January Firm Determinations Update

At the beginning of 2010 I made a few Firm Determinations. I am very excited about my progress in some areas, and just a little disappointed about my lack of progress in others. Here is how I’ve done with my Financial, Health, Faith, and Blog FD’s.

Finances
Save $5000 towards student loan repayment by May – We have saved $2.250.00 towards this goal. That’s 45%, so we are way ahead.
Increase Emergency Fund by one month’s living expenses by May – We have saved $110.00 towards this goal, which is just over 5% (you can do the math). We are a little behind on this, but I’m not worried because we’ll receive $1500 rebate in our taxes for energy efficient upgrades (our air conditioner died).
Open a Roth IRA with retirement money in Money Market Account – We are still looking into this. I have the option of opening one up with the same people who do our company’s 401K so I’m going to set up a meeting within the next few months.
Reevaluate goals in May 2010 – this is one FD we are looking forward too!

Health
Hmm. I really thought that this would be one of the easier categories for me. But it ended up being the worse one.

Run/log 600 miles – I only logged 4 miles this month. That doesn’t even come close to the 50 miles a month it will take to fulfill this FD. I don’t have an excuse except that it has been freakishly cold in Texas.
Ride my new bike to work 24 times – I did not ride my bike one time in January, which is obviously short of the 2 times a week I need for this FD. I’m expecting this to pick up once it starts staying above freezing at night.
Do back exercises/stretches 3 times a week – I’ve done my back exercises and stretches an average of 1 time a week. I saw results from the few times I did this. This will increase when my running increases.
Try one new meatless meal a month – I honestly forgot all about this FD until I sat down to write this update. But here’s a picture of the yummy chicken fajitas the three of us ate last night.

Faith
Volunteer to lead college small group once a month – I completely blew this one away this month. I volunteered to lead 3 of the 4 times we met. And it wasn’t that bad.
Spend time with children from bus ministry once a month – This is one of the FD’s I’m most disappointed with not fulfilling. I will have to schedule in a Saturday to do a home visit for February.
Spend 3 hours a week reading and studying my bible – I struggled with whether or not to include our Sunday and Tuesday college bible study and Sunday small group bible study in this. In the end, I decided to count 30 minutes for each. I ended up averaging a little under 3 hours each week.

Blog
Post a new article once a week – I didn’t technically meet this goal. I posted a total of 4 times in January, but I went an entire week without posting anything.
Track all of my input/output and share it once a month – I successfully tracked everything in a spreadsheet. My next post will give you the tally for each of the following items tracked for January:

Income/Expenses
Food/Exercise
Spiritual Growth/Live Missionally

Like I said, I fell short in some areas and excelled in others. It may take me all year to have a completely successful month, but I am still optimistic.

What about you…how have you progressed towards fulfilling your Firm Determinations? Have you reevaluated or modified your goals?