2013 Year in Review / Goals for 2014

Happy 2014 and welcome to my 2013 Year in Review. 2013 was without a doubt the most challenging year of my life. To start off on a very personal note, over the year I began to learn what life would be like from now on without a mother and it is not a happy situation. I had kept myself occupied for a number of months with a hopeful relationship but as that ended abruptly in early 2013 I was revisited again with the sadness, fear, and depression that comes with the death of a loved one. I had focused all of my emotion and hopefulness into the relationship and when it fell apart so did everything else it seemed like.

On the financial side I achieved two goals of topping up my TFSA and transferring my RRSP into e-series funds, but I also failed miserably at the more important goal of finding a career path. To say that I lacked motivation this year would be an enormous understatement. The one aspect that I am pleased with is that I finally enrolled in and passed the Canadian Securities Course in May. I have been asking myself whether a job in finance is what I want to strive for and doing the CSC has made me a little more hopeful that it might be the right direction for me.

In late September I travelled to Asia for two and a half weeks and loved it, but also spent quite a bit of money and dented what would have been a more substantial increase to my net worth over the year. Early in January I also started my Invisalign dental treatment and I am happy to say that I am now almost finished and not hiding my smile anymore. Invisalign has also set me back a bit as my work coverage paid only 60%, though I am still grateful.

Goals from 2013
Financial

• top up TFSA by $5500 PASSED

• move ING RRSP to TD e-series PASSED

• find a new job and one that is a career starter FAILED

• if new job - find new apartment (better location and amenities) FAILED

Personal

• relationship FAILED

• improve fitness to the next level PASSED - averaging 25hr's of cardio per month and reached a new personal best on the Grouse Grind of 45:55.

• be more sociable PASSED

• improve wardrobe FAILED

Net Worth
Jan 1, 2013
$33,346.94

Jan 1, 2014
$37,753.81
Gain: +13.22% or $4,406.87


Once again my goals for the new year are mostly unexciting.

New goals for 2014
Financial
-top up TFSA by $5,500
-try to increase monthly savings somehow
-invest in my first individual stock apart from my employer's shares
-reach the $100 payout level from Google Adsense (this has been a very old dream)
-START A CAREER - take any courses that might help

Personal
-continue to improve fitness - push to 30hr's of cardio per month + Grouse Grind time under 45 minutes.
-improve sociability and confidence
-finally improve wardrobe to the point where I am comfortable in my clothes and appearance
-read more books, esp. finance related

I will end this post just as I did last year by sharing a few quotes, but this time from probably my favourite author Bertard Russell.

On work:

"All serious success in work depends upon some genuine interest in the material with which the work is concerned.

Without self-respect genuine happiness is scarcely possible. And the man who is ashamed of his work can hardly achieve self-respect."


On decision making:

"The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so.

When a difficult or worrying decision has to be reached, as soon as all the data are available, give the matter your best thought and make your decision; having made the decision, do not revise it unless some new fact comes to your knowledge. Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile."