October is going to be hard to beat. We surpassed our income goals by $1,578 and if I’m being honest, I don’t think we’re going to be able to do that again (though I sure hope we can!). November is the start of the holiday season and typically people would much rather spend their excess money on shopping, traveling and dining than they would on a home repair or remodel. We will continue to do everything in our power to bring in business, though, and try our hardest to beat our goals!

Income goals

• John $3000
• Sarah $1800

John’s goal was $3,000 last month and he beat it by more than $1,400. My goal was $1.700 and I beat it by $105. I’m technically cheating on my goal because I know I’m bringing in around $2000 in November. That’s one thing about freelancing – you’re normally paid about a month after the work is completed. Nonetheless, I am going to continue chucking away and hope that I continue to make a decent profit, even with my freelance job loss I mentioned in our October income report.

Business goals

Learn about affiliate marketing. I signed up with Amazon and Flexoffers, but am not quite sure how to incorporate those programs into my blog. For now, my main focus is on creating great content and gaining readers, but in the mean time I do want to learn as much as I can about affiliate marketing, ads and other ways to make money with my blog.

Get two new freelance writing positions. I have to make up my income loss and the best way I’m able to do that is by taking on extra freelance writing jobs. If you need a writer, editor or blog manager please don’t hesitate to contact me!

How to be a freelance writer >>

100 Twitter followers. I’m at 67 so I think this is an attainable goal. Follow me here!!

Promote more on Pinterest. For right now, I’m only posting my articles on my own “Personal Finance” board. I want to promote other bloggers articles on there in addition to promoting my own a little bit more. I’m not quite sure how to do that, but this is something I would like to learn more about this month. Follow me here!!

Personal goals

Cook an incredible Thanksgiving dinner. This is our first Thanksgiving in North Carolina and it’s also our first Thanksgiving that won’t be spent with family and friends. I wish more than anything that I could fly back to Arizona and spend Thanksgiving with my family, but unfortunately that’s not going to happen (we looked at flights…yikes!!). So, we’re making the best of the situation by going all-out on our own, very first, Thanksgiving meal. It’ll be both my husband and I’s first time cooking a turkey and we plan on having all the staples that day, too.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I’ve contributed a few articles on the best website geared to the holiday – Thanksgiving.com. 

Wake up earlier. I had this goal last month and woke up earlier a few times, but not regularly. With the time change, my girls have been getting up earlier – around 6:30 🙁 Wahhh! Ideally, I will wake up at 5:30 to have my coffee and get started with my day. Even though that’s super early, I am hopeful that I can accomplish this.

Spend less money. Confession – I recently blogged about how I don’t follow a budget. Well, this past Saturday my husband and I added up our variable expenses (food, restaurants, gas, household items and other miscellaneous purchases) and it was not pretty. Since this is a personal finance blog I will just say it – we spent $2,086 on those items alone!!!! Being honest, I am completely disgusted about that number. While we did make a good amount of money, spending that much on food/gas/household is just completely unnecessary. This month, we are keeping track. Lesson learned, right? I wonder how much we could have saved had we figured this out sooner!!

What are your goals for the month? Ever have a crazy spending month on miscellaneous items like we did??