GOAL. . . .

I'm very excited and happy. I hit my goal weight today. (Actually, 1 lb less than my goal weight)

Thank you Thin & Healthy Program. Especially Jess, Molly and Kelly. I'm very appreciative of the coaching, training, and encouragement you provided.

Thinking about what T&H did for me is a lot like ministry and leadership. We need someone to come along side us to provide coaching, training and encouragement. Do you have anyone in your life that's doing these kind of things for you? I hope so. If not, get involved and volunteer. You'll begin to experience life change and that's what makes life worth living.

Life Insurance. . .

As of late, I've been getting lots of questions about life insurance. First things first. It's really death insurance. An insurance company is paying your loved ones upon your death not your life. I guess its a better marking tool to call it life insurance.

Anyway, the best rule of thumb is to purchase a 20 or 30 year level term life insurance policy and stay away from "permanent" (whole life or universal life) life insurance. The somewhat short answer is this. You should have 8 to 10 times your annual income in life insurance up until your kids are grown and your house is paid for. At that time, you can lower or in most cases, eliminate your life insurance.

The biggest problem I have with permanent life insurance is most people with kids and a mortgage can't afford the premiums to get the 8 to 10 times their earnings in coverage. (There are other reasons to stay away but that should be enough incentive.)

So, where are some good places to shop / search for term life insurance?

1. Zander as recommended by Dave Ramsey
2. Insure.com
3. Select Quote
4. Matrix Direct
   

So, take your pick and get a free quote.

A great tool to track your . . . . health

I'm always on the lookout for a cool tool that's easy to use and track data. Earlier this week, I came across prevention magazines website and saw something here that really caught my eye.

It's their "My Health Tracker". I like tools that help you track your money so I though to myself, this health tracker thing may be cool. I'll check it out.

After using it for only one week, I'm hooked. This thing tracks the following all for free!

1. What you eat and all the related calories, fat, protein, ect related to that food.
2. Your exercise and the calories burnt by exercising
3. Your weight loss or gain
4. Your mood
5. Your body size (I've lost 19 inches this year. Thanks Thin & Health / Super Fitness)
   

It also have over 20 reports you can run off of this data. Here's my calories burnt versus calories eaten this week. Based on me burning more than I've eaten I should have lost weight this week and I did. I lost 2lbs. (PS, I'm very close to my preseason cycling goal weight)

So, set some goals for yourself this week and find the tools to help you meet them.

Well, I did it. (Looked at my retirement account balances)

Each year, about this time after all my account statements have arrived in the mail, I pick a day to enter my various retirement account balances into a spreadsheet. I say various accounts because I have rollover accounts with 4 difference fund companies.

In this very hard economic time, I've talked with lots of folks who have told me that when their retirement fund papers come in the mail, they don't even open the envelope. They'd rather not know how bad it is. I can certainly understand where they are coming from although I do not agree with what they are doing.

After graphing my retirement account balances, I'm down 36% from a year ago. Ouch! But no need to panic. There was a need for me to "rebalance" how I'm allocating my current retirement withholding's. The only way I knew to do this was by looking at my statements.

I take comfort in this as I look at my declining retirement fund balances.

1. God is in control and I'm not.
2. I've got time on my side even at 42 years of age.
3. As I put money into the market now, I'm getting more shares for the same dollars.
4. The Bible tells us to save for the future and saving is a retirement fund is the best way I know how to do that.

Is loosing weight part of your 2009 plan?

I'm on a mission to shed a few pounds to help improve my hill climbing for this coming cycling season. In cursing around the net today, I came across a great source for weight loss tips. Readers Digest has a great Dieting and Weight loss page.

Check it out by clicking here. If you do want to shed a few pounds in 2009, how much weight do you want to loose? My goal is 12lbs.

Happy New Year

Savings with a specific goal in mind. . . .

I'm always on the lookout for great savings rates and opportunities. With Christmas right around the corner, yes it's next month, I'm very thankful Cindy and I started saving for it back in January. I'm never really happy to see that savings allocation go down but hey, that's what we saved it for.

The other day while reading my favorite personal financial magazine, Kiplingers, I came across a short article titled "Christmas Club 2.0". It was touting a web site SmartyPig.com.

Smarty Pig is a free FDIC-insured saving account at Iowa's West Bank, earmarked for a specific goal like Christmas. Really you can use it for anything you want to save for. Why use Smarty Pig? Glad you asked there are some really cool features / benefits here.

1. They are currently paying 3.9%. This is an outstanding rate right now.
2. You can make your savings goal public and friends and family can chip in toward you goal.
3. Smarty Pig has partnered with 25 retailers like Amazon.com and others and if you use a gift card at one of these retailers the retailer kicks in "bonus" of up to 5%.

So pick a goal and get started. Save up and pay cash.

Another 2008 Goal met

I like setting goals. It drives me to grow. Today I've met another personal goal. I now weigh less thank 170lbs. Ok, 169.6 to be exact but it's under 170 none the less. I weighted 184 at the first of the year.

I set goals in every area of my life because it keeps me from drifting and just going through the motions.

As a result of some current reading that I'm doing, NewPointe's current series, One Month to Live, and our Staff retreat, I've come up with 10 daily goals. I carry these in my wallet and review them every day.

1. Pray
2. Value my family
3. Put people before things
4. Server someone
5. Encourage someone
6. Develop a thankful spirit
7. Smile (It's the key to health)
8. Exercise
9. Be open to new ideas
10. Treat everyone with respect
    

Church Admin resourse

I just returned from Granger Community Church's Innovate Conference. Granger knocked the ball out of the park and I've brought back lots of ideas that I can implement here at NewPointe.

