Thank Goodness for the End!

I'm so glad that this year is drawing to a close. It's just been a rough year and t being over brings me stupid amounts of hope and joy.

It's been tough. A lot of things have changed for me but I have to say, one thing is nice.... my life isn't ruled by money and debt any more. I paid off a lot of money this year, and though I have a long way to go, I am finally settling into my chosen career. I'm happy with what I'm doing and you can't put a price on that. Sometimes I still get unsettled and concerned, and I still don't know if I can financially make this all work, but I'm going to continue to work my butt off and try. And, like I said, happy is good.

So, lets take a quick look back to the goals that I set for myself for the year. Here they are:

Financial Goals

Pay off all non-student loan debt - DONE! No more credit cards or loans!

This is my credit card and my scooter loan and it currently stands at around $6500.

Get Net Worth below -$20,000 - DONE! It's around -$18,000 now

This would mean increasing by Networth by about $7000.

Get Emergency Fund to $2,000 - DONE, but it's at $1800 now because I just paid bills

This currently stands at just under $500.

Get Student Loan to below $20,000 - NOT DONE - It's at around $23,000 still.

This means paying off $3,811 of my loan.

2009 Goal:

Reach my Target Weight - NOT DONE. I lost 8lb though so I'm happy.
I gained about 20lb over the last year and a half and my target weight means that I need to lose 13 of them.

Be Published in a National Magazine - NOT DONE. I tried.

This was a tentative goal for last year and I am still hoping that it occurs.

Go to a different country other than England - NOT DONE - Rough year

I love to travel, and go to England often because my family lives there. This year I would really like to go to a different country as well as the UK. I'm shooting for France, but we have no firm plans.

Go on two auditions - DONE if you count voice overs. I actually also was filmed as an extra so I consider that fine.

I've done a little acting before, and I went on one audition in 2008, so I'm going to do it twice in 2009. It really helps me get outside of my comfort zone and I would love to get more stage experience.

Learn Basic French - NOT DONE. I suck.

I've wanted to do this forever but never actually set it as a goal.

Read 2 Books per Month - NOT DONE. I'll be beefing this one up. See below.

I have a bookcase full of unread books and I really want to knuckle down and read more. I'm a tad embarrassed about how little I read these days.

Get a Voice over agent - DONE. I have one. I never get work though :-)

This is a really big goal and one that I hope to accomplish fairly quickly. I've done voice over work before and I really love it. I would like to sign with an agency because it's a hard market to break in to.

Get this blog to over 200 subscribers - NOT DONE. 55 of you are awesome though and I love you.

At the moment I have 40 subscribers.

2010 Goals

Financial Goals

1. Get Emergency Fund to $3,000 and maintain it at that level.

2. Do not carry a balance on any credit card for the whole year.

3. Break even as a freelancer by covering all living and discretionary spending.

4. Pay enough extra on student loan to reduce payments to $400 a month.

Personal Goals

1. Read all of the unread books on my bookshelf by the end of the year. That is a total of 63 books. This is going to be a real challenge, but I'm determined to try. Some of them are fairly short :-)

2. Learn basic french. This is a repeat goal. I'll try to do better.

3. Finish a pair of socks every month. I love to knit and I want to be better about making socks, for myself and other people. There really is nothing quite like hand-knit socks.

4. Work with Chris Kayser. I have a list of Atlanta Theatre "stars" that I want to work with, and he is at the top of the list.

5. Submit a resume to Cirque du Soleil. I've been trying to pluck up the courage to do this. Have to really really try.

6. Climb the scary ladder at the Tavern. It's very tall, very wooden, very rickety, and it goes from angled to vertical. I swear I won't let it beat me this year!

So there we have it. Another year finally drawing to a close. Good riddance and good luck!

Gigs and Fun Times

Well, this month has been busy on and off.

I've had several days of work and a few other random gigs came up, like being an extra on a TV Show shoot. As it stands right now, I'm $118 from covering bills, and a fair bit more shy of covering gas, food, and miscellaneous expenses. I've been having as frugal a christmas as possible, but there really is only so much that you can do.

I got some good news on the work front, though. I'll be Stage Managing a show at a really good theatre. It's 8 weeks of work and thats a huge load off my mind. I'll be picking up as much additional stuff as I can, but the concept of pretty much covering my bills for nearly two months is huge to me. I'm very excited. I'm also hoping that if I can keep busy with some other things, I can even start to replenish my depleted emergency fund a little. It really needs to be above $3000 and it's about to slip below $2000. Having a decent emergency fund is the key to keeping your sanity while freelancing. So I'm hoping to take this work opportunity to top it back up a little. We'll see if that works!

Happy holidays, all.

Sometimes Working, Sometimes Not!

The lack of updates aren't because I've been too busy or because I'm dead, I just suck really.

I've managed to get my monthly bills down to $1215 and I did not manage to make that much money during October or November. A lot of November's issue was down to timing. I have money coming, but the checks did not arrive yet. I'm hoping that will mean I can break even during December. I'm working on a new plan. I'm trying to make $45 a day, either with scheduled work or with the extra work that I do for one of my friends, or the online work I do for KGB.

KGB is actually pretty neat. I don't make a ton of money, but I certainly can do some while watching TV. It's a system where people text questions to a phone number, and "Special Agents" online find the answers. The neat thing is that I can log in and work anytime for as little time as I want or as long as I want.

I've been doing some freelance work here and there. It's sporadic and I'm expecting that it will be for the next two months. I'm really loving freelancing though. I may be broke, but I'm so very much happier.

I'm also keeping out of consumer debt. I have none at all and my credit score just came back as a 769! All that hard work certainly paid off! Now, I just have to get that pesky student loan gone.

I'll try and update more. This week I've got work scheduled for every day so far. Hopefully nothing will fall through and I'll have a productive and profitable week!