New Years Resolutions

So, a few days into the new year and I haven't written a new post.  I guess I should.  That's why I've got this thing up, right?  Producing new worthwhile content all the while trying to reap a profit from the whole proceeds?  Ok, so I'm only so altruistic.  Maybe.

Moving on.  I've set a few goals for this year.  Maybe they are simple.  Maybe they are not.

1) Get my baby emergency fund finished.   That's $1,000 in the bank for emergencies.

2) Pay off and cancel all the credit cards we have.

3)  Buy a house. 

4) Pass the CCENT and CCNA.

5) Learn Java.  Get a finished program on the Android Market.

So...  goals are one thing, but how am I going to accomplish this pile of stuff?  It's great to have goals, but what in the world are you going to do to make those goals a reality?  Let's say I wanted to go to Paris, France one day.  I don't, but it's a good example.  So if I wanted to go to Paris, I would create a list of stuff that I would need to accomplish in order to reach Paris, France.  I'd need a passport and a large sack of cash to pay for it all.  But how much cash would I need?  To know how much money I'd need, I'd have to figure out how long I wanted to stay.  If I wanted to stay for a just a few hours, then my cost would be a plane ticket and maybe a meal or two.  If I wanted to stay for a month, the plane ticket wouldn't be as big of a cost.  All the other little things would end up being the major cost. 

I said all that to say that goals are pointless unless you start making some sort of plan to accomplish them.  So what's my plan?

1) Wake up at 5:45 in the morning.  Study from 5:45 until 6:45 when I wake up the kids.  I tried waking up in morning before.  And it did great, but then I tied it to my wife, and then when my wife quit waking up at 5 in the morning, I quit.  Now, it's not tied to her.  It's tied to me.  If I want to get paid more, I need to pass the CCNA, and in order to pass the CCNA, I've either got to borrow money and take a class or teach myself.  Teaching myself is less expensive.  I just have to have more discipline.  And that's what I'm working on.

2) Pay off and cancel credit cards.  My credit card debt isn't horrible, but it's more than zero.  I'd rather it be zero.  The borrower is slave to the lender.  I'm using all I can save for my baby emergency fund and making minimum payments on everything, but that doesn't get the debt dealt with very quickly.  So the action step here is to wake up every Saturday morning I'm not on call and go donate plasma for $15-20 bucks a pop.  "That's not going to make much of a dent" is what you're saying.  But let's look at this logically.  My lowest credit card payment is $15 a month.  There are 52 weeks in a year.  I'm on call every 5th week.  4/5 or 80% of 52 is about 41 weekends.  So 41 weekends times $15 equals $615 in a year.  Let's say I mess up and only make it 35 times in the next year, that's $525.  The max on that credit card is only $300, so either way I pay off the credit card this year.  And my goal is accomplished.  Plus, I can run my recordings through my headset while donating plasma and study while making a buck.  It's win-win.