Still Working on 2008 New Year's Resolutions

At the end of 2009, I realized I had not met my 2008 New Year's resolutions. Instead of making new resolutions for 2010, I decided to continue working on the 2008 resolutions and track my progress. Here's my latest report card on how I'm doing on the 2008 resolutions.

	2008 New Year's Resolutions and Status
Category	Category Activities	Status	Grade
Healthier Lifestyle	Lose 10% of weight	Have achieved a 10% weight loss and am at the weight of my freshman year in college. If I lose an additional 5%, I will be at my sophomore year high school weight.	A
	Better diet	Achieved a target of 5 servings of vegetables/fruit per day in July, 2009, but have regressed back to 2-3 per day.	C-
	More exercise	In July, 2009, I had exceeded my target of 3 times per week by regularly exercising 6 times per week. Have fallen back to 2 time per week.	B
Tax Strategies	Identify five strategies to minimize taxes	Used Roth IRA contribution, Child tax credit, Roth IRA conversion , and 0% long term capital gains in 2008. Continued to benefit from these four tax strategies in 2009, and added a fifth of using accelerated itemized deductions and standard deductions in alternating tax years. In 2010, we will benefit from two additional tax strategies involving the saver's and making work pay credits.	A
Contingency income	Earn 20-40% of retirement income needs in first 3 years	Achieved 27% in 2008 due to deferred compensation. In 2009, 16% was achieved because our monthly expenses declined when we paid off our mortgage. To date, we have earned 34% of our projected 2010 expenses.	A
Have Fun	Family activities and vacations	Have attended 100% of our daughter's pre-school activities for parents. We do an annual vacation with in-laws, and an annual family camping trip. We increased the number day trips this summer. We are planning a trip to either Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon	A-
	Hobbies	Playing tennis, and some golf.	A-

This report card is a significant improvement over the January 2010 report card which had a B average. My main opportunity areas are eating fruits and vegetables and exercise. I won't consider my 2008 resolutions successful, until I give myself an A in every category :-)

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