sell… It’s probably even outside of my scope of skills… but I like a challenge.

Conversely on this, it could even be an online service — though I don’t know if I’d fit well in a startup environment (let alone my own!)

Create an Online Resource

This would mean setting up some sort of online blog around a particular topic (probably online marketing?). Here, I could share some expertise and build a following over time, and continue to post and write new content. It’s almost similar to this site — I could even continue to grow this site into a solid resource for twenty something’s trying to figure out finances.

When I originally started TSM, that was my goal — but it almost seems far apart from expertise and skillset — but maybe that’s a good thing?

Where this could help though, is if I built a site that into a Consulting business, and use it to build my brand online, and expand it to the offline consulting world.

Flip a Website

This one has always been teetering at the back of my mind. What if I bought an out dated or stale website, and try to ‘flip’ it. Here, I’d put some investment in up front, and then through my business/online marketing skills, grow the traffic, go after some partnerships to help bolster it, and then ultimately sell it (or continue to run it).

This one is probably the most risky option, as it requires $ up front — but maybe this is the perfect tie in with my skills and interest. This could turn into that ‘business’ on the side, that generates passive income, rather than working in a traditional consulting role.

 

I keep toying with the idea around all this — but I know I need to do something if not for my own sanity. I like being busy, and something like above could provide that real focus on something greater than just work, sleep, eat, repeat.

Has anyone ever done any of these — what were your challenges behind it? I’m really keen on exploring these options, and stepping outside of my comfort zone.

A Year in Review

I keep posting super sporadically as I’ve been drowing in work as of late. But now that I’m on holidays, I figure I should do an update. I’m going to try to post (minimum) twice a month next year, hopefully it goes more to plan than this year.

But, on for the fun — here’s what I planned for my 2011 goals, and here’s how it really went down:

2011 Financial Goals

I have a few big goals over the next few years in terms of finances, including…

• Pay off my $10,000 student loan by the end of 2011:
  SUCCESS! — paid this off by Oct 2011
• Save $10,000 by the end of 2011 (for retirement/down payment)
  SORTA — My bonus got bumped to January, so I figure I’ll hit around $9,000 by then. 
• Buy a home in the next few years
  ON TRACK — planning for late 2013
• Earn an additional $5,000/year from sources other than my full time job
  FAIL — earned approx $500. Didn’t feel like working, after working a fully day! 
• Become financially independent and work for myself
  ON TRACK — but no set timeframe

Overall, I’m fairly happy with myself — nocking off my student loan felt great, and I’m well on my way to having a decent down payment for my eventual home. I didn’t hit all the goals, but I got pretty far on the ones that mattered the most. I think I need to rethink my extra-income idea for 2012… just with how my work is, I don’t think its going to happen.

For 2012, I’m going to come up with a list of goals — mostly focused around saving, eating out less, finding the work/life balance, and becoming more active.

Goal Setting

I was at a conference over the weekend, and it really nailed on the value of goal setting and how they play a part in life. Without them, its pretty easy to go aimlessly around, letting day by day pass you by. With a goal, you’re at least able to focus your energy in a direction, know when you’re falling behind, and when you’re succeeding.

The most important part of a goal isn’t actually accomplishing it (though that would be good), its working towards it. As we all try to achieve our goals, things come up, plans change, but they do so as we try to achieve it.

Over the past several years, I’ve always had the goal of paying off my student loan. But as the stock markets crashed, I pushed off that goal deliberately, and shifted money into the stock market to buy at a low, and cash out at a high. Well, pushing off that goal was a good thing for me, and worked out well.

As of this month, I’ve officially paid off my entire student loan, and closed the account.

I could have kept this student loan for almost 5 more years, based off the loan agreement, but I really wanted to get rid of it. While it took a couple years longer than my original plan, it feels great to scratch it off.

For the first time since I started school, I’m 100% debt free — it feels great. Granted, it will be short lived, as I’m hoping to buy a place next year, but I will enjoy it nonetheless.

