Goals & Outcomes, MY FIRE JOURNEY

Halloween and Other October 2021 Updates

I am a Black millennial on the journey towards financial independence and early retirement.

The main areas in which I track my 2021 progress are Financial, Educational, Physical and a catchall category I wisely call, “Other”.

Each month I share my progress towards my yearly goals. Let’s dive in.

FINANCIAL GOALS:

1. MAX OUT MY 401K

I cannot believe how close I am to achieving this goal. I first started contributing to my 401K in the spring of 2018. At the time, I was putting about 10% of my pre-tax income away. Since 2018 I have adjusted my contributions depending on my life situation. At times I have been able to put 35% away and other times I was putting away 7%.

Thanks to all the informative podcasts I have had the opportunity to learn from, I know which steps I need to take to get to my end goal. Going forward, I plan to max out my 401K every year until retirement.

2. PAY OFF MY CAR LOAN

I have to constantly remind myself that my goal should NOT be “freedom from debt”.

As of the publication of this article, I have $6.1K left to pay on my loan. My goal is to have this paid off by the end of 2022.

3. CONTINUE DONATING

Still doing well with this goal. I donate 3% of my after-tax income.

Here are the primary orgs I support.

I use Givewell to donate to the following:

EDUCATIONAL GOALS

4. SQL CERTIFICATION

This year I have done several things to prepare for my SQL certification. I signed up for classes on LinkedIn, SQLLearn, Udemy, and much more. Now I need to take the step to register for my test!

5. COMPLETE MY DUOLINGO COURSE

There are so many darn lessons to complete in Duolingo! My premium membership ended in October 2021 so I decided to renew. I want to finish this course and I need to make more of an effort to achieve this.

PHYSICAL GOALS

6. GET MY 5K TIME DOWN UNDER 25 MINUTES

I run at least a mile each time I go to the gym. My mile time is far from 8.5 minutes though so I need to kick it into gear.

7. COMPLETE BRIGHT ANGEL TRAIL

Originally, I had planned to hike the Bright Angel Trail in October 2021, but I ended up skipping it.

I am instead going to plan to do this hike sometime in April 2022.

OTHER GOALS

8. BE CONSISTENT WITH YOUTUBE

The last video I posted on my YouTube channel was this collab video about my weekly spend. I actually liked YouTube and I am looking forward to returning one day, it just won’t be anytime soon.

9. CREATE 250 ITEMS ACROSS MY SHOPS

Going into 2021, I was super focused on growing my side hustle because I made 4 figures the previous year.

I consider all the time I spent in the first half of the year worrying about this as a HUGE waste of time.

10. BE CONSISTENT WITH MY BLOG

So far, so good.

My favorite blog posts I have posted so far this year are below:

HOW DID YOUR October 2021 GOALS GO?

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