web analytics

JerseySmarts.com

New Year’s Resolutions for 2008

Posted on by

Happy New Year! First things first… It’s 2008 – can you believe it? It’s funny, I distinctly remember being a little kid and watching the ball drop to ring in 1986. But that was over 20 years ago in my family’s Manhattan apartment! Now on to the annual self-consuming resolutions!

Faith
For a variety of reasons, I did not get to attend Church as often as I would have liked to last year. I hope to have almost perfect attendance this year, but that’s not the crux of this resolution. I do not believe that it is adequate enough just to attend Church and be a warm body in a seat; in the next year I’d like to continue becoming involved in the Catholic Church through a few different avenues.

First, I purchased the Catechism of the Catholic Church over 2 years ago, but I have not read it yet. In the coming year I want to read the Catechism. Second, I have not attended confession in over a decade. In the coming year I want to attend confession. And finally, my local Church in West Long Branch has a weekly listing of other items that parishioners can give money to instead of the weekly tithe. These are all items related to the school that is a part of the Church (for example, you can buy books for a student or projection screens for classroom). In the coming year I want to purchase some items for the school through this program.

Finances
Student Loans
I’ve decided to break out my financial resolutions into a few different subcategories this year. The first of these are my omnipresent student loans. Last year I successfully paid down more than $8,000 in student loan debt. Given some of my other financial resolutions that are listed below, I don’t know if it would be wise to put a dollar figure on how much I’d like to pay down my student loans in 2008 outside of the regular payments. That said, I am certainly going to try to pay down these loans as much as possible – if possible.

Savings & Retirement
In the coming year, I’ll be fully engaged in my company’s 401k and getting the maximum possible match. That’s a first for me and I’m looking forward to seeing how it works out. At the personal level, I’ve been working towards a certain dollar amount to have stashed away in my ING Savings Account by the end of 2008 and I’ll keep that dollar amount private. I am, however, going to make every effort to reach this dollar amount and it looks as though I might be able to get there sometime next fall (I have long-term financial projections!).

Usable Web Solutions, LLC
Last year I wanted to increase my website company‘s revenue by 50%. This year, I’m going to focus on a different goal. I’ve suspended taking on new accounts until all of my existing accounts are brought current (both financially and fully designed). Once that is accomplished, I’d like to gain 2 new accounts in the next year while maintaining or renewing all of my existing accounts.

I also have a few personal website projects that I’ve kept on the shelf for a variety of reasons. I’d like to get these projects moving and completed by the end of this year.

Health
This is the resolution that most people make on January 1st and then go and break on January 2nd! Well, I’m not going to lay out a specific weight that I want to be at by the end of the year and I’m not going to lay out a number that I want to be bench pressing, squatting, or curling by 2009. All I want is to be in better shape by the end of 2008. I joined a gym last week and I’ve laid out what appears to be a decent training schedule so I’m on the right track. We’ll see how it goes.

Also, I am overdue for many check-ups. In the coming year I want to get a physical, have my eyes examined, and take a trip to the dentist. Some of this will require looking to see which doctors I am currently assigned to with my health care provider, but I’ll take care of that stuff.

Personal Advancement
Actually, I find this to be the hardest area to create quantifiable goals. Isn’t achieving all of the above some form of personal advancement? How does one quantify an advancement in their personal life? Let’s give it a try… In the coming year I want to read the stack of books that I’ve accumulated in my bedroom. Sometimes you get a book and you just don’t have a minute to read the damn thing, you know?!

I would also like to teach college courses again in the coming year. I admit that this is a “gimme” goal because I know I’ve already been scheduled to teach again in the fall. But hey, why not give myself a freebie?

One of the things that I started doing in the last year is de-cluttering my living area. This is actually dually rewarding because most of the stuff that I no longer use I just donate to charity. In the coming year I want to continue de-cluttering my “stuff” which may include purchasing an outdoor storage unit and replacing one of the existing storage units in my Family’s backyard up in North Jersey. Some of our existing stock is falling down and dangerous, so there may be more than one “good” here.

