October / November 2017 Goals & Moving Announcement!

For November, I’m focusing on moving to Salt Lake City, learning about SEO, the Google Keyword Planner and Affiliate Marketing.
Adam

Written by Adam on 2017-11-01. Blog, Goals, personal. 18 comments. Find out how I make money.

Every month I review how I did during my last month and plan out my focus for the next month. This is a follow-up to my previous post, August / September 2017 Personal Goals & Review. Since I do these goal posts monthly, you might want to read them all by checking out the goals category.

SLC mountains

Goal Review: October 2017

For October, I set the following goal:

By November 1, 2017, I will have finished the content of the Minimal Investor Course and the Interactive Guide PDF.

This goal was all about creating long-lasting content here at Minafi and not getting too caught up in the weeds about making myself hit an arbitrary number of posts during the month. I’d give myself about a C for the month. There were some things that finally happened in my life though! Which brings me to some rather big news:

We’re moving from Orlando to Salt Lake City!

This has been sooo long in the making. We’ve lived in our current house for 11 years. Mrs. Minafi and I moved in here our first year dating, and it’s been where we’ve had memory after memory. Now we’re in the process of selling it and moving into a much smaller apartment.

I’ll get to how that affects November later, but it definitely rocked my October planning. Rather than having quiet evenings at home working on my blog with a cocktail and some TV playing in the background; most of October was go-go-go to the hardware store, constant painting, cleaning, landscaping and more. Here’s how this affected my October Goals:

  • <> Write all 10 emails of the Minimal Investor Course.
    • Really close on this one. Got 9 written, totaling about 30,000 words. That’s over 100 pages!
  • – Create Interactive Guide PDF for users.
    • Didn’t do this one at all really, unless you count theorizing about how it’ll work with Rails, Drip and Firebase.
  • + Start a quarterly “My Minafi Investments” series.
  • + Meet lots of people at FinCon!
    • Still on a bit of a high from FinCon. It will take a few more days to come down from it.
  • + Try to spend 30 minutes each morning on content.
    • I’ve been doing Roosevelt Dashes in the mornings to write, which has been working out really well.

Seeing that list of tasks, it’s easy for me to think this was a pretty successful month – 3.5 out of 5 isn’t bad, right? I’m my own worst critic though. Missing both top goals hits me as a failure to accomplish what I set out to do. I’m more OK with that failure than I would have been in the past.

What changed? For one it’s an internal goal. No one is relying on me to do this and I haven’t made any agreements with other people to get this out. Expectations, for me, breed much more stress and guilt than goals. Stepping back and thinking about what’s an agreement with someone else vs what’s a personal goal can be a refreshing way to lift some of that weight off my shoulders.

Now, when something is an agreement, things are different. If these were that high, then something else in my life would’ve needed to slip to make them happen.

Sal Tlay Ka Siti

I am way too excited about moving to Salt Lake City. After living in Florida my entire life, the idea of being able to see mountains, seasons and just not hate life whenever I go outside in 90-degree humidity sounds amazing. When we finally made the decision to move out, Mrs. Minafi and I celebrated with a 40-year-old Madeira that we initially had for our wedding, but ended up being too tired to drink.

1977 Madeira
This Madeira is from the same year as Star Wars

We tried this one at a dinner last year on a trip, then I surprised Mrs. Minafi with it for Christmas. We’re not much for expensive wines or spirits, but if ever there was a time this was it. It tasted more bold and vinegary than most I’d tried. Completely delicious, but able to enjoy in very small doses.

Why Salt Lake City?

SLC wouldn’t have been at the top of my list. I’ve always loved green areas where I can get away and enjoy nature. Salt Lake City has an abundance of nature, but less on the green side. I’ve been out there about five times for work, and it’s seriously started to grow on me. The fact that you can live downtown and hike from your apartment to a mountain just blows my mind. I can’t wait to hike, ski, snowshoe (is that a thing?) and explore all of the national parks out there.

Snow in SLC
Snow in Salt Lake City. This picture is not in black and white.

In Orlando, the only nature we have are the same palm forest that’s been copy/pasted 4,642 times throughout the state. The beach is better, but it’s a drive from our landlocked location.

Mrs. Minafi and I are both going to be staying at our same employers, which makes this transition a lot easier. She’ll be changing roles, but I’ll be staying with the same team I’ve been with, and working on the same project. I’m excited to be able to work in person with people too (I’ve been largely remote here in Orlando).

We both visited in May to check out the city and see where we might want to live out there. We decided we’d go with temporary housing when we arrived, then move into an apartment after that. We’ll be downsizing from a 1700 square foot house and a 2 car garage to something under 1,000 with no garage. I can’t wait to see how many things we can get rid of.

Telling Friends

A game of Betrayal at House on the Hill
A game of Betrayal at House on the Hill

We’ve been telling friends and family about the move on and off for the last 2 weeks or so. If we weren’t aware of just how many people we had in our lives this was a warming reminder. This past weekend we were at a game night with some friends (for those wondering: I was playing Betrayal at House on the Hill, while Mrs. Minafi was playing Unspeakable Words) and we let a few more friends know.

