2013 Resolutions


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Personal Finance

  • Save $1,000 in the Gift Fund for my parents. I now have enough in the account for roughly two international airline tickets. My parents don’t seem to be retiring soon so I’m tacking another $1,000 in the fund to maybe take care of hotel.
  • Make $3,000 outside from full-time job income. This is the third year I’ve had this goal. (I made it to about $1,800 in 2011 and $2,500 in 2012.) Trying again!
  • Pay down $4,500 in principal of student loans. I paid down about $2,250 in 2012 so I doubled that to make my goal for this year.
  • Open up a Roth IRA account with a new bank and deposit $2,000. I have never gotten very far with this goal. Two years ago I only deposited a little over $400 dollars. Last year I deposited zero dollars. Part of the reason besides having to buy a new car last year, is that my current institution for my Roth does not allow for online deposits. I do all my deposits as soon as I get a paycheck. I think I can do better if I find a bank that lets me do online deposits for my Roth.

Projects

  • Try 10 more Vietnamese recipes. This is the third year for this goal. Hopefully by the end of 2013, I’d know how to make in total 30 recipes!
  • Complete 10 sewing learning projects. This is the third year I’ve had this goal. Completed it in 2011, completed 6/10 in 2012. Hope to master threading a sewing machine without mom’s help.
  • Finish transcribing dad’s journal. This will be difficult since I don’t read Vietnamese. I can guess his English words with his handwriting but it’s impossible to guess his Vietnamese proper nouns. I plan on transcribing everything that I can and then tagging the pages with blanks. I plan to take the journal to Houston when I visit to fill in the blanks.
  • Read 50 books. Had this goal in 2012. I finished 11.5 hours before the end of the year. Hoping for better pacing this year!
  • Write 104 blog posts for my food blog. That’s averaging 2 a week.
  • Write 174 blog posts for this blog. This is averaging 3 a week with November being another 30 day challenge.
  • Finish Sketchbook Project 2013 in time. I have two weeks to start and finish! I’m a chronic procrastinator.
  • Visit two new states. I was tempted to make this five new states to hit all 50 sooner. After some consideration, I thought two would be more feasible since my big travel goal is to make it to Paris this year.
  • SEE PARIS WITH KIM. The goal is to make it in FIVE MONTHS.

Relationships and Well-Being

  • Work out 156 times for at least 30 minutes each session. This is averaging 3 times a week.
  • Cook 24 vegetarian dinners. This is averaging 2 times a month.
  • Send Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day cards. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve sent out Thanksgiving cards. I skipped out on Valentine’s Day cards in 2012. I really enjoyed surprising my friends with mail when they don’t expect it, so I’m resurrecting this personal tradition.

Question: What do you hope to accomplish this month?