During the breakout session on church finance, the group was sharing resources they use in their role as church business administrators. Dave Moore hosted this breakout and he did an outstanding job.

Here's one resource you need to check out. It's a Yahoo Group called ChurchAdmin. There are over 2,800 members and here's what's discussed on this Yahoo Group.

Church business administrators who share information about church management issues. Typical questions might be, What are your scheduling policies for non-member weddings? Have you had any experience with nursery paging systems? If so, what vendor did you use? Do you have a facilities use policy that you would be willing to share? How do you track interest and participation of volunteers by ministry and more

May I have your Attention Please?

I've reached another one of my 2008 goals today.
I've exceed 2,500 miles peddled on my bicycle.


Take a look at my bike computer. The bottom number (2,511) is the total miles for the year. I took this pic as soon as I finished my ride today.

Do you see the 43.4? Don't tell my wife but that's my maximum speed on today's ride. We've got some great hills around here. Cindy really hates when I go this fast. I on the other hand love it.


Remember, It's not reaching your goals that matter most, it's you you are becoming as you work on reaching your goals that counts.

At the 1/2 way point

Goals are very important. I believe we should all have some.

I've got goals in the following areas of my life

1. spiritual
   
2. family
3. financial
4. personal
   
5. work

Today I hit the half way mark on one of my personal goals. I set a bicycle mileage goal of 2,000+ miles a year. This weekend I went over the 1,000 mile mark. take a look at the last number 1009.8.

500 miles rain and all

Do we? Don't we? We did. . . .

We decided to head out for a bike (bicycle) ride this afternoon. Ended up riding 15 miles in a downpour. But hey, I had to get home. (We were really hoping to have a 2 - 3 hour window with no rain. We were wrong.)

The good news is today's ride 33 miles pushed me over the 500 mile mark for 2008. 1,000 miles here I come.

Car replacement fund back at $0 (That's Life)

I finally got my 1998 VW Beetle TDI running great again. Thank you so much Beechy's. You guy do wonderful work. The problem was I had a tremendous amount of carbon buildup in the air recirculation system. Basically, my car was chocking for lack of air.

With my car in my garage, and repair bills topping $1,500, the thought did cross my mind is it time to replace my car? The short answer is NO. See, I had roughly $1,000 in my car replacement fund. The other $500 for the repair work came out of our emergency fund. Now for the longer version of the story.

While my car was in the shop and I was begging for rides to and from work, I started thinking what a hassle this is. I should be looking for a replacement car and say goodbye to the bug. After all my parents and mother-in-law were telling me it was time for a new car. Then I woke up.

See, here's what really matters.

1. The average car payment is now $350 over 60 months. In one year that's $4,200. Much more than the $1,500 I spent in repairs.
2. I'm never, ever going to be a slave again to a car payment. It's just not worth it.
3. My son will be behind the wheal in 6 short months. I don't want him to think a car payment is the way "dad buys cars".
4. I believe God will reward me for staying out of debt.

So, starting this next pay, I'll be building back up my emergency fund to replace the $500. Once that's done, it will be time to start saving in the car fund. Someday, I will have to say goodbye to the Beetle and when that day comes, I'll be paying cash.

1/6/08 and 1,984 left to go. . . .

We'll it's only the 6th day of the new year and I got to put 16 miles on my bike today. I took advantage of the 52 degree weather after church and hopped on my road bike.

It's always bitter sweet for me when I reset my bike odometer. The bitter, theres' no more miles added to the total and I say good by to another year. This past year I road just over 2,200. The sweet, the odometer reads 0000 and its a fresh start.

The mileage goal for 2008 is 2,000. Will I reach it? I sure hope so but, the most important thing about goals is not really reaching them it's who you are becoming as a person as you reach for them.

Goal Reached! - 2,000 miles!

If you live near me, you know the weather was unbelievable this past weekend. Sunday was sunny and in the upper 70's. I took full advantage of this.

I'm very excited to report that I've exceeded 2,000 miles on my bicycle this year. This is a mile stone for me as this farther than I've ever ridden by bike in a single season.

One of the important lessons I've learned in reaching this goal is. You have to set your goals a little out of reach. I really never thought I'd hit 2,000 miles. By setting your goals a little out of reach and then telling someone what your goal is, you work harder to achieve it.

The most important thing about goal setting is not actually reaching the goal but it is who you are becoming as you work toward reaching your goal.

Goal Reached!

I've reached, surpassed another goal. I'm very excited about reaching this goal so soon in the year. Ok, here it is, and it's a big one for me.

I've exceeded my 1,500 miles goal for 2007. (That is miles pedaled)

See, the bottom number on my bike computer is showing 1,504.4 miles as of today. (Don't tell my wife that the 43.7 number was my max speed on Kinsey Valley's downhill. She doesn't like when I got that fast on my bike. Maybe it has something to do with my bike tires being less than one inch wide.) This is a story for another time.

I've set a new goal of 2,000 miles before the year is over. Will I get it? Who knows but the important thing is I've got goals.


I love the line by Zig Zigler, "If you aim at nothing you'll hit it every time." His statement has motivates me. I've come to realize that reaching the goal you set is never as important as who you are becoming as you move toward the goal. When you set a goal you have to push yourself to reach it. If your not pushing then your goal wasn't "stretching" enough for you. If you really want to reach a goal, tell a few friends what it is and ask them to hold you accountable.

Setting goals for me also helps me to stay focused on what I value. It allows me to say no to some good things and some not so good things without feeling guilty when say no.

If you're looking for a simple goal to get started, here's a good one, read a non-fiction book in the next 30 days. Go visit the library. There's lots of books to choose from and it won't cost you a dine. I just checked out "The Power Years" by Ken Dychtwald.