February Goals Update
Hello FOGA Readers,
Happy March and welcome to the February Goals Update. Even though March is nearly over and I am really late. 🙁
My sincerest apologies for being gone for so long. Life got away from me. Work got crazy (in a good way), people got sick, some family visited, we got fleas; It was indeed the best of times and the worse of times.
I will get into most of it here, and some of it will be for the March update. I will be doing a March update even if the goals will be like 11 days old. Lol
Onto the February wrap up!
February Wrap Up
February was, without a doubt, a better month than January. It was hectic. I had presentations, meetings, walkthroughs, networking events, and huge sales contests. Oh and I ended up selling five houses last month. You know it’s a big month when “selling five houses” becomes the afterthought. Considering I need to sell homes in order to make money, that is kind of crazy. Nothing closing right now, but future income is assured (assuming that the homes make it to closing).
We went to the Florida State Fair. It was a lot of fun. I haven’t been in years. No rides for us; Mr. FOGO doesn’t like them. There was definitely funnel cake and lots of walking. It’s been about 15 years (god am I actually old enough to say it was 15 years ago? Where does the time go?) since I have been and everything got a hell of a lot shorter. Seriously! I felt that I could push over the haunted house I used to love. Also, I was too old/tall to go in now. Sad moments.
I also got to see one of my best friends for the first time in forever (her life is hectic right now) and, again, a lot of stuff going on at work.
So, what was the top post for February?
Top Post
Most Popular Post in February: Net Worth Update!
Yes!!! A post finally passed “Five Opinions and Ideas about FIRE That I Do Not Agree With.” Part of me thought I would never beat that post ever. Granted it is still my most viewed post, but nice to see people enjoying some of the others.
I am surprised that this one did so well though. Looking back, it shouldn’t be that surprising since this is (60-70% of the time) a finance blog. Makes sense that people want to look at the money.
I was planning on doing these quarterly, but due to popular demand (and a Twitter vote), I decided to switch to doing it monthly. Be prepared to see plenty more Net Worth Updates in the future.
My Favorite Post in February: Only the Mortgage Remains!
This was a fun one for me to write. The back and forth of what to do with the mortgage has been plaguing me for a while now. This post was my attempt to write it all out and see what made the most sense for us.
On a technical side, it was also the first time I figured out how to put a gif in a post. Prepare for much giphy fun in the future! 😀
Without further ado, onto how I did on the January Goals.
Goals for February
February, as I described above was busy as hell.
As far as paychecks go, I got paid once. However, they screwed up my paycheck so I got one paycheck too low and then they paid me the balance on the second paycheck. Nothing crazy in the second check, but hooray for a check for insurance to come out of.
Mr. FOGO got paid twice since he’s on a normal, biweekly paycheck.
So, how did the February Goals go?
- Pay Off Credit Cards. PASS. Got everything paid off this month
- Stay Under $400 for Eating Out. PASS. According to Personal Capital, we spent $276 eating out last month!!! WOOHOO!!!!
- Clean Out My Closet. FAIL. I forgot about this one. Not to mention, I barely had time to do laundry this month. It’ll roll over to March now.
- Read One Book. PASS. I finally finished “You Only Live Once”! 🙂 Now onto the next one. I am considering doing a review of this book though. What do you think? Would you be interested?
- Work Out Once A Week. PASS. Yeah. You read that right. I passed. Once a week all February. I had two weeks where I worked out twice. Yep. Extremely proud of this.
- Put $500 into Both Our IRAs. FAIL. Unfortunately, our money was tied up elsewhere. Our mortgage escrow account was short, so we had the option of paying the shortage or having our mortgage payment go up by $100 (after it already went up $200 due to them finally adjusting the taxes). So, there went $1177. Sigh…
Blog Goals for February
- Post Once a Week. FAIL. Yeah. Clearly not. I will get there. Promise.
- Get to 20 Followers on Pinterest. PASS. Like crushed it. I just checked, and we are at 59 followers on Pinterest which is just awesome. Thank you guys so much!
- Get to 400 followers on Twitter. PASS. I put this goal out to be difficult, and for a few weeks, it looked like it actually might be. Then, in the last week of February, it was thoroughly defeated. Checking today, we are at 528 followers on Twitter. I honestly never thought 500 would even be on the radar. Thank you everyone who thought I was interesting enough to follow! 🙂
- Get to 300 Monthly Views for FOGTA. PASS. We ended February with 415 views. Just wow. I am crazy happy.
- Get Two Weeks Ahead on My Posting Schedule. FAIL. Hahahahahaha. Yeah no. Although, I am motivated to get to this point so the next time I am crazy busy, FOGO doesn’t just go dormant for three weeks.
Goals for March
March. The month of a million and one things. I am tempted to write a post called “March” and go from there. I may do that.
As far as paychecks go, I will not be getting paid at all in March. Truly, this is a sad time. Mr. FOGO will be keeping us afloat with his three paychecks in what should have been an easy month to coast by. It did not turn out that way though.
So what goals were/are there for March?
- Keep Credit Card Balance under $1000. Yeah. It was that kind of month. So far so good on this, but we’ve got 11 days to go, and I HIGHLY doubt March is done with its curve balls.
- Stay Under $350 for Eating Out. After how well we did in February, I feel like we got this one. We’ll see how we do.
- Clean Out My Closet. Since I forgot this last month, want to get this done for this month. It is finally time to declutter.
- Read One Book. Currently starting Work Optional by the fabulous Tanja Hester at Our Next Life. Will I finish in 11 days? Stay tuned.
- Work Out Once A Week. Keeping this consistent. Have to make sure it’s not a fluke. So far, so good though. 🙂
- Catch Up on Sleep. I have been perpetually tired. There have been nights I tried to write, and I just fell asleep. I took a nap before starting to write this, and I am already starting to crash. It’s a problem. I think I need a vacation. Have one coming in May, but that’s still months away.
Blog Goals for March
This month, for the next 11 days (as of right now) there is only one goal: get back to writing.
That’s it. I am not tracking numbers, followers or subscribers this month. If I were consistent right now, I would, but I am not. I am giving myself a break here.
The amazing thing is that the site views for March have already beaten the ones for February which is just awesome. I never expected that. I expected to log in today and see a full week fo zero traffic. Thank you guys so much for stopping by even when there wasn’t anything new to view. You all are the best!
Other Things
Nothing really changed in February. He did speak with his direct manager about his plan to leave. Thankfully, his manager is pretty supportive, and I believe he may also be looking to quit as a result of all the changes.
Mr. FOGO hasn’t looked into his options too much yet. His job became increasingly busy in February, and he has been working overtime trying to get everything in order. As a result, not a lot of time for looking into what options he wants to take. Things have not changed in March either although some stuff is on the horizon. 🙂
In Conclusion
So that was the February Goals Update (and a little of March too). All in all, we are doing okay despite everything. Now, hopefully, everything will calm down just a bit.
How was your February? Hopefully less hectic than ours? Did you get your goals accomplished? Let me know in the comments. 🙂
Til Next Time!
-G/Ms. FOGA
I love your monthly goals updates. I only write mine quarterly, but you get to tweak and adjust goals all through the year (and focus on littlier ones as well as larger ones). Seriously considering this for next year.
Thank you! I love the way you do yours as well. I am thinking of adding a quarterly update kind of thing where I cover the goals that got done. Maybe redundant. Not sure yet. 🙂
Oh, that would be super cool to track progress! I didn’t feel like my quarterly updates needed a whole new post (as you read, haha) so I just tacked them onto a monthly update, and that helped me feel less redundant.