Part of blogging about your goals and resolutions means trying (key word, trying!) to keep accountable with them.

So I thought I would share with you how I think I did this year.   As you know, I blogged about my personal finance goals for this year early in January, and also shared my personal goals. I will share how I’m doing for both.

• Max out TFSA to $15000- In January, I’ll have $15,000 of TFSA space because I took out all of my TFSA’s for my down payment. I plan to sell some of my non-registered stocks in order to put money back into my Tax Free Trading Account and top it up with savings.

100% completed:  I ended up transferring in kind my non-registered dividend stocks.  I did receive capital gains or losses (net capital gain for this year is only about $120) because I moved them when the markets dipped to near the purchase value of what I bought them as.

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As you know, I’ve been an avid fan of yoga (like everyone else here in Vancouver).  I recently bought a one month pass for $35 (one of those Groupon-type deals) and have been frequenting the yoga studio often.  While in Shavasana (the corpse pose) I let my mind wander, though I shouldn’t have,  and started thinking about the parallels between yoga and personal finance.

I know there aren’t likely any parallels between the two, but I thought I would try anyway.  It might be a bit of a stretch (get it?!  LOL I crack myself up sometimes).

• Discipline- Going to yoga regularly takes effort.  To make it part of your routine so that you won’t think twice about dragging your butt to the studio for early morning yoga practice, it takes some time getting used to.  Working hard to ensure you’re saving enough money can take awareness and a ton of effort (and pain!) at first, but then it can become automatic and part of your routine (like paying yourself automatically).

• Practice and Humility-  It takes a lot of practice and in yoga, you learn to put aside your ego (well we hope to learn to do that, anyway!) because even those that practice every day can learn to improve their Child’s Pose posture, or the Triangle Pose.  When you get an instructor who gently corrects your stance that you’ve been doing for a few years, you will feel the difference the small adjustment makes in terms of the effects of yoga (e.g. more of a stretch, more “opening up”).  With investing, you need to put aside your ego.  Instead of thinking that a stock will go up, and up, and up, and when it doesn’t do what you expected, you need to learn from your mistakes instead of reacting to them (e.g. run away from the stock market when it crashes).  For example, instead of reacting to the dip in the market by selling, you can think “oh, this is a great opportunity to buy more at a lower price” (provided it is a good blue chip stock!).  Also, instead of buying the “next hot stock pick” go for stable dividend paying corporations.

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Happy New Years- hope everyone had a good one.

I can’t believe it’s 2010 already.  When I was younger, I always thought we would be flying around Jetsons style already by 2010.  With a new year, comes new resolutions. New goals and hope for a new year.

I know, I know, new years resolutions are kind of lame.  No one REALLY keeps them anyways. 

But maybe financial resolutions are easier to keep.  Somehow for me, it’s easier to work on financial resolutions e.g. save 10% of your monthly income than to remember to go to the gym three times per week, or to floss every day (uh oh, was that too much information?)

I think I’ve come a long way since last year’s financial resolutions.  I told myself I would automatically move a certain amount of my monthly income to a savings account (the advice David Bach’s Automatic Millionaire talks about) and I got my butt together and did that. It was pretty easy too. Just put seperate it and forget about it. I wanted to buy a place last year too, but didn’t end up doing so (despite the all time lows of mortgage rates) because I wanted to save more for a downpayment.

For 2010, I have a few more financial resolutions:

• Continue to calculate my networth every month (knowledge is power!  I have asked for all the client access log-ins from my financial advisors- to their dismay- so am tracking my finances much more closely)
• Regain the money I lost in bad investments- I had entrusted  my hard earned cash to some risky investments when I didn’t know any better (venture mutual funds, flow through shares, Investors Group mutual funds) and want to regain it.  In total I think I am down about $10,000.  I hope to do this by being more active and aggressive in my equities.
• Max out my RRSP and TFSA Iam hoping to max out my RRSP I can utilize the $25,000 allowance for First Time Home Buyers
• Reach a Networth of $100,000- This should give me enough leeway for a downpayment and extra money to play with
• Buy my first home – Hopefully the mortgage rates won’t skyrocket next year and hopefully the prices of Vancouver homes will come down to realistic prices (check out MLS.ca to see which closet you can get for $350, 000).

 How about you?  What are your financial resolutions for next year?

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2009 is coming to an end.  I can’t believe it’s been a year already… I can’t believe we’re heading into 2010!

(Vancouver is going to be a gong show in 2010, by the way with the Olympics.  I just know it.)

Here’s an update on my financial status:

Total Net Worth: $79,300

Here’s the breakdown:

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No, I don’t mean Creme de la Mer (the uber expensive face cream), I mean MER, otherwise known as Management Expense Ratio.

From my experience, your investment advisor won’t really tell you about this until you ask for it, or look into it yourself.

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