Each year I set a variety of goals for myself, and I post quarterly updates on my progress. I find that this helps keep me both motivated and accountable.

You can read the introduction to my goals for the year in my 2018 goals post. I posted my progress at the end of Q1, but I didn’t publish a separate Q2 update, so I’m going to cover both Q2 and Q3 in this post.

In many ways this has been a great year. My career is going well, my transition to a new career as a financial planner has been going well, and my family is healthy and happy.

And yet somehow, despite my overall happiness with the way life has been going, I’ve made very little progress on many of my major goals for the year

Here’s the breakdown on how I am doing on my goals for the year:

As you can see, Q3 has a lot more failures than successes. Of the 11 goals I set, I am on track to accomplish 4 of them and not on track for the other 7.

Financial

Goal 1: Generate passive income of more than $70,000 for the year

Q2 goal: $33,000
Q2 actual: $33,641

Q3 goal: $51,000
Q3 actual: $50,959

Looking at the actual numbers (which you can find in my Q3 investment income report) I see that my dividends through the end of Q3 are up 35% from last year, but my overall investment income is only up by 19%. 

The reason? Our rental income through the end of Q3 is down 48% from the same period of time last year. And, sadly, I’m not sure this number is going to improve all that much, as one of our tenants just gave notice and the cost of repairs for another property is being paid through our rent checks for the next few months.

I guess that technically I missed my goal for Q3, but given that I missed it by $41 (.08%), I’m going to give myself a “close enough” grade here (which is why I’ve color coded that box yellow in the spreadsheet above).

The big unknown here is whether or not we’ll be able to invest some of the cash horde that we are sitting on. Right now we have ~$600k ready to invest. If the market keeps correcting downward I expect that valuations will improve enough that we’ll be able to invest some cash (and reap some dividends).

Status: On track

Goal 2: Net worth of $5.5M

Q2 goal: $5.125M
Q2 actual: $5.19M

Q3 goal: $5.375M
Q3 actual: $5.368M

Meeting this goal is almost entirely dependent on how the markets perform. Yes, we can save and invest money, but a 10% drop in the market will reduce our net worth by more than my entire pre-tax salary in a year.

Much like with our passive income goal, I’m going to give myself a “close enough” grade here. We missed the Q3 goal by just $7,000, which is a mere .13% difference

I’m realizing that this goal and our passive income goal are somewhat inversely correlated – I need a sharp market correction so we can deploy our cash (and increase our passive income), but a sharp market correction will negatively affect our net worth.

It will be interesting to see which goal we end up hitting at the end of the year.

Status: On track

Goal 3: Investigate additional real estate investment

Q2 goal: Done
Q2 actual: Not started
Q3 actual: Not started

This is a carryover from last year. I am giving myself a few ways to achieve this goal:

  • Do the math on paying down one or more existing rental properties and/or primary mortgage
  • Investigate and buy an additional rental property
  • Investigate some of the crowdsourced FinTech real estate companies out there

I did none of the above in either Q2 or Q3. I actually think this is the sort of analysis I’ll really enjoy – it’s just a matter of making time to do it with all of the other stuff going on.

Status: Not on track

Work

Goal 4: Pass Series 65 exam

Mission Accomplished!

This is the first goal that I have completed for the year. Frankly, it took a LOT more time that I expected. In fact, I almost certainly spent a lot more time that I needed to on this goal.

I took the test on May 14, 2018. A passing score on the exam is a 72%. My goal was to get a 80% or higher on the test, and I ended up getting a 92%. 

Status: Done!

Goal 5: Start building client base

Q2 goal: 2 clients
Q2 actual: 1 client

Q3 goal: 3 clients
Q3 actual: 1 client

I signed my first clients in Q1 and I haven’t signed anybody new in Q2 or Q3. However, I’ve had a number of conversations with friends, families, and acquaintances, and I’m hoping to convert one of those opportunities into a client sometime in Q4. However, it’s unlikely that I’ll add 3 clients in Q4.

Status: Not on track

Personal Goals

Goal 6 – Read one book per month

Q2 goal: 6 books
Q2 actual: 0 books

Q3 goal: 9 books
Q3 actual: 1 book

This area continues to be a complete failure. And honestly, there’s just no reason for it. I like reading. I love learning new things. The problem is that the only time I have to read is at night, after the kids are in bed and the dishes are done. Incidentally, that’s also the only time I have to work on TheMoneyCommando or work on my financial planning stuff. 

However, I DO have time during my numerous flights (especially the international ones). And I have a number of international flights coming up, and I’m hoping to spend more of that time reading than watching movies/recorded TV shows.

Status: Not on track

Goal 7 – Squat 300 lbs

Goal 8 – Bench 275 lbs

Goal 9 – Deadlift 375 lbs

I’m just going to group all of these strength goals together, because the progress on all of them has been the same – non-existent.

It’s not from a lack of working out or effort. Rather, it’s that I’ve been refocusing on goal 10 (below), and the reality is that strength and weight are almost always inversely correlated. And, for now, I’m focusing on the body fat goal below.

My hope is that I can hit my body fat goal in early Q4 and then start working on the strength goals.

I’ll say this though – the fact that I’ve been losing weight and not losing strength is a bit of success in itself. From everything I’ve read, unless you’ve never lifted weights before, it’s pretty tough to lose weight without also losing strength.

Status: Not on track

Goal 10 – Body fat 10%

Q2 goal: 12%
Q2 actual: 12.5%

Q3 goal: 11%
Q3 actual: 11.2%

My fat loss stalled in Q2, largely because I wan’t making it a priority. I refocused in Q3 and saw some more solid progress. I didn’t quite make it down to 11% body fat, but I got pretty darn close, and I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to get down to 10% before the end of the quarter.

Status: On track

Blog Goals

Goal 11 – Post 2x/week

Q2 goal: 48 posts
Q2 goal: 20 posts

Q3 goal: 72 posts
Q34 actual: 28 posts

Another total failure. I’m running at roughly 40% the pace I was hoping to hit for the year. The issue is that I only want to post quality stuff, and it takes a lot of time for me to create quality stuff.

Status: Not on track

Conclusion

So there you go – so far 2018 has been a mixed bag. 

I’m pretty much on track for my financial goals, I’m 50% on my work goals, and I’m 1 for 6 on the personal and blog goals.

Let me know what you think!