My favorite/least favorite reaction was one friend who has seen quite a few others move away from Orlando. She smiled and said concisely:

Fuck You

Ok, sarcasm doesn’t translate well here, but I could connect with that sentiment. We’ve seen friend after friend move away over the years – usually to Seattle or Portland. Everyone took the news well. For many friends that have moved away, we do scheduled Skype calls with them. We’ll be adding a bunch more for our Orlando friends now.

So, that’s the big news!

November 2017 Goals

You might’ve guessed by now what my goal is for November.

By December 1, 2017, I will have my house listed for sale on the market (perhaps even sold) and will have moved to Salt Lake City.

As amped up as I am after leaving FinCon to try everything I learned, this is my priority for the month. Unlike most, this isn’t really a goal as much as an agreement with my company, Mrs. Minafi’s company and everyone we’re working with to sell and move. In other words, it’s happening.

For stretch goals, I’d like to spend some downtime just digging more into some of the tactics and techniques I learned at FinCon. I’m not going 100% in on any of them this month, but understanding things like the Google Keyword Planner and wrapping my head around affiliate marketing a little more. My second focus then is around learning these rather than executing.

What does that mean for Minafi in November?

I’ll be more of a ghost online in this next month working on things in my life. I’m sure that in pairing down my possessions and navigating the waters of moving I’ll have a lot of new topics to write about (well new for me).

If you’re ever out in Salt Lake City and want to meet up, feel free to contact me!

What are your goals for the month? How did you do on your goals from September? If you like in SLC and want to meet up sometime, I’d love to chat.

Adam

Hi, I'm Adam! I help millennials invest to reach financial independence sooner than they ever thought possible. Want to see what you could do to reach FI sooner? You're in the right place!

18 Comments

Why not add to the conversation below? Your voice is welcome!

Looking forward to seeing you out here in Salt Lake, Adam! It was great to meet you and hang out a bunch during FinCon. Good luck with the packing/moving/freaking out over packing and moving. If you need anything on the Salt Lake end, you know how to get me.

Great meeting you too! I’d just identified that there was a FI community here in Orlando and then up and leave it. Nice to know there are some welcoming faces in SLC.

Good luck with your move, Adam! haha- yes! Snowshoeing is a thing! My parents gifted us snowshoes for Christmas last year and we had a blast exploring some trails without getting stuck in thigh-deep snow!

I just checked out your article on the Roosevelt Dashes and I’m intrigued… I think I’ll have to try it out!

Hiking in the snow sounds… difficult. I’m up for giving it a shot though! Doing anything at 5,000 ft above sea level is going to take some getting used to.

Congrats on your upcoming move. A big part of the reason my wife and I moved away from Orlando to Charlotte is so we can do more outside activities. I can relate.

Florida is just so brutally hot for many of the months. And even if you wanted to hike in the mountains, there aren’t any!

Ohh, Charlotte (and NC in general) are beautiful. That was where I wanted to move growing up.

Agreed on the hiking side. Hiking on the beach just isn’t the same – if you want your ankles to last at least.

That sounds like a great decision 🙂 I’m particularly fond of the mountains and snow myself, and I can attest that being able to walk outside your house and just start hiking is truly awesome. Good luck!

Ohh nice, I can’t wait for that. 🙂

Christine

Christine

November 1, 2017

One tiny hurricane and you head for the mountains. That’s loyalty for ya. 😉

Hope you guys have a smooth move and a great time!

Thanks! We’ll have to meet up before the move! As soon as I mentioned to Mrs. Minafi that there were earthquakes out in SLC her response was “Wait, why are we moving there then?”. The natural disaster you know is always safer than the natural disaster you don’t know.

Congrats and good luck with the move! 🙂

Thanks! I’m hoping it goes smoothly without being too worn out.

Steveark

Steveark

November 1, 2017

It can be expensive up there. A friend of mine in Park City, just up the road from Salt Lake spent $250,000 remodeling just the kitchen in his house! That is more than my house in Arkansas is worth in total. That’s my only point of reference so who knows, I do know that you are just a car trip away from Arches, Zion, Bryce Canyon and some of the other most spectacular places on the planet. And if you like to ski there is no place better than Snowbird, Alta, Snow Basin and Deer Valley. It is truly a wonderful part of this country.

$250k on a kitchen remodel? Ack that’s insane. I’ve been looking at houses that are less than that too – and still in walking distance to downtown. Those ski places and those parks will take a long time for us to explore too, but at least we’ll be super close by.

On the ski front – any favorite skiing in the area?

Best of luck on your move, Adam, sounds like a great adventure!

For November, I’m looking to dive into all my FinCon notes and the videos as soon as they come out. Planning out 2018 will be a top priority. The Roosevelt Dashes sound helpful.

Same here on the videos – there were a few I completely missed that I was interested in (including a bunch of panels). I like the idea of doing a 2018 planning session. I’ve really liked the quarterly approach Joe from RetireBy40 uses for goal setting – I’m thinking about trying something like that out myself.

I’ve been dreaming of moving too. SLC sounds great and it’s great that you guys get to keep with the same employers! Jealous! Sounds exciting.

Thanks! Trying to get the timeline right to where we were both were able to move was only possible because our employers were both patients. We’re relieved everything is finally working out.

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