2008 Review: Goals

The year 2008 is now over, and it is time to review how it went. This may take a coupleof posts, since a lot went on during that year.

First, I will evaluate how I did regarding the goals I had set last year. Let's see how I did on each of my goals.

Goal 1 - Lose some weight: I wanted to lose some weight, with the objective being to go from 210 pounds down to 195. I failed miserably, as my weight at the end of the year was 220 pounds. The year started well in this regard, as I begun exercising regularly at home, spending 30 minutes or more on the treadmill every day. Things were going well, until I hurt myself to a foot while clearing snow (we had a lot of snow in Quebec last winter). It took some months before I could walk without feeling any twinge, and by that time I started procrastinating. So things got pushed back again and again. -- Failed.

Goal 2 - Increase my passive income: The objective here was to increase income from my DRiP portfolio generated from $130 in 2007 to $450 in 2008, through additional purchases. This was an ambitious objective. I ended the year with about $400 generated by my DRiP portfolio, which is still reasonable. I added $7 000 in new money to the portfolio, but because I decided to invest more in growing dividend payers instead of income trusts, the increase in passive income was not as big as planned. Over the long term, I expect this will result in a better performance from my portfolio. -- Partial success

Goal 3 - Increase my net worth: The stated objective was to increase my net worth by $20 000, like I had in 2007.My objective is to increase it by $20 000, like I did in 2007. Again, this was an ambitious objective, and the troubles in the stock market made that very difficult. Still, I managed to increase my net worth by over $12 000, which is still quite an accomplishment. -- Partial success

Goal 4 - Blog more often: The stated objective was to write one article every week. Well, I was not that regular, but I still improved on the number of posts I did over the year, with a total of 34 posts. -- Failed

So, I failed to achive my 2 non-financial goals, but did fairly well with my 2 financial goals. I'll have to do better in 2009!