This year, I’ve already completed 2 of my big goals — Pay off my student loan, and graduate with honors. My third goal for the year was to save $10,000 for retirement, and it looks like I’m on course for that by the end of the year. So far, 2011 has been good!

I’m slowly working in my head to set goals for 2012 — both professional, financial, and life goals. These will all help fall into the longer term goals, but will help make 2012 much more focused of a year.

Hoarding?

I’ve been slowly working on getting rid of a bunch of stuff that has randomly made it into my apartment over the past few years. A lot of the stuff, either gifts, or impulse purchases, have been hiding away in cupboards for long enough and finally have either been given away or tossed — it feels good to get rid of this crap.

Now, I’m not like the hoarders on HBO, but I want to live a fairly minimal lifestyle. I’m doing all right at it, but I can always stand to get rid of some more stuff.

In the process, I’ve realized how much extra stuff I’ve bought, not knowing I already had it… probably cause its been hidden out of sight. I took a look under my bathroom sink, and found 6 tubes of toothpaste, 4 sticks of deodorant, and a few bottles of shampoo. Why? Cause when I’m grocery shopping and see the ‘save’ sign on it, I pick it up, because I never realized I had some left to begin with.

I’m trying to break this habit, and actually use what I have now. Same goes with the food in my cupboards and freezer — theres lots in it, but most of it needs to be eaten at some point.

And to top it off — I already bought it, so I can save money as I work my way through it, since I don’t have to buy new things. This is my goal for the rest of the month, is to slowly use/eat the stuff I already have. I’ll save money, and clear shelf space.

Can anyone beat my 6 tubes of toothpaste?

Where I’ve Been

So I’ve gone missing for the last month or so, but haven’t gone anywhere fun. With all the changes at work, I’ve been slammed with work left and right, along with a brand new team that I have to bring up to speed. Thus, my life has been absorbed by work as of late.

But, on the bright side, I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone’s starting to get up to speed, which will still take a little while, but once they are, I should be able to take on a lot more interesting projects. I still think it’ll take a month or so more to get there, but every week that goes by, the amount of work I have to do on the weekend gets smaller and smaller.

Its a hard run right now, working 12+ hour days… but from a career-growth perspective, it’s awesome.

Opportunity

I mentioned the other day about the stock market tanking… well, it got slightly worse, with S&P downgrading the USA’s credit rating yesterday. But, being a 20-something, I can see the bigger picture. I’m no where near retirement, so any money I lose in the short run, I can make up over the long term.

Which brings me to the power of this opportunity. I can now buy stocks, at a discount and then wait for them to recover to make a return.

Add onto that, one thing a couple people I respect keep saying, is its time to fully run with this opportunity. And by that, the suggestion has been to get an investment line of credit, and put that into the market as well. So I play with even more money, and see bigger returns over time. Plus, interest rates are so low on a line of credit, that the return I’d have to make back to make it worth its wild is quite minimal.

Risky? Yes — afterall, the stock market is basically legalized gambling.

But, being young, from a financial perspective, its an interesting idea to ponder. I have a bank student loan with a $25k limit on it, where my interest rate it prime +1% (which is almost nothing). The loan is almost paid off… but I have access to it still, and can pull out the entire $25k and put it into the market. This would make my monthly payments about $150, which I can easily afford.

Now, the goal wouldn’t be to keep this 25k loan in the market for years, but rather, until the market recovers again. Would probably be a year in total. In which time, I’d cash out, and pay off the student loan all together.

I’d also go for fairly blue-chip stocks and mutual funds, and at most do $5k in any given company, as well as diversify.

I’ve been kicking myself in the last recession, that I didn’t jump on the chance aggressively enough. Now, it seems I have at least a bit of a do-over.

Is this smart, or is this too much risk to do?

Market Tank!

The stock market, over the past few days, have basically taken a turn for a worse. The good news is… I liquidated a lot of my positions back in July, and just sat on the money! The bad news is, the stuff I didn’t liquidate… is tanking.

