Monthly and Weekly Goals

May Monthly Goals

1. Ask for QE tax promotion on my behalf
2. Update PF workshop series for 2022
3. Promote Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Grad School and enroll clients
4. Create June through August content for Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Grad School and set up the workshop

May Weekly Goals

1. Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials
2. Write and schedule promotional broadcasts and Tweets
3. Devote two hours to professional development
4. Recite affirmations daily

Week Overall

This was a difficult week; I only worked about half as much as I normally do. I was fairly sick on Monday and still recovering through the rest of the week. Our younger daughter was also sick and didn’t go to school all week. Plus, we had scheduled a birthday party for our girls on Saturday, and because of our illness we were heavily considering postponing. However, we decided to go ahead with the party late in the week, which meant I spent essentially all of Friday preparing for that. So a lot of personal stuff greatly compressed my normal work week, but it was OK as I wasn’t too busy with deadline-driven work.

Monthly Goal 1: Ask for QE tax promotion on my behalf

I haven’t started on this yet, but plan to in the upcoming week (for real!).

Monthly Goal 2: Update PF workshop series for 2022

I haven’t started on this yet, but need to in the upcoming week.

Monthly Goal 3: Promote Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Grad School and enroll clients

I’ve completed all my scheduled sales calls and have yet to officially onboard any clients, but I’ll follow up with the most likely one in the coming week.

Monthly Goal 4: Create June through August content for Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Grad School and set up the workshop

I created the slides for, scripted, and recorded the audio for the July module and handed them off to my video editor. I plan to do the same for the August module next week.

Weekly Goal 1: Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials

I stayed on top of this goal, not that there was much to do!

Weekly Goal 2: Write and schedule promotional broadcasts and Tweets

I didn’t have anything to promote this week in particular, so I sent out a broadcast for podcast volunteers instead, which had great uptake!

Weekly Goal 3: Devote two hours to professional development

I skipped out on professional development this week.

Weekly Goal 4: Recite affirmations daily

I checked this off 4 days out of 5.

Goal Tracking

Annual Revenue to Date (as a percent of “Best” revenue goal):

• Advertising — 1.37%
• Community membership + tax workshop sales (individual) — 4.86%
• Public speaking — 8.85%
• Tax workshop (institutional sales) — 7.00%
• Sum — 22.08%

Cumulative Workshop Enrollment to Date (5,000 is “Best” goal): 1,558

The post Business Goal Tracking for Week 20 of 2022 appeared first on Evolving Personal Finance.

Monthly and Weekly Goals

May Monthly Goals

1. Ask for QE tax promotion on my behalf
2. Update PF workshop series for 2022
3. Promote Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Grad School and enroll clients
4. Create June through August content for Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Grad School and set up the workshop

May Weekly Goals

1. Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials
2. Write and schedule promotional broadcasts and Tweets
3. Devote two hours to professional development
4. Recite affirmations daily

Week Overall

The special thing about these last two weeks is that I’ve been training one of my assistants for some new administrative duties she’s taking on! It’s very exciting. I spent significant time writing up protocols to train her on, which was actually a bit gratifying to realize all I’ve learned over these years, and I also had to set up some back end stuff like a new email address for her. But even in these last few days, it’s been a weight off my mind to not have to address some of these small tasks myself!

Other than the new training, another big accomplishment was to prep four podcast episodes so that my editors and I can get ahead on our production schedule this summer. I won’t have to do much more for these episodes and they’ll take us about halfway through summer.

Monthly Goal 1: Ask for QE tax promotion on my behalf

I haven’t started on this yet, but plan to in the upcoming week.

Monthly Goal 2: Update PF workshop series for 2022

I haven’t started on this yet.

Monthly Goal 3: Promote Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Grad School and enroll clients

This was what I’ve mainly been working on over these past two weeks. I sent dozens of emails to individuals asking for recommendations, but it looks like this method doesn’t have a very high accept rate. I did get a couple of leads, so we’ll see how that works out.

I had two sales calls for this workshop with McNair programs. Neither has officially enrolled yet, but I’d say one is almost certain to enroll and one is likely to enroll. I have two more sales calls set up for this coming week.

Monthly Goal 4: Create June through August content for Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Grad School and set up the workshop

I created the slides for, scripted, and recorded the audio for the June module and handed them off to my video editor. I plan to do the same for the July module next week.

