Friday, January 16, 2015

2015 - Moving Forward

So we are into the third week of the New Year before I get around to articulating what I intend or hope to achieve this year.

The financial side is obviously important and it would be a very nice outcome if our assets could continue to generate sufficient returns to pay the household expenses and beat inflation. Given that asset prices are generally high (excepting H shares and commodities), there is a reasonable chance that this will not happen. However, so long as cash flows from rents, dividends and interest more or less meet our expenses we will still be doing okay and we still have two part time incomes as back up and the comfort of knowing that all our outstanding P+I mortgages are slowly being amortized away.

On the non-financial side, I have given myself four main objectives:

1. in 2014 my fitness was impacted by a nagging injury (plantar fasciitis) and another health issue. I am really hoping that those issues are now behind me and I can get back to the kind of level where I can sign up for the HK marathon in 2016;

2. finish the novel I am writing (including all editing). I had hoped/intended to finish it last year but for one reason or another, I got a lot done but fell six or seven chapters short of finishing a rough first draft;

3. finish the MFA. It's been a lot of fun and a very rewarding start to my retirement and I will miss the interactions with the faculty and other students, but it will be good to finish it and move on to the next project;

4. continue spending time on volunteer activities - I've enjoyed all of them so far and get a bit of a buzz about "giving back" so I'll continue with all of them.

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