So I went to Barnes & Noble to look at some books on personal finance and buying a home. I learned several good things from a glance through some of the home books, including that I was glad I went to the book store before I went to the bank. This week I’ll submit a request for my credit score and look it over, make sure everything is kosher before approaching a bank about financing.

In addition I (as usual) broke down and purchased two books. The first is Women & Money by Suze Orman. The second is Crash Profits. I’ve started reading Orman’s book and one of the initial exercises is to write your own definition of a rich life.

I approached it by thinking about what I wanted to have accomplished by the end of my life. By the time I’ve died I hope I’ve read most of the classics and a great many modern books. I hope to have covered subjects on philosophy, politics, history, mathematics and sciences, and a good chunk of fiction, science fiction, and fantasy.

I hope to have built a family with someone. I hope to have been a parent to my children before a friend. And I hope to have put my spouse first and foremost in my life. I hope to raise my family in a nice home. Not necessarily nice because it was a big house in a superb neighbourhood, but because I was able to fix up a nice place and work hard in the community to create a good environment.

I hope to have taken plenty of time to play, both outdoors, and indoors. I hope I was creative and learned about how the world works. I hope to have built things, not necessarily world-changing things. Just little things that help me understand how things work.

I hope I never stopped learning. I don’t necessarily want to retire early, but I hope I found a job that was enjoyable enough that I’d want to keep doing it. And if not, I hope I had the luxury of trying something new and enjoying that for many years.

As far as finances go, I don’t manage them very well now because I’m afraid of them. I don’t manage them very well because finances are boring. If I were interested in finances I’d have become an accountant. I don’t want to spend my life worrying about finances. I hope I can learn enough in my studies now so that I can set up my finances to largely take care of themselves, with a little nurturing on occasion, like my scorpions. I check in on them, and make sure they have food and water. I give then good hiding places and try and make sure they are kept somewhere that’s warm but not too hot.

I don’t want to spend my life worrying about little things that can become big things. I’ve had the luxury at this point of keeping things fairly under control. I’m not in debt, I have a stable job, I save a good amount of my paycheck, though not as much as I’d like to be saving. But I also sort of skid by. I haven’t taken the steps that would make things even easier. I don’t have any investments and my savings account gives me pennies each month.

Next chapter.

New Year’s resolutions are ultimately just goals. For me, the trickiest part about goals is keeping them realistic. And I doubt it will happen here. But one thing I’ve noticed: while many goals are hard to stick with, if I can manage just one day in a few to pull everything off, I still feel pretty good about myself.

Organization:

• Room gets thoroughly cleaned at least once a month
• Vacuum every two weeks
• Clean bathroom every two weeks
• Go through clothes and get rid of what I’m not wearing regularly
• Organize all the papers
• …AND the filing cabinet

Finances:

• Have taxes done by end of February
• Live off $600 per month (occasional large expenditures OK, like trip to Louisiana, and possible down payment on a house)
• Keep up with Tithing, check at the end of each month
• Take a personal Finance course, learn good investment and plan for retirement.
• Pay gas and Utilities at least a week before they are due
• Find checkbook.

Spiritual:

• Read scriptures daily
• Work on praying twice a day
• Sunday School lessons done a week in advance
• Read at least one gospel book every two months.
• Temple trip at least once a month (preferably every two weeks).
• Work toward being endowed.

Physical:

• Karate at least twice a week.
• Yoga at least once a week.
• Rock climbing at least once a month.
• More biking and roller-blading in the summer.

Social:

• Write to friends and family more often.
• Don’t neglect my friends in town.

Computers:

• Sort through the data. Organize it and get rid of old stuff (remember the filing cabinet).
• Make external backups of everything.
• Work towards Network + Certification.
• Work towards LPIC certification.
• Set up proper home network with Samba.
• Learn home network security.
• Finish soldering serial port to router.
• Read a chapter of a computer book a day (a week if it’s more than 20 pages).

Education:

• Figure out a path to finally graduating.
• Read 4 books a month
• Work on math or sciences at least once a week.
• Just be constantly learning.

Some of these goals are more inportant to me than others. And as a vague goal I want to find the things that need to be a priority and work out a schedule for keeping up with them. Essentailly, I want to learn how to put first things first in my day. But I also want one of those priorities to be having a bit of fun each day, and recognizing what fun is. So, here’s the list, today we’ll start with that bedroom…