Weekly Goal 1: Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials

I stayed on top of this goal, and actually made it easier on myself by training my assistant to handle the invoices. She caught up on the backlog of invoices for the registrations for my annual tax return workshop.

Weekly Goal 2: Write and schedule promotional broadcasts and Tweets

The only broadcast I needed to send was that I asked for recommendations from my list for Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Grad School.

Weekly Goal 3: Devote two hours to professional development

I’ve been reading Free Time by Jenny Blake during these last two weeks.

Weekly Goal 4: Recite affirmations daily

Done!

Goal Tracking

Annual Revenue to Date (as a percent of “Best” revenue goal):

• Advertising — 1.37%
• Community membership + tax workshop sales (individual) — 4.63%
• Public speaking — 8.85%
• Tax workshop (institutional sales) — 4.80%
• Sum — 19.65%

Cumulative Workshop Enrollment to Date (5,000 is “Best” goal): 1,558

The post Business Goal Tracking for Weeks 18 and 19 of 2022 appeared first on Evolving Personal Finance.

Monthly and Weekly Goals

April Monthly Goals

1. Create sales page and bonus for rising graduate students webinar
2. Create and deliver rising graduate students webinar (3x)
3. Plan for 2022

April Weekly Goals

1. Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials
2. Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops
3. Devote two hours to professional development
4. Recite affirmations daily

Week Overall

My hours were a little light this week (just under 20), but I’m OK with taking it a little easier at this point in the year. I’m spending more time reading (more on that below), which is very enjoyable.

Monthly Goal 1: Create sales page and bonus for rising graduate students webinar

Done!

Monthly Goal 2: Create and deliver rising graduate students webinar

Done!

Monthly Goal 3: Plan for 2022

I believe I completed this! I slotted in at least one monthly goal for the remainder of the year based on the academic and tax year. I think May, June, and July are completely planned.

Weekly Goal 1: Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials

Communications are slowing down, so this was easy to stay on top of.

Weekly Goal 2: Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops

I didn’t have any tax content to promote this week.

Weekly Goal 3: Devote two hours to professional development

I read Die with Zero, which I think counts! It took me more than two hours.

Weekly Goal 4: Recite affirmations daily

I checked this off on four days out of five, I think.

Goal Tracking

Annual Revenue to Date (as a percent of “Best” revenue goal):

• Advertising — 0.77%
• Community membership + tax workshop sales (individual) — 4.34%
• Public speaking — 8.35%
• Tax workshop (institutional sales) — 4.80%
• Sum — 18.26%

Cumulative Workshop Enrollment to Date (5,000 is “Best” goal): 1,556

Monthly and Weekly Goals

May Monthly Goals

1. Ask for QE tax promotion on my behalf
2. Update PF workshop series for 2022
3. Promote Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Grad School and enroll clients
4. Create June through August content for Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Grad School and set up the workshop

May Weekly Goals

1. Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials and updating Asana
2. Write and schedule promotional broadcasts and Tweets
3. Devote two hours to professional development
4. Recite affirmations daily

The post Business Goal Tracking for Week 17 of 2022 appeared first on Evolving Personal Finance.

Before buying our home, I saw PF bloggers and other interested parties discuss their net worth calculations online, and they often accounted for their home equity/the value of their home in odd ways. These other people sometimes left their home’s value out entirely or omitted any equity above the mortgage amount or used a lower value for their home. This was totally puzzling to me. I thought I would have just grabbed a value from Redfin/Zillow and plugged in that number on a monthly basis. That seemed to be the most accurate/up-to-date.

I still think it’s important to include some home value in a net worth calculation, especially if the home has a mortgage on it, as ours does. But I definitely understand now why people don’t want to plug Redfin/Zillow/whoever’s supposed home value into their net worth calculations, because I haven’t been.

For the last year, I’ve used 91% of our home’s appraised value from April 2021, which is more or less what I thought we could realistically sell it for after closing costs. I told myself I would start increasing the home value after a year—perhaps values would stabilize by then.

I now agree that: 1) I don’t want my net worth jumping all over the place based on the whims of Refin/Zillow’s algorithm, 2) my home’s high value doesn’t seem real/reliable in a fast-changing market (maybe it will drop?), and 3) we’re not planning to sell anytime so it doesn’t really matter.

