Happy New Year Readers!

Happy new year readers! This is my first published post in 2015. Hope you had a wonderful start to this new year. May this be your most successful and productive year. As they say, you start with an empty 365 pages book, so make sure the start-up or the preface is good for the entire book to be a good read.

I had one of the laziest last few days since Christmas. We went to India just after thanks-giving. Attended a gala family marriage ceremony. Came back tired with few extra pounds. Still trying to lose that excess. This was supposed to be a vacation, but ended up more tiring than regular work weeks.

Good thing that we met everyone we went to meet. They are well and healthy. Enjoyed to the fullest. After coming back really did nothing except browsing internet, reading news, Facebooking and writing blog posts, which will be published later.

Our new home still needs a lot of attention and time. Actually our weekends are spent in our big yard. I hope to bring some garden updates going forward. In Florida you don’t really stop gardening during winter months. We will be real busy with our garden starting March. We set up a raised bed in November, planted some seeds. Plants came out but they didn’t grow that much due to spells of cold weather we had since then.

Like everyone I did make a little new year plan and wishes, here they are.

1. A peaceful year for us

This is I sincerely hope for, not really a goal. Peace of mind is everything. It is source of creativity and happiness. 2014 was full of turmoil for us. I wish 2015 brings us joy, happiness and blessings. I hope all in family and all our friends to stay well and healthy.

2. A peaceful year for the world

This is a wish. In terms of reduced terrorist activities, no missing airliners and no country in the battle field. No school shootings, not in US, not in Pakistan and please no be-heading. No bombing on civilians in the name of war. We had it enough already. Each of us is affected by the madness. Each time you take air travel you feel the pain.

Inflation is another worrying factor.I sincerely hope for the prices to stay where it is now. I don’t mind a reduction, like what’s happening with gas.

3. Getting a good appraisal at the year-end

I have a day job and that earns our bread. I am not planning to quit and concentrate on this blog for income substitution. Frankly I like my work more than writing about finances. I want to contribute more towards my day job and achieve greater success this year. 2014 appraisals are due by end of January but the ratings and hikes are all decided before the holidays. I can only concentrate on a better performance now.

I need to have a plan for the year. We are getting an extensive training on leadership. My employer arranged for this 6 months on job training. They expect me to be a better leader which I want to prove. I take pride in working for them and I want to be a very successful professional.

Getting a good appraisal will not only bring bigger bonus but also it will push me ahead for the next promotion. No second thinking on this goal. Have to achieve all small milestones throughout the year. I have to be more productive and willing to take up additional load.

4. Writing more than 200 blog posts

I don’t have bigger aspiration like, getting ‘X’ number of visitors, Y number of Twitter followers, etc. I don’t want media attention too. I want to remain anonymous as long as possible. Even my closest friends are not aware of the blog. Many know I am a blogger but they don’t know where I write. In the blogging world they know me by “SB”, and not by my real name.

I like it that way. Not because I am afraid but its my choice. At the same time I want my audience to be more expressive. I want a better interaction. So help me by coming out and expressing your good and bad opinion about my posts.

I also plan to start weekend chit chats once again. This gives me an avenue to express myself more than the usual financial posts I write. In 2014 I published 193 posts with many of the guest posts. This is a steep target on my standards.

5. Increasing my net worth by 10%

For 2014 figures are still not very clear but overall I think our net worth grew by more than 10% in 2014. Highlight was the appreciation of home value since we purchased it in August. Although the price increase was off set by the money spent for closing, title and taxes. So I can say that entire 10% growth was due to saving and increasing stock prices.

I want to maintain the same growth rate in 2015 as well, but not very bullish on stock market return. I expect it to grow but at a slower pace compared to 2014.

So these are my goals for this year. I may add up a few as it goes. As you can see I don’t have many absolute numbers to achieve. This may not work good with most. But for me absolute numbers don’t usually work. I tend to lose track as soon as one milestone is missed. For example. if I can’t write 50 posts by first quarter, I may scrap goal #4 altogether.

Do remember, as per survey, only 8% of people can keep their new year goals.

Now over to you. What are you top goals and wishes this year? Please do share with other readers here.