Monthly goals: Aims for August 2017

I have been really busy since I got back from Wales a few weeks ago. At the same time, I feel I achieved very little and mostly ran around like a headless chicken! I was reactive rather than proactive. So I am setting myself some monthly goals.  Here are my aims for August.

Develop the blog

To write 3 blog posts a week. I have struggled to do this over the last few months and I am aware that my posting can be a bit sporadic at times. I want to develop the blog a little more. One day I hope to make some money blogging! In order to do that I need to increase my page views and that will only happen if I post as often as I can. I also want to add a subscribe button so that I can notify readers of new posts. I am not very technical so I find this kind of thing a real challenge.

Increase my Instagram, Facebook and Twitter following

Personally, I am all over Facebook. I keep in touch with friends and family and belong to various groups. I do have a separate Shoestring Cottage page but haven’t paid it enough attention. I currently have a few likes but zero followers! I need to start posting more interesting stuff and hopefully I can get a little Shoestring community going. If you use Facebook you can find me here.

I would like to reach 1000 followers on Twitter (@shoestringjane) and 2000 on Instagram (@shoestringcottage). If you use either maybe you can help with this. Follow and retweet/like. Send me a comment and I will follow you back!

Increase the amount I sell on eBay

I only managed to list about 5 or 6 things during July. There is quite a lot already for sale but it seems to be moving quite slowly. I would like to source and list at least 30 extra items during August. This might be a stretch as we seem to be busy almost every weekend, so getting to boot sales and the charity shops could be tricky. I will do my best.

Get a new lodger

My lodger is leaving in three weeks. This is a shame as the extra income makes a huge difference. I have an ad on spareroom.com and have had a bit of interest, but nothing concrete yet. I will begin to approach prospective tenants and perhaps sign up with another website to increase my chances of getting someone in quickly. It did take several months last time as most people want to be near the university or prefer to share with other young folk. I hope to have something arranged by the end of August.

Continue with my grocery challenge

I am currently on a grocery challenge to spend no more than £35 a week on food for three people per week. I will keep this up until the end of August at least.

I think that will do for the month as I don’t want to set monthly goals that aren’t achievable. How about you? Do you set monthly goals and what are you aiming for?