Oh, I’ve also began pushing a more “sustainable” lifestyle in the last year. What does that mean? It’s a manageable mix of recycling more, using earth-friendly materials, and not creating excess waste if it can be avoided. For example, I purchased two canvas reusable grocery bags to use at when I go grocery shopping. Now I’m not sure if there is a quantifiable way to judge if I’ve made a more “sustainable” lifestyle once the coming 12 months are over, but I’ll certainly be working towards that goal.

Professional Development
I’m actually looking for some good opportunities to learn more about my job and my industry. I attended the Opportunity Finance Network conference in Miami, Florida a few weeks ago and I was stimulated to learn more about many of the other areas of community development finance that I’ve not yet been exposed to at my job. In the coming year I want to learn more about some of these areas (native lending, rural lending) and continue to do the best that I can at my job.

So that’s my full set of public New Year’s Resolutions. We can meet back here in 12 months and see how I made out!

Reviewing 2007’s Resolutions

Posted on by

Every year I like to beat myself up by taking a look back at my New Year’s Resolutions from last year and whether or not 365 days have been enough time to accomplish them! So here we go…

Last year I stated that I wanted to pay off my smallest student loan, which was from CitiBank’s Graduate Assistance program.

My smallest loan is $7,500. It might not seem like much to pay that particular loan, but remember that I’ll also be paying nearly $800 each month towards my other loans as well as paying another untold amount for rent, gas for the truck, food, cell phone, charitable contributions, etc.

With interest that loan totaled just under $8,000 and through some belt-tightening and well-placed expenditures I was able to pay off the entire thing! Very exciting. Plus, I also maintained payments on my two remaining, gigantic student loans.

Another one of my comments from last year was about financial freedom. I think that I am on the path towards financial freedom, though it will never be truly attained until those loans are paid off. In the mean time, I’m set to start a 401k at my job and I’ve started to pump up my ING Orange Savings account.

I wanted to increase Usable Web Solutions, LLC‘s revenues by 50% in the last year and though I did not accomplish that goal, I did increase revenues a great deal. I am pleased with the progress that I’ve made with Usable Web Solutions, LLC in the last year. I also commented…

You know the rest. Get in better shape, go to Church more often (even though I’ve been there nearly every Sunday this year and Holy Days), do more in my professional “industry” – same old, same old.

Well, I didn’t get in better shape and I didn’t get to Church as often as I would have liked. I did increase my knowledge base for my profession, but I feel that there is more that I could do in that area. The last year was a trying time where almost everything in my life was changed or shifted to some degree. The smallest of these were friends getting married, finances changing here and there due to unforeseen events, and my living situation coming close to drastically changing when I almost purchased a condo. The largest happening was obviously the passing of my Father. Such a large event in a person’s life is obviously going to shake things up – and things were shaken up for me.

There’s my review of 2007’s goals – I don’t think I did that bad. Check back in the next few days for my 2008 resolutions!

Why I Donate to Sigma Pi Fraternity

Posted on by

The folks at MSNBC.com finally posted something worth reading. The other day they had an article that talked about how charities are finding it harder to plug the holes in their budgets with donations. As someone who makes a lot of donations each year and also works in and studies the nonprofit industry, I found this article very interesting. For me, one of the best parts of the article was:

It costs more to acquire new donors than to retain them, experts say. But churning through donors also makes it harder to woo benefactors. “Donors don’t want to be funding fundraising,” says Sargeant. “They want to be funding the work you’re trying to do.”

And they’re demanding much more accountability from the nonprofits they bankroll. If they don’t get it, they walk, says Penelope Burk, president of the fundraising consultancy Cygnus and Associates.

This is it – this is what the nonprofit industry comes down to. First, are you asking for someone to make a donation that goes to a cause or goes towards paying for salaries? Second, are you willing to explain your expenses and why money is put in certain places as opposed to others? Third, are you doing what you actually said you would be doing?

