My 2016 Personal Finance Goals

Happy (Belated) New Year!

Here we are, at the end of January, and finally life seems to be getting back to “normal”!

During my extended Christmas break, as I always do, I stopped to take stock of the previous year – and to plan out my goals for next year.

In the past I’ve never been so bold as to actually publish these goals, but to keep me committed this year I thought I would.

Here’s what’s on the cards for 2016…

My Goals for 2016

I’m not really one for “New Year’s Resolutions” – all too often they fall by the wayside once we go from calm and relaxed at Christmas, back into the mayhem of everyday life.

That’s one reason why I’ve waited till now to reveal my goals (to ensure they’re reasonable) and also why I’m calling them “goals” rather than “resolutions”.

I’m also not one for creating dozens of goals. My own experience with personal finance is that the more targets you have, the less likely you are to hit any of them.

Better, in my opinion, to boil things down to the bare essentials and focus on those items that will really make the biggest impact.

With that said, here’s where my energies will be focused in the coming months…

Save £10,000

This is the biggest and baddest goal I’ve ever set.

For my friends across the pond that’s equivalent to roughly $14,000 at the time of writing. For some people this will be an easy goal. For others – like me – it’ll be a real stretch.

Truth be told I think I could be over-stretching myself a little here, but eventually I decided that 10K had a nice ring to it, and that I wanted to try and step outside my comfort zone a little. Trust me when I say this that I expect hitting my goal to be more than a little painful!

But what a feeling it will be to sit down at Christmas 2016 with 10K saved in just a year! Even better, when you consider that only just a few years ago I was struggling under a growing mound of consumer debt, it really does represent a complete change in financial fortune.

That, more than anything, is what excites me about the goal.

Well, that and the options once I’ve added that cash to my existing savings. All those dreams of buying a house or starting my own business will seem a lot closer and more reasonable.

Build A New Blog

Over the last couple of years I’ve slowly worked away on Frugality Magazine in my free time. While I’m not earning big bucks yet, it’s surprised me just how far this blog has come – especially in the last 12 months.

I started January 2015 with less than 5,000 visitors a month – and I ended up receiving over 60,000 by December. If only my investments had grown at such a pace!

I truly believe in the power of blogging. Not only can it be tremendously fun, but it can also be highly rewarding both personally and financially.

One of my other goals in 2016 is therefore to add another blog to my “portfolio”. Rather like FM, it’ll be based around a passion of mine, but rather than just making a few dollars here and there I will instead be doing all I can to earn a decent income from my new blog.

I plan to update you all from time to time, to let you know what I’ve been doing with the new blog and how the results are growing (if at all!). For anyone that is considering starting a blog of their own – or who is lacking in inspiration having started one – I hope that the updates I post will entertain and inspire.

You’ll get to hear a “from the trenches” view of growing a blog and hear what’s working (and what isn’t) for me.

I can’t predict the success of this project as it’s in an entirely different niche to this one – but it’ll be a lot of fun building it over the next year and reporting on my progress. Stay tuned for updates!

Start An Amazon FBA Business

OK, so I know that seemingly everyone and their dog seems to be launching a business selling products on Amazon right now, so I know I’m late to the party. But the whole business models interests and excited me so I’m keen to try my hand.

As someone with over a decade of retail management experience I also hope that I’ve picked up more than a few things about picking which products should sell strongly.

I know the profit-potential is very healthy, and it will be interesting to see how this ties into “Project 10K”.

In reality I know it takes a few thousand dollars to at least get started. I also don’t plan to pull money from my existing savings right now to get started.

What I do plan to do is to use some of the money I save this year and to invest it into starting an Amazon FBA business. That means we’re likely some months away from even getting started.

It’s a big risk; dropping some funds from my Project 10K could make it even harder to achieve my goals – especially if I mess up and invest in a product that doesn’t sell. Equally, it could result in me hitting that target sooner or with less discomfort – if (and it’s a big if) everything goes according to plan.

Once again, as with Project 10K and my new blog, I intend to update you ladies and gents along the way so you can watch the business developing.

Start Publishing A Newsletter

I have an admission to make; you’ve probably seen the “popup” window that appears when you visit the site. Since I added it early last year over a thousand of you have joined my newsletter – but I have yet to publish a single issue!

D’oh!

This year I intend to do better. Over the last three or four months I’ve been carefully gathering a list of all the best money-saving articles as I find them. I’ve now got quite a library of awesomeness going on – with more being added all the time.

In 2016, therefore, I plan to start finally publishing a newsletter. My intention is to do so on a monthly basis. It’ll essentially consist of the latest and greatest personal finance articles I’ve found – each carefully vetted and approved.

Far from just trying to promote my own blog (though I admit there may be a few links to my articles in there!) it’ll essentially represent a curated list of articles for you to enjoy, learn from and apply.

For anyone serious about their finances, I hope the newsletter will provide a monthly source of inspiration and advice to help you achieve your goals. If you’ve signed up over the last year then keep your eyes peeled for the first issue coming soon…

Longer, More Valuable Posts

Last year was pretty mad in terms of posting. I managed to post on average once a week. For someone with a hectic job I’m quite pleased with that – especially when you consider all the work I did behind the scenes on building up my social following and so on.

This year I’d like to try and stick to a similar regimen, but with one critical difference. Each month I would like to publish one real “pillar” article – something that will truly blow your socks off with value.

Its going to be hard – I know. But I’ve already got a good few ideas in the pipeline.

The intention – quite simply – is to take Frugality Magazine to the next level by offering you, dear reader, even more value.

Visitor numbers have grown massively during 2015 and I’m starting to feel like the blog is maturing nicely. My new goal of 12 “uber articles” over the course of the year will, I hope, make it an even more valuable resource to my esteemed readers.

So there you have it! Let’s hope I don’t end up with egg on my face by the end of the year! I appreciate these are some pretty aggressive goals – especially taking into account my work life.

But right now I’m feeling pretty darned positive about the potential for 2016.

The only potential problem I can see on the horizon is that the house we live in right now is actually up for sale. The lady we rent from is looking to sell and move abroad, and there’s no guarantee the new owner will want to keep us as tenants. If not, we could be going through all the hassle and expense of moving in the next few months.

That would put a serious dent in a number of these goals, but we’re crossing our fingers that all will be well.

Wish me luck – and I’ll keep you updated on the progress of these goals along the way!

Oh, and Happy New Year!

What are your primary goals for 2016? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below…