Tuesday 5 January 2016

My 2016 Financial and Blogging Goals

    With 2015 having come to a close and having achieved a good portion of the 2015 goals I had set aside for myself, it is now time to look towards the future! Once again this year I want to challenge myself to save more of my money each month through controlling my spending, while setting clear goals for investments, dividend income and also now branching out to diversify my overall investment portfolio.
  
    For the goals I am setting myself this year, I have distinguished them into two categories; Financial and Blog related goals. Primarily I focus on the financial goals through saving, investing and deploying capital. While the blog related goals are about my financial journey which I share here with everyone.


2016 Financial Goals
1) Build portfolio projected yearly dividend income to 2300.
2) Receive $2,000 in dividend income.
3) Contribute at least $8,000 to my TFSA.
4) Achieve a savings rate of 40%.
5) Open an RRSP, probably with $US.

    My financial goals are fairly straight forward. By the end of the year I want increase my yearly estimated dividend income from my current $1671.86 to 2300, and increase of about $630. As well as receiving $2,000 in dividends, which would be about $330 more than my current project dividends will provide me. That last goal may be a bit difficult depending on when dividends are paid out, however goals should be at least a bit challenging.

     My third goal of contributing $8,000 to my TFSA is how I plan on achieving the previous two goals. I'v based that amount on my projected monthly income, which is not a perfect estimating of income due the 'newness' of my current job and not a lot of history of my pay to base my income on. Along those same lines, I decided to try again my 2015 savings rate goal of saving 40% of my income. Last year I had set myself that goal on the optimism of keeping my expenses down, which I did quite well (saved 29%), but also on getting a higher paying job, which I know have! So I am setting that goal again to prove to myself that I am able to save 40% of my income now, and then challenge myself further in 2017!

    Lastly, while the TFSA is an amazing savings vehicle I also want to open up a Registered Retirement Savings Plan. Most likely with this account I will have it as a US dollar savings account to diversify my Canadian stock portfolio with some American companies and/or ETF's. Quite likely this will be part of my jobs automatic savings plan, where a portion of contributions are matched.


2016 Blog Goals
1) Consistently post my: Watchlists, Income & Expenses, Dividend Income and Portfolio Updates.
2) Post 1 Review or Informational post per quarter.
3) Earn 3500 page views in a month.
4) 36,000 page views by year end (3000avg).
5) Earn $200 in Adsense revenue.

    For my blog goals I am mainly focusing on continuing to consistently record my investing journey and sharing my thoughts, ideas and views on investing and finance related topics. With consistent content I hope to continue building my blogs viewership and hit new highs for page views. Currently this December had my highest views in a month with 2,247 and ended 2015 with ~16,000 views. Besides posting more, I also mentioned in my 2015 Goal Review that I want to be more active in the financial blogging community, posting more on my readers blogs and contributing to you, which should help to also draw in new readers here. 

    Recently, since my blog has been eligible for Adsense, I have been tinkering with it a bit and at long last just passed the $100 threshold for a payout from Google and am looking forward to getting that. From there, I would like to double that amount to $200 for 2016, but that is fairly out of my control.

    So, those are my Financial and Blogging goals for 2016. What do you think? Will I be able to make them, or are they perhaps too easy? Do you have any similarly ambitious goals that you set for yourself this year?

10 comments:

  1. Hey DW,

    Some nice looking goals here. I'd really like to add to my RRSP for $US stocks as well, but with the CAD being worth a measly 0.71 USD now I can't see it being worth it. Will have to wait a couple years. TFSA reigns as champion of investment accounts. Best of luck to you!

    DB

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    1. Thanks! And yeah, I totally hear you on the pain of the exchange rate we have right now. Since I only just started the new job, I'v a couple months to go till I can set up the RRSP with employer matching, so maybe the FX rate will improve... And if the US markets do better than the TSX again, then perhaps the FX rate is worth it anyways, options to look into for sure. :)

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  2. Some great set of goals DW. Best wishes for 2016 and beyond

    R2R

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    1. Thank you so much! Cheers to both of us, and all! Looking forward to seeing how 2016 will treat everyone.

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  3. A very nice set of goals. I don't think you will have any issues passing the $200 threshold! Good luck!

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    1. Thank you! I am hoping so as well, would love to be able to perhaps see some steady income from ads to cover the costs of perhaps one day moving to a paid web hosting service. Although Blogger is currently doing the trick wonderfully for me. Or perhaps in the least use the Ad revenue to buy more dividend stocks :)

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  4. Great list of goals. Best of luck hitting your pageviews and Adsense revenues.

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    1. Thanks! Will be doing my best to work at it! Comments are always very encouraging :)

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  5. Thanks for sharing Dividend! It sounds like you know exactly what you're doing when it comes to saving for retirement. I wish I was that savvy, but even if I was, I'm not so sure I have the discipline to put a part of each paycheck away in savings, However, I do plan on contributing to my 401.

    Joshua Duncan @ Focus Insurance Atlanta

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  6. Congratulations on all the goals you have met so far! I have begun my financial planning but it is not as in-depth as your goals and plans are! My goal for this year is to become more knowledgeable in general regarding money and finances. My hope for next year is to have a plan and financial goals like you! Good luck!

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