The answers to these three questions are why I donate to the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation. When I donate to the SPEF, I am giving a tax-deductible donation to two specific funds (both of my choosing) that are managed by people I know on a first-name basis and can e-mail at 1:00pm and receive a personal response by 2:00pm. These funds are under the oversight of a Board where I know many of the members on a first-name basis and have many of the cell phone numbers in my phone.

That level of trust is hard to come by in the nonprofit sector.

I helped put these two funds together and I know where each dollar is spent. I know how much of the fund’s earnings are spent on administrative expenses and I know how much goes back to the overall end-user and it what forms (scholarships for the undergraduate fraternity brothers). At any time I can pick up the phone and call the President of the SPEF and have a discussion with him.

There’s a level of trust and reliability there that you cannot build very easily. Hell, my own company is a nonprofit and I’ve yet to donate or invest any money with them! I’ll be changing that in the New Year, but it has taken me the better part of 16 months as an employee to even reach that level of comfort.

So be sure that you know the places that you’re donating to and be sure that you know where the money is being spent. And hey, if you feel like you can’t make an impact with any organization, then donate to the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation! It’s a good group with a good cause which I’d be more than happy to talk to any of you about!

Book Review: The Millionaire Next Door

Posted on by

One of my co-workers read this book last spring and she was very high on it. I picked up a copy around April because it was in the bargain bin and I admit, it’s a good read. Most of the information is dated (the book was published in 1996), but the core financial principles are universal in scope.

The authors of this book, Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, have been studying millionaires for decades. They study everything about millionaires from their automotive decisions to their shopping habits to how they treat their children, where they live, where they work, and a multitude of other variables. The end results are fascinating. Most millionaires are the people living next door to you!

Stanley and Danko make some large, common sense generalizations about how to become a millionaire: spend frugally, research large expenses before they are made, be ware of get rich quick schemes, teach your children to be careful with money, don’t spoil your kids, don’t spoil your adult children, save for the future, etc, etc. All of these are basic principles that we each know (whether you realize it or not), but sometimes hearing real-life stories that back-up these principles can be very powerful. Stanley and Danko create a very powerful book by using excellent examples.

I highly suggest reading this book if you are interested in money or growing wealthier. It’s a quick, easy read that you will find hard to put down once you get to reading it. And hey – you never know…you might learn something about money!

What Will It Take For a Profitable Christmas Season?

Posted on by

Believe it or not, it’s almost Thanksgiving Day! At the beginning of this month, I bookmarked an article on CNN.com that I wanted to blog about and I just haven’t gotten around to it until now – so forgive me if this information and my opinions are dated!

Over at CNN.com they posted an article talking about how major retailers are luring in holiday shoppers with huge discounts. Well, I combined this article with the great information that I found over at one of my favorite holiday websites – BFAds.net – to come to a general realization: today’s retailers have no idea what the public wants! I’m sure anyone can come to these conclusions on their own, but looking at the “deep discounts” that are listed on the Black Friday advertisements is appalling.

I guess what really gets me is that while there are discounts on a variety of items in each of the stores, you don’t see any of the stores really cutting prices on items that people in my age group would want. For example, Circuit City has great DVD discounts, but not really on the programs that I’m looking for on Black Friday. On the same token, all of the stores have some semblance of a sale on the next generation of video games (Wii, X360, and PS3), but none of them are going out on that limb and reducing the prices $50 or $100 below the competition. Granted, there are some restrictions in terms of how much money the various companies expect to receive with each sale, but isn’t that a basic premise of marketing and advertising? Draw the customer in with a blockbuster, financially-bad deal for company and then make up the difference (and then some) with other sales during the customer’s visit.

Looking through the Black Friday ads it just doesn’t appear that retailers understand this concept. What will it take for a profitable Christmas season? Deep discounts on quality items that will bring shoppers into your specific store. Simple, right?

Well, let’s see how it goes on Friday…