the richest man in atherstone

It is one third of the way through the year and the time has come to review my progress in achieving my goals for 2008.

I've set myself 10 goals for this year, however only six of them are related to the financial and business aspects of my life, so only these will be discussed here on my website.

1. ON TARGET Save 10% of my salary - This goal is very much on target. I've been saving a little more than 10% of my salary each month and have budgeted for at least 10% to be saved each month for the rest of the year.
2. COMPLETE Review utility bills - I reviewed our current expenditures and ascertained that I could probably reduce our mortgage, gas and electricity bills. Further investigation into the mortgage market revealed that there really wasn't a better deal out there in the current climate. I switched my gas and electric provider to get the cheapest deal, however they increased their tariff not long after (my own fault for not researching it adequately). Although the results weren't exactly what I had in mind, this goal can be ticked off as complete.
3. COMPLETE Set up and run my own company - At the beginning of February, I registered as self-employed.
4. ON TARGET Reduce our mortgage capital to below £60'000 - This goal was helped along by an inheritance I received earlier in the year. I paid off £1000 of my mortgage capital and am currently deciding whether to pay off more with the rest of my windfall or invest it. No matter what I decide, I have budgeted to get my mortgage below the £60,000 mark by the end of the year so this goal is very much on target.
5. INCOMPLETE Complete steps 16 to 20 of my doubling plan - I recently completed step 16 of my Doubling Plan and am now halfway through step 17. I now account quarterly for my Doubling and business exploits, so I won't be reporting my progress until the end of June, however early indications show that I should be on at least step 18 by this time. That will leave me six months to complete steps 18, 19 and 20.
6. ON TARGET Donate 1% of my salary to charity - I have budgeted for this goal and so should have no trouble making my annual donation to charity.

So, I've completed two of my goals and three are on target to be completed by the end of the year without much effort. That leaves me with my goal to complete up to Step 20 of my Doubling strategy for which I will devoting all of my time and energy (across various different money-making projects).

I fully expect the later Doubling steps to be more difficult than the earlier ones and I think that I could maybe have advanced more than I have in the first four months of 2008. However, I'm glad that I'm effectively left with just one goal to complete for the rest of the year and look forward to focusing on it and and achieving it.