But now that the first year is up, I do need to decide how to update our net worth on May 1. It doesn’t seem accurate to keep the value anchored in 2021, either. Perhaps I’ll use 91% of $850k, which our house has been solidly above, according to Redfin/Zillow, for many months.

How do you account for your home’s value in your net worth calculations?

The post Home Equity Is Funny Money appeared first on Evolving Personal Finance.

Monthly and Weekly Goals

April Monthly Goals

1. Create sales page and bonus for rising graduate students webinar
2. Create and deliver rising graduate students webinar (3x)
3. Plan for 2022

April Weekly Goals

1. Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials
2. Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops
3. Devote two hours to professional development
4. Recite affirmations daily

Week Overall

I took Monday mostly off to figure out my own enormous tax bill to pay, so this was more like a 4-day work week. I’m feeling very optimistic about my revenue in 2022 right now based on some meetings I had this week (more below). I raised my live speaking fee almost on a whim, and it was accepted right away by the next client I spoke with! I scheduled my first live event of the 2022-2023 academic year, and it’s going to be in person!

Monthly Goal 1: Create sales page and bonus for rising graduate students webinar

I created the bonus this week, but hadn’t finished the sales page as of Saturday.

Monthly Goal 2: Create and deliver rising graduate students webinar

I finished the slides for the second iteration of this webinar by Friday, which is going to be really close to the third webinar slides as well.

Monthly Goal 3: Plan for 2022

I started into this this week by meeting with my contractors. One of them is going to expand her scope of work with me, which I’m super excited for!

I also pitched a new product to a potential client and got great feedback, including advice to increase the price point! I’m hoping this product will have a big role in my 2022 revenue.

Weekly Goal 1: Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials

Communications are slowing down, so this was easy to stay on top of.

Weekly Goal 2: Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops

I only had to do this for Monday, and I had taken care of the email the prior week. This doesn’t need to be a weekly goal after this month since I don’t need to heavily promote outside of tax season.

Weekly Goal 3: Devote two hours to professional development

No professional development this week.

Weekly Goal 4: Recite affirmations daily

I checked this off on four days out of five, I believe.

Goal Tracking

Annual Revenue to Date (as a percent of “Best” revenue goal):

• Advertising — 0.77%
• Community membership + tax workshop sales (individual) — 4.20%
• Public speaking — 6.60%
• Tax workshop (institutional sales) — 4.80%
• Sum — 16.37%

Cumulative Workshop Enrollment to Date (5,000 is “Best” goal): 1,552

The post Business Goal Tracking for Week 16 of 2022 appeared first on Evolving Personal Finance.

We filled up:

• Kyle’s traditional 401(k)
• The employee side of my traditional 401(k)
• The employer side of my traditional 401(k)
• My Roth IRA
• Kyle’s Roth IRA

In recent years, we capped our retirement contributions at 20% of our gross income because we were simultaneously saving for our house down payment. With our house purchase complete, we had no reason to limit our retirement contributions (except, you know, cash flow).

We set our goal of maxing out all the traditional accounts available to us in part to keep our AGI low enough to qualify, as best we were able to, for the expanded tax benefits in 2021, such as the Child Tax Credit and the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit.

2021 was the first year that we contributed to Kyle’s expensive 401(k), and in fact we maxed it out over just the last five months of the year!

It was also the first year that I contributed to my 401(k) as my own employer. When I say I maxed the employee and employer sides out, I mean that I contributed $19,500 as an employee plus as much as was allowed as my employer based on an estimate of my income for the year—not that I got up to $57,000 total. It was a bit of a process to estimate my business profit before the year officially ended to calculate the contribution room, but having been through it once I think it will be quite a bit easier next year.

I expect we’ll aim to max out again in 2022 as our household income will be higher than in 2021. Kyle has already set up his 401(k) contributions to max out throughout the calendar year. We’ll save the 2022 Roth IRAs for spring 2023. That leaves me to contribute to both sides of my 401(k) between now and the end of December (for the employer side) and Tax Day next year (for the employee side).

The post We Maxed Out All Our Retirement Accounts for the First Time! appeared first on Evolving Personal Finance.

