Mission Updates

So how have I been doing on my Bucket Missions?  Pretty mediocre.

I am currently watching season 2 of Star Trek Voyager, and am over 65% complete in the video mission but I'll have to admit defeat.  Even to reach the end of Voyager before December 21 would be a major undertaking at this stage, but that modified goal is what I will now attempt to finish.

Moving on to my health missions, I did not schedule a 5K run in which I could receive an official time under 30 minutes.  But here's the rub:  I did run my first ever half marathon at the end of September and although my finish time was underwhelming, according to my NikePlus recorded data of that run, at some point during the run I covered a 5K leg in about 27.5 minutes!  Now, I believe the calibration of the sensors are somewhat off and the 27.5 measured a distance a little smaller than 5K, but I believe that the corrected time would still be south of 30 minutes.  On a technicality, I completed this mission, but only on a technicality.

On the other hand, the BMI goal was a complete bust.  In fact, in training for the half marathon, I actually gained weight.  Generally, my love of food made this goal very challenging from the outset.  And with Thanksgiving approaching, the prospects of getting this going in the right direction again are not good at all.

The food mission is also dismal.  I only visited 4 of 20 restaurants on the list and chances are not very good to get to another one before EOTW.  Most of the restaurants are simply too far, and I would have needed to plan some special multi-day travel to visit them, so I never expected to complete this mission.  I did think I'd go well north of 4, though!  I take a little solace in the fact that I am sure that I paid a first visit at least 16 restaurants in my local area that were not on the list.  Some of the memorable ones include:  Ted's Montana Grill, Sichuan Gourmet, Mayuri and Tropical Cafe.

My debt mission gives me a result to breathe much easier about.  I have indeed made 10 of 11 payments on what I would describe as a substantial credit card debt and I am in line to finish that goal before December 21.  Unfortunately, I will not be completely credit debt free at the end, because I did am now carrying a smaller balance on a different card that is part of a plan to refinance my mortgage within the next few weeks.

In order to assist my original credit card mission, I had hoped to sell off $2,500 worth of possessions.  I am considerably short of that goal at present, and hence I've needed to dip into my savings to finish the credit card mission.  This is not ideal, but I guess I am not going to need those savings for much longer :-)

I wouldn't describe my spending habits this year as overly frugal, but I did accomplish my monthly expense goal of reducing my expense budget by at least $400 per month.  I was at $300 per month by the end of March, so this goal was well on track.