Review of Goals for 2014

Sachusett Point National Wildlife Refuge, Middletown, RI.

We are now half way through the year and I still have a ton of work to do in order to complete some of my financial goals. I have already made some serious changes in my life in order to gain financial independence before the age of 55. I would like to think that I could retire a little younger than 55 because that is 26 years from now. I could do a lot of investing and career changes in 26 years in order to achieve financial independence at a younger age, but for now I am going to stick with that number because I think it is practical. Most of my goals are nearly complete and some of them could use a little more work.

• Pay off student loan - I still owe $1259.44 on my student loan which isn't much at all. However the interest rate is at a low 3.4% so I have been making the minimum payments. I do plan on paying a little extra the next few months in order to finally get rid of this bill. (Up to par)
• Pay of all credit card debt - My current credit card debt is $1306.15. I plan on paying this off within the next 2-3 months because the interest rate is a ridiculous 22%. I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to buy all those Christmas gifts last year on my Discover card. Oh well I learned the hard way. That wont be happening again. (Up to par)
• Have a net worth of $22,000 - I started using an app called Personal Capital in order to keep track of my net worth on a daily basis. I no longer have to login to 5 accounts a day in order to see what my funds are because Personal Capital keeps track of all activity within your banks, credit cards, investments, etc. I currently have a net worth of $18,190. I am confident that I can exceed this goal by the end of the year. It's exciting to know that I have all this extra money and that I have a positive net worth. Hopefully I will never go back into a negative net worth, however I do plan on buying an investment property in the future. (Up to par)
• Receive $100 in interest from Savings Account - I have made $29.69 in interest for the year so I am very behind on this goal. However I do plan on catching up and have another 6 months to do so. In order to catch up on the interest, I have moved some of my cash into CDs earning a higher interest rate than my savings account. I like having my money spread throughout multiple investments and plan to receive passive income from stocks, CDs, investment properties, Lending Club, and saving account. Unfortunately I can not use Lending Club in the state of Massachusetts but I think that law will be ending soon so I'll have to wait and see. (Needs Work)
• Receive $225 in dividends from stocks - I am very behind on this goal because I have only received a grand total of $40.85 from dividends for the year. I still think I can achieve this goal if I can invest in companies with a high dividend yield. I'm going to have to start putting some serious capital to work within the next 6 months if I want to earn another $184.15 in dividend income for the year. (Needs Work)
• Increase my yearly income by 5% or $34,257 - I started this goal a few months ago because I think it's important that I keep increasing my salary, even if that means I have to find new employment. The great thing is that I can count my passive income from interest and dividends towards my yearly income. So far I made:

Income Source	YTD Income
I.T. Job	$4,372.50
Counselor Job	$16,713.63
Interest Income	$29.69
Dividend Income	$40.85
Grand Total	$21,156.67

               I have exceeded the half way point on this goal and I can potentially be making over 40k this  year if I continue on the same path. (Up to Par)

In conclusion, I am hoping to achieve all of these goals by the end of the year but I can settle for 5/6. Maybe I should focus on completing one goal at a time instead of looking at all of them as a whole. For example I should pay off all my credit card debt first and then pay off all my student loan debt. After that maybe I can focus on getting $225 worth of dividends and then try to earn $100 worth of interest. I recently wrote about how I am 1.21% retired and that number shot up to 1.30% as of July 13th. In the future I might be adding a goal related to this topic on how far along I am to being financially independent. Let's see where the next 6 months will take me. How are you doing on your goals for the year?