Final Report Card on 2008 New Year's Resolutions

At the end of 2011, I still had not met all my 2008 New Year's resolutions. Instead of making new resolutions for 2012, 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 17% weight loss.  I am 7% under my starting weight in college and 3% under my highest weight in high school.  The additional 4% weight loss since September 2012 has been due to the vegetarian diet I started in mid December.	A+
	Better diet	Achieved a target of 5 servings of vegetables/fruit per day in July, 2009, and regressed back to 2-3 per day.  Since early August 2012, I have been eating at least 5 servings of vegetable and fruit per day. Due to my medical condition, I've converted to a vegetarian diet and am exceeding 5 servings of vegetables/fruit per day.	A+
	More exercise	In July, 2009, I had exceeded my target of 3 times per week by regularly exercising 6 times per week and then fell back to 2 times per week.  Since early August 2012, I've been averaging 3 times per week, above 3 some weeks and below 3 for others.    Unfortunately, a medical condition has reduced my exercise to 0 times.   Since addressing the medical condition will require moderate exercise of at least 3 times a week in the future, I will keep a provisional A-.	A-
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  benefited from two additional tax strategies involving the saver's and making work pay credits. In 2012, we may qualify for 0% taxes on dividends.	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. In 2010, we earned 46% of our projected expenses.  In 2011, we earned 80% of our projected expenses since I took on a temporary full time job at a non-profit.  In 2012,  the temporary full time job ended and I decided cut back on part time jobs.  So 2012 earnings will cover about 30% of annual living expenses.	A
Have Fun	Family activities and vacations	Have attended 100% of our daughter's school activities for parents. We are doing several vacations a year and plan a major national parks vacation in the next couple years.	A
	Hobbies	Playing tennis, and some golf.  Doing coin collecting, tennis and golf with our daughter.	A

This report card is equivalent to the September 2012 report card which had a A average. My main opportunity area is exercise, which has been put on hold until my medical condition is addressed.   So I am closing out my 2008 New Year's resolutions as COMPLETE and will carry over exercise to my 2013 resolutions.
For more on Strategies and Plans, check back every Monday for a new segment.

This is not financial or personal development advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC