the richest man in atherstone

A little late getting the report in This is because nothing much has changed in terms of my goals for 2008 since April's tri-annual review.

Below you can see the 6 goals I set myself for the year and their current status:

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. COMPLETE Reduce our mortgage capital to below £60'000 - With the help of an inheritance plus regular overpayments, our mortgage now stands at around £56,500 - a far cry from £65'000 worth of capital we borrowed in April 2007!
5. INCOMPLETE Complete steps 16 to 20 of my doubling plan - I'm currently on Step 19 and will hopefully be on Step 20 (or thereabouts) by the end of the month. One of my biggest earners has dried up, so I am slightly concerned that I may under-shoot the target without this source of income, however I've been working on a few things that I hope will become profitable before Christmas.
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, just one goal left to complete. The final few months of the year will be increasing my sources and amount of income.

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.

I was looking back over my old accounts today and was slightly taken aback by how far I've come over the previous three years.

Back in 2005 I read 'The Richest Man in Babylon' by George S. Clason and decided to dedicate five years of my life putting in practice the wealth accumulation tactics described in this inspirational text. When I began the project, I hadn't really had much previous interest in financial matters and, after nearly a decade of working, had just £3000 to show for it. The graph below shows how I have progressed over the years:

I achieved this through a mixture of reducing my expenditures, saving 10% of my income, experimenting with different savings and investment vehicles and earning additional income to my salary.

Year one (2005 to 2006) showed the biggest increase in value mainly due a complete blitz on all my expenditures and consolidating all my existing savings into a single decent savings account - this took quite a bit of work due to my previous lack of paperwork organisation.

Between 2006 and 2008, I have managed to accumulate an average of £3000 per year, which has been an little more than 10% of my salary over the period.

I am pleased with the way my net worth has increased in value over the last three years but I'm even more impressed by how much I've learned over the period. I've changed from someone that didn't really understand interest rates, mortgages, types of investment vehicles etc. to someone that has a fundamental grounding in a growing number of financial subjects.

There's still a long long way to go both in terms of things to learn about and accumulating enough wealth to retire at the age of fifty (my primary long-term goal) but these last few years have given me a solid foundation on which to build and I can say with truth that I've enjoyed every step of the journey so far.

After a pretty successful first year of setting goals for myself in 2007, I have decided to continue with the idea and set myself some goals for 2008. At the end of the year, I hope I can say that they've all been completed.

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. Save 10% of my salary - This was one of the routines I got into when I started my financial journal nearly three years ago and also one of the best pieces of financial advice I've ever heard of. I originally read it in the book 'The Richest Man in Babylon' by George S. Clason (also the inspiration for this website) and over the years, I've built up a very nice lump of capital.
2. Review utility bills - With my wife no longer working so that she can look after our baby, we find ourselves living on just one income rather than two so things will consequently be a lot tighter this year. In order to reduce our expenditures, I plan on reviewing our utility bills to see if I can get better deals elsewhere.
3. Set up and run my own company - This was one of the goals I struggled with last year, and I contemplated giving it a miss for 2008, however after going over my original motives for setting it, I included it on the list again. I want to learn about business and I always find the best way to learn something is by doing it. I plan on working for myself in the future, so there are a lot of important skills I will have the opportunity to master by setting up my own company. I was unsuccessful last year because of my procrastination. I'm determined not to fall into the same trap this year.
4. Reduce our mortgage capital to below £60'000 - Last year we managed to overpay our mortgage by around £1500 in just 8 months, an achievement of which we are very proud. That is £1500 that we will never have to pay interest on again. Our mortgage is now around £62500 and by the end of the year, it will be reduced to around £61400 by making the standard payments. We plan to earn enough extra cash to be able to overpay at least an extra £1400 over the course of the year to get our mortgage to below £60'000.
5. Complete steps 16 to 20 of my doubling plan - I'm currently on Step 16 of my Doubling Project and plan to reach Step 20 during 2008 (to find out what 'Doubling' is, see this explanatory post). The target amount for Step 20 is £5000.
6. Donate 1% of my salary to charity - This was one of my goals for 2007 that I'm happy to say I completed. I made my donation to a charity called BDF NewLife, which helps children with birth defects and their families. I have decided to include this goal on my list again this year and each subsequent year.

So, that's my list of goals for the coming twelve months