After spending the last few days listening to the “Listen Money Matters” and “The Dough Roller” podcasts, I’m extremely motivated to continue building my cash flow machine.

The particular episodes I listened to both happened to feature Mr. Money Mustache of mrmoneymustache.com, and he was generous enough to share his philosophy on early retirement.

Through listening to the two podcasts, the lasting theme that stood out was that every dollar spent is a direct subtractor to FI.

Well, shit! When you think of it like that…saving becomes a whole lot easier.

Of course, you have to take values into perspective when assessing how to allocate your income. You can’t eliminate every single thing that brings happiness to your life.

However, you CAN eliminate all the shit that doesn’t provide value. Frankly, I’m tryna get rid of as much of it as possible.

I mean, the point is to eliminate the noise to focus on what matters most.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that my long term goal is to be a financially independent dividend investor. Hence the reason for setting goals each month—I’m tryna eliminate the noise and only spend time on what will get me to my end goals.

Now that the motivation/disclaimer for these goals has been stated, here are the goals for July:

[bctt tweet=”Goals for July 2017″ username=”reversethecrush”]

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💵 Save at least 14% of my income

In July, I am setting the new minimum savings rate at 14%.

There are three main reasons why I decided to increase the minimum to 14%.

Firstly, I am secretly an extremely competitive person amongst the people I know. If I hear that someone is saving more than me, or if someone is in a better financial position, it positively motivates me.

Second, I am pursuing FI. Every dollar that I can add to my cash flow machine shortens the amount of time until I reach FI.

Thirdly, I compete with myself, just as I do with dividend investing numbers and blog reports.

📊 Invest cash to increase dividend income in August

My dividend portfolio has been progressing along, and I’m looking forward to sharing the next dividend income update later this month.

However, the one month that is slightly behind in terms of income is August.

As a dividend investor that plans to one day rely on dividend income to fund my life, it’s important to have a consistent and balanced cash flow stream.

Though I already own two equities that bring in income in August, I am still on the lookout for another good Canadian dividend payer for August.

That said, the goal for the month is to add to an existing position to increase August income.

🚫🍳🍔 Cut down on buying breakfasts and lunches out

To put it bluntly, I’ve been spending way too much money on breakfasts and lunches out.

Though it’s affordable and convenient, it’s not the most ideal way to reach FI.

Admittedly, I’ve been on a bit of a free for all lately. To be honest, I’ve been practically allowing myself to buy and eat whatever the hell I want.

The reason I’ve been allowing myself to spend so frivolously is because I don’t take kindly to being inconvenienced, and because I get to earn credit card rewards for merchandise and travel.

However, it has quickly become apparent that I could be making a lot more progress on my goal if I cut down.

✍🏻 Publish at least 3 blog posts

Rather than over focus on volume like most companies do, I am setting the target at 3 quality posts.

Keeping the post target lower during the month allows me to enjoy publishing posts more, and it gives me the opportunity to put fourth a higher quality piece of content.

Additionally, it occasionally affords me the opportunity to publish random journal entry posts.

👨🏻‍💻 Update the contact page

While I probably should just update the contact page instead of writing about updating it, at least publishing it in this post puts some pressure on me to complete it before the end of the month.

Although I am not planning for a complete makeover, I’m planning to add more clarity.

I want to provide more awareness on response expectations for emails and also elaborate on what I’m able to do.

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Conclusion

The long term readers may have noticed that the comment per day goal was discontinued.

In case you’re unfamiliar, I typically set a goal to comment on at least one other blog per day.

While that plan was nice and all, commenting on other blogs is not necessarily the most important thing in the world to put pressure on.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy reading and commenting on other plans. In fact, I still plan to do it regularly and perhaps just as much.

However, the point of emphasis will continue to target my long term ambitions.

In the end, it’s all about creating a development plan that gets me to FI as quickly as possible.

Questions: What goals are you working on in July? What Canadian dividend stocks would you suggest that pay dividends in August?