Saturday 3 January 2015

Evaluate, Plan, and Action

It's 2015. A new year, a perfect time to evaluate, plan, and take action.

I've kept it simple, and it works (Evaluation, Plan & Action)
Early on, I wanted to input all my transactions in an app and I figured that was the way to do things. It didn't work for me. I ended up with a simple budget with very few categories and that basically gave me an outline of things I should spend on monthly. That's all I needed. Once I budgeted and took action, it became automatic.

I paid my children first (Evaluation & Plan)
I made a promise to my children (5 & 8) that I will give $10 each month, and they can spend $20 of it once they reached $120. They reached it, spent it, and bought gold with what's left. I've set a target for them to own variants grams of gold in relation to their allowance. They own 1 gram (+/- $50), so they'll need to have 2 grams and as their allowance (in the future wage) increases, they'll have a lifetime (and habit!) to collect the 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500 grams of gold (Indonesian Antam gold). Those gold will represent the stages in their life of having sum amount in allowances and wages.

Invest in myself  (Evaluation, Plan & Action)
I haven't been able to set aside for myself and actually, I did not setup a plan for it either. Total failure. This year, I will be applying a bit of my children's plan to myself ($10/mth), opened an account that will give me the ability to purchase mutual funds  and hopefully kickstart everything into gear. Also, one thing I'll need to start for this year is a retirement account.

Controlling wants (Evaluation & Plan)
I've failed in controlling my impulsive wants. I bought a phone and I love it. It's a Windows Lumia 535 phone. It's great for my budget and my needs, but I should have been able to hold it off a bit longer. This year, I'll try to put barriers on my spending through a 30-day list for my wants, 2 items out for 1 item in, and doing an experiences vs possessions comparison to hold off my impulses. I'll be posting some articles based on windows apps and the success/failure of barriers.

Al-Amwali (Evaluation & Plan)
I've written around the same amount of articles, I target myself to write around the same amount, look back on ideas that I've post and apply those that I haven't.

Let's get through 2015 with much improvements from 2014. InshaAllah.

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