FI Anonymous

As I had left off in my previous post , I have been in the goal setting mood as of late. To be quite honest, I never was much of a goal setter, so this is kind of different for me. It all stemmed from a conversation I had with my girlfriend late one night in December. Neither of us could sleep, and we laid in bed talking about anything and everything. New Years was approaching, and my mind got on the subject of where I'd like to be a year from now. So I asked her, did she have any new years resolutions? Sure she did - she's the type of person who always has a plan, who's always trying to get to the next big stage in her life. And although I do a lot to track a lot of aspects to my life - I track my investment portfolio and calculate my annual dividend income, I calculate my net worth every month, I write down my exercises, weights, and reps every time I work out - I am not the same type of person who is always trying to get to that next stage. I really almost feel like

It's that time of year again. My normally empty gym is jam packed, people are tightening up after that out-of-control holiday spending, and everyone is participating in something called 'Sober January'. What's going on? New Year's resolutions of course! Ok, I'll admit it - I may have participated in (and already failed) that last one... But that's how it always seems to go. Everyone starts the year off so motivated - this time they'll stick to it! This time they won't fail! Then before you know it, the gym is back to it's normal, empty self, that budget is blown, and everyone can't wait to hit that happy hour on Friday after work to wash away the pain of all their broken goals. But why? Why do New Year's resolutions seem to never make it past the first month of the year? Chances are, if you made a New Year's resolution this year, you've probably already failed. Are we really all just that weak? Should we just all give up o

Hello Everyone! I've been off the page for a week or so enjoying my time off work around the holidays, and came back to see that I've actually gotten a few views on the page! Woo! I've updated my  personal financials  for December month end, and wanted to make a post showing the month by month changes in my financial position. See below for a comparison of December vs. November. Comparison As you can see, my investments have taken a hit due to the general decline in the market over the past month. However, I see this as an opportunity to make some purchases in index funds and dividend stocks that are yielding higher than normal (hence the decrease in my cash position over the period). I picked up a few shares of International Paper (IP), which I wrote about in this post , and later in the month I started a small position of dividend aristocrat Automated Data Processing (ADP) in my JP Morgan account during December. Also during the