While I hate to see the economy go into a free fall (we saw this waaaaay to recently just 2 years ago), I do like the opportunity to buy a bunch of stock again, at a low, and watch it climb over the following year.

As Warren Buffett said, “”Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful.”

Anyone have any game plan for the current financial situation? Hold onto existing? Liquidate? Invest for the first time?

The End is Near

I was going through my finances today, being the 1st of the month, and I realized something… My student loan will be gone by the end of August! I’ve had it since 2002, since I first started school, then went back to school, then back to school again (along with working throughout that time), and its dwindled to a mere $2800.

To get rid of that $2800 by the end of the month, I’m going to dump my next paycheque on it, use some of my savings, and dump another round of change/bills that have been collecting up at my home. After all that, I’ll be at $0.

By the end of the month, I’ll have absolutely zero debt!

And by wiping out all my liabilities, I’ll increase my net worth by 5% for the month as it is… then I can just focus on building up actual dollars, for a down payment on a home next year.

I’m a bit excited… not many people can say the same at my age!

Career Progression

Since graduating school (the first time around) about 6 years ago, I’ve been fairly focused on my career and been agressive at learning new skills to move forward. I’ve always done pretty well in terms of job and pay, but for the last year or so its been a bit stagnant. I’ve explored the idea of jumping ship, and watched job boards, but stated to realize that even though I felt a bit ‘stuck’, I had it pretty good.

It seems the hard work hasn’t go un-noticed, and several changes happened at work over the past few weeks. I’ll be picking up a few new direct reports under me, along with a couple new programs, wider control over the bigger picture of these programs, and a new title. From a career advancement point of view, its a solid move up for me, and rumor has it — though still being confirmed — it will come with a bit of a pay increase too.

Add on top of that, I’m in the early stages of running a project I’ve been waiting a solid 4 years for… and it looks like its going to come to life in no time.

The paradigm shift for me now is, going from doing work, to managing people to do the work. As a type-A control freak, this is going to be an interesting change. But I figure its something I have to learn to move ahead. And for the career path I’m on, being able to understand and manage it, is much more important then physically executing it myself. It puts me in a postion where I can lead strategy, rather than execute tactically. (which, looks to be much more financially lucrative too over time).

I’m not one to really freak out, but this does push me out of my comfort zone a bit. Having the responsibility of people, not only in terms of assigning work, but helping them with their career growth too is a big step for me. But, I think I’ve learned enough over the years to at least give some wisdom now and again.

With this change, it helps me re-focus my resume around having solid management experience, along with overseeing some pretty sizeable projects. This advancement has given me what I need to stick around for another year or two at work… and continue to build up my resume even further, making me much more competitive when it comes to competing for the ‘next level’ of jobs elsewhere.

Until then… its a welcome change, and we’ll see in time how it works out. But I’m fairly optimistic on this one, as I think it’s going to work out really well.

Summer Cooking Challenge

One of my biggest budget busters has been my inability to eat at home… Mostly because I’m lazy, and can’t really cook. So this summer, I’m going to try to change it.

At least once each week, I’m going to go out of my way to make something brand new. This is not only good for the budget, but its probably a lot better and more healthy for me. I figure the internet offers more than enough step-by-step recipes & videos, that even someone like me could cook something edible. As I find something I’m able to make — and like — I’ll add it to the list, and hopefully by the end of the summer I’ll have enough different meal ideas to last me a while.

This is a big challenge for me, as ever since I moved out on my own, I’ve never been big on cooking. Opening the pre-packaged stuff, frozen food from Costco, or the simple meals have been staples in my life… now that I’m done school, and have all the free time in the world, I figure should work on improving that.

Of course, eating at home isn’t just about the budget, its also better food. I’ve been steering away from typical fast food — Burgers, fries, pizza — to “better” fast food, like Sushi and indian food, but even that isn’t the best. Cooking and eating at home will let me see, and control, exactly what I put in my body.

Sounds simple enough…?

 

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