Well I had a couple of goals for August:

Hit 160 billable hours at work

Get grocery spending to $200 or below

Save some cash towards a down payment on a house

How did it go?

Billable Hours

Well it was looking like I wasn’t going to hit the billable hours target, but then the last two days I worked til past 8pm, and just barely hit 160. I am ready for a vacation! (Total hours at work in August = 206 or something. I would make a goal to have a higher percent of my hours in the office be billable, but we’re about to hit our slow period for the year, so that wouldn’t really make sense!)

Food

I spent $212 on groceries last month (I didn’t go to the supermarket over the weekend, and now I am out of food! That may be cheating a little, except it is making m clean my cupboards out a bit with my scrounging.) So, I am close to only $200 for groceries. However, my “eating out” spending was $126! A lot of this was due to buying (cheap) lunch instead of bringing lunch in the first two weeks of August. So next month I’ll try to avoid that, but it’ll increase my grocery spending a bit? Ideally, I’d like to have my eating out spending at $100 or lower, but it needs to be lower for the next few months to make up for overspending over the last several months.

Saving Extra Cash

I am trying to see how much extra cash I can squeeze out of my budget each month. This is after making investments, paying off my student loan, and setting aside a fixed amount each month for my upcoming trip to Spain. Last month I managed to put away an extra $609! I was thinking I could get $750, but this month I only had an extra $140!!

I had some extra spending on art supplies in August - I’m going to aim for $0 art supply spending in September, but I do have some projects I want to get to that I need a couple of items for that I don’t already have … Okay, so I will convince myself to use everything I have now, and then if I still am feeling creative, I can get those supplies in October.

What’s ahead in September?

Saving Extra Cash

I have some extra blog income coming in this month (earned in past months.) I should get a cash inflow between $300 - 400 this month from blogging. I’m thinking that without the extra spending on art supplies, and cutting my eating out spending to $75 or so, plus some added doctor’s visits, I should be able to save $200 in cash, plus whatever the blogging income turns out to be.

Annual Review for Work

Sometime in September I will have my first annual review. I spoke to one of our partners about this, and sounds like it’s more of a goal setting meeting than it is a review of your performance, but it does go along with bonuses and raises, so some changes may be addressed. In preparation for my review (this weekend) I want to look back over the past year, make a note of which clients I worked on, and come up with some goals I would like to set for the upcoming year.

Blogging Goals

After September 15th, I should have a lot more time on my hands for blogging. I am almost down to 350,000 in Alexa ranking, and would like to make it to below 300,000 by the end of the month. I will also be putting some thought into the celebration of my first anniversary of AccountantByDay.com, which is coming up in October! Something to look forward to.

What are your goals for September?

Do you have goals for September? A review of your August goals? Tell us your goals in the comments, or link to your blog post on this topic.

Happy September everyone!