Monthly and Weekly Goals

April Monthly Goals

1. Create sales page and bonus for rising graduate students webinar
2. Create and deliver rising graduate students webinar (3x)
3. Plan for 2022

April Weekly Goals

1. Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials
2. Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops
3. Devote two hours to professional development
4. Recite affirmations daily

Week Overall

I officially took Thursday through Saturday off this week to prepare for and attend an out-of-town wedding. Overall, I worked 17 hours, the vast majority of which was on Monday through Wednesday.

I had some administrative work to finish up on Sunday, which was not how I wanted to spend my Easter, but I was under pressure from Tax Day being the following day. I hope we don’t have another Tax-Day-immediately-following-Easter ever again/for a long time! And I do need to outsource the administrative work I was doing. Had I not been on vacation, it could have been completed the previous Friday.

My shorter work week meant that I didn’t complete all of my weekly goals or make much progress on the monthly goals. But I’m looking forward to next week, the post-tax-season season, to catch up on my professional development and such!

Monthly Goal 1: Create sales page and bonus for rising graduate students webinar

I didn’t work on this, but I will knock it out next week as I have to start promoting the webinar!

Monthly Goal 2: Create and deliver rising graduate students webinar

I delivered the first iteration of this webinar this week, so I’m well set up to finish this out this month.

Monthly Goal 3: Plan for 2022

This is going to happen after Tax Day.

Weekly Goal 1: Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials

Communications are slowing down, so this was easy to stay on top of.

Weekly Goal 2: Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops

Yep, did this! I actually scheduled everything well in advance so I didn’t have it hanging over my head during my trip.

Weekly Goal 3: Devote two hours to professional development

No professional development this week.

Weekly Goal 4: Recite affirmations daily

I checked this off on Monday through Wednesday, but missed Thursday and Friday.

Goal Tracking

Annual Revenue to Date (as a percent of “Best” revenue goal):

• Advertising — 0.77%
• Community membership + tax workshop sales (individual) — 3.80%
• Public speaking — 6.60%
• Tax workshop (institutional sales) — 3.90%
• Sum — 15.07%

Cumulative Workshop Enrollment to Date (5,000 is “Best” goal): 1,519

The post Business Goal Tracking for Week 15 of 2022 appeared first on Evolving Personal Finance.

Monthly and Weekly Goals

April Monthly Goals

1. Create sales page and bonus for rising graduate students webinar
2. Create and deliver rising graduate students webinar (3x)
3. Plan for 2022

April Weekly Goals

1. Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials
2. Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops
3. Devote two hours to professional development
4. Recite affirmations daily

Week Overall

I worked relatively a lot this week (30 hrs) and had no childcare interruptions, yet I did not do well against these goals because I didn’t make them my priority. I had an idea for a new video and I absolutely could not focus on any other work until I finished it, which took 10 hours of my week and I am proud of the results (one video turned into two):

• Why Is My Fellowship Tax Bill So High?!
• What to Do When Facing a Huge Fellowship Tax Bill

Other than that I had a speaking engagement and did a bunch of maintenance work, but didn’t move the ball forward on my monthly goals. I actually had to wrap some of these up over this weekend to say I checked them off for the week (supposed to be a Fri afternoon task).

Monthly Goal 1: Create sales page and bonus for rising graduate students webinar

I didn’t work on this and it’s on the back burner for the moment.

Monthly Goal 2: Create and deliver rising graduate students webinar

I didn’t work on this, but I’m going to end up delivering a webinar fairly close to this three times this month. The first time is next week so I’m going to get the first (and second and third) drafts done very soon!

Monthly Goal 3: Plan for 2022

This is going to happen after Tax Day.

Weekly Goal 1: Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials

I definitely fell behind on this, but got it done eventually.

Weekly Goal 2: Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops

Yep, did this!

Weekly Goal 3: Devote two hours to professional development

No professional development this week.

Weekly Goal 4: Recite affirmations daily

I checked this off on Monday through Wednesday, but missed Thursday and Friday.

Goal Tracking

Annual Revenue to Date (as a percent of “Best” revenue goal):

• Advertising — 0.77%
• Community membership + tax workshop sales (individual) — 3.20%
• Public speaking — 6.60%
• Tax workshop (institutional sales) — 3.90%
• Sum — 14.48%

Cumulative Workshop Enrollment to Date (5,000 is “Best” goal): 1,441

The post Business Goal Tracking for Week 14 of 2022 appeared first on Evolving Personal Finance.

Monthly and Weekly Goals

March Monthly Goals

1. Publish the 2022 version of my estimated tax workshop
2. Create sales page and bonus for rising graduate students webinar
3. Add general and CA state tax info to annual tax return workshop

March Weekly Goals

1. Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials
2. Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops
3. Devote two hours to professional development
4. Recite affirmations daily

Week Overall

I took this week mostly off for my kids’ spring break. I only worked for about 7 hours. So I didn’t work toward my monthly or weekly goals except responding to urgent emails. Now there’s plenty to do for next week!

Monthly Goal 1: Publish the 2022 version of my estimated tax workshop

This goal is ACCOMPLISHED! Register for Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients (2022).

Monthly Goal 2: Create lead magnet and sales page for the rising grad student webinar

This will be pushed to April.

Monthly Goal 3: Add general and CA state tax info to annual tax return workshop

I’m not going to get to this one this tax season.

Weekly Goal 1: Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials

I responded to urgent emails, but will have to catch up on this next week. I didn’t need to send any invoices.

Weekly Goal 2: Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops

I scheduled all Tweets last week, and didn’t need to say any promotional emails.

Weekly Goal 3: Devote two hours to professional development

Skipped it!

Weekly Goal 4: Recite affirmations daily

Skipped it!

Goal Tracking

Annual Revenue to Date (as a percent of “Best” revenue goal):

• Advertising — 0.77%
• Community membership + tax workshop sales (individual) — 2.91%
• Public speaking — 5.03%
• Tax workshop (institutional sales) — 3.35%
• Sum — 12.05%

Cumulative Workshop Enrollment to Date (5,000 is “Best” goal): 1,393

Monthly and Weekly Goals

April Monthly Goals

1. Create sales page and bonus for rising graduate students webinar
2. Create and deliver rising graduate students webinar
3. Plan for 2022

April Weekly Goals

1. Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials
2. Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops
3. Devote two hours to professional development
4. Recite affirmations daily

The post Business Goal Tracking for Week 13 of 2022 appeared first on Evolving Personal Finance.

Monthly and Weekly Goals

March Monthly Goals

1. Publish the 2022 version of my estimated tax workshop
2. Create sales page and bonus for rising graduate students webinar
3. Add general and CA state tax info to annual tax return workshop

March Weekly Goals

1. Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials
2. Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops
3. Devote two hours to professional development
4. Recite affirmations daily

Week Overall

My total working hours were a hair under 20 this week, which is slightly less than normal. My husband was out of town again, but thankfully we had only one slight childcare disruption so the week was mostly normal in that respect. What cut into my work hours is that I scheduled dental and vision appointments this week for while my kids were in school.

I am taking next week (mostly) off from work for my kids’ spring break.

Monthly Goal 1: Publish the 2022 version of my estimated tax workshop

This goal is ACCOMPLISHED! Register for Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients (2022).

Monthly Goal 2: Create lead magnet and sales page for the rising grad student webinar

I just finished goal 1 on Friday so this is still pending.

Monthly Goal 3: Add general and CA state tax info to annual tax return workshop

I’m not going to get to this one this tax season.

Weekly Goal 1: Stay on top of all communications with university clients, including creating workshop copies and financials

This was a lower-volume week so this was an easy one to stay on top of.

Weekly Goal 2: Write and schedule promotional emails and Tweets for tax workshops

Yep, did this!

Weekly Goal 3: Devote two hours to professional development

I did one hour of professional development.

Weekly Goal 4: Recite affirmations daily

Yes, done!

Goal Tracking

Annual Revenue to Date (as a percent of “Best” revenue goal):

• Advertising — 0.77%
• Community membership + tax workshop sales (individual) — 2.64%
• Public speaking — 3.78%
• Tax workshop (institutional sales) — 3.25%
• Sum — 10.44%

I received three BIG checks for my tax workshop enrollments this week so the revenue is finally starting to tick upward!

Cumulative Workshop Enrollment to Date (5,000 is “Best” goal): 1,285

The post Business Goal Tracking for Week 12 of 2022 appeared first on Evolving Personal Finance.