#FinancialGoals2021 Initiative by @theycallmedan — Planning for a Year of Rebuilding and Recovery!

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In general, I think "having a plan" is a good idea, and writing that plan out and publishing it adds a little extra "realness" and incentive, so I decided to forego my usual "Annual Recap and Ramble" and instead take part in @theycallmedan's #FinancialGoals2021 Initiative and Community Challenge.

Being part of a community challenge is a great way to focus a bit more sharply and, besides, there are potential prizes to be won, which is always cool!

What I realized in writing this is that FEW of my financial goals relate to actual investing and most relate to work and daily living... perhaps a sign of the times; times where investing becomes a luxury because you're more concerned about how to pay your next electric bill!

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Looking for some kind of light in the darkness...

Financial Goal No. 1: Building my Editing Business

After we shut down our brick-and-mortar gallery/gift shop in June of 2019, I went back to what I did "before," which was working as a free-lance/contract book and manuscript editor.

I got off to a pretty good start, but after completing six jobs for about $12,000 in the second half of 2019, my business for all of 2020 dropped to just three jobs for less than $5,000, as people were unwilling to spend the money, due to what I've come to think of as "Covid uncertainty."

Jobs simply seemed to dry up, and I have never heard the words "Nah, I think I'll just be my own editor!" spoken more often.

My 2021 Goal is get back to at least $10,000 in revenue from editing gigs, even if I have to radically reduce my rates to get there.

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Financial Goal No. 2: Rebuilding my eBay Businesses

Being in the business of selling things during the P(l)andemic is not an easy row to hoe. It's not that my wares are bad, but more a case of hearing "I just can't spend any money right now because... COVID."

By the numbers:

For example, I saw my business selling old collectible postage stamps to collectors drop from $13,400 in 2019 to $3,400 in 2020, a drop of 75%. I'd hoped I'd do pretty well because people were trapped in their homes, and stamp collecting is an indoor hobby, but no.... My goal for 2021 is to get it back up to generating $10,000+ I expect countless hours of direct marketing (aka 1,000's of personal emails) will be needed.

My art, antiques and collectibles eBay dropped from $13,100 in 2019 to $8,300 in 2020, thankfully a smaller percentage drop. My goal for 2021 is to get it back to the $10,000+ mark.

Part of the plan for 2021 also includes reviving my "dormant" jewelry supplies business in the hope that it will be easier to market something that "helps people make money." My goal is to get to $5,000 in 2021. The reason I allowed it to fizzle out was lack of time when we opened our store in 2016.

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Financial Goal No. 3: Building my Online Art Sales

My painted @alchemystones have been a small part of how I earn a living for many years, as well as something I do for mental health and relaxation.

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In the past, Mrs. Denmarkguy and I have primarily sold our respective creative work via going to various "Arts and Crafts Fairs" around the region and beyond, but that was a total bust in 2020 as ALL the events we normally attend (7-8 of them) were canceled.

Meanwhile, the two local gift/crafts stores where I had items on consignment both went out of business during 2020.

Consequently, income from selling the art dropped from around $5,000 in most previous years to just $1,200 in 2020. Whereas I am well aware that "you can't hope to make a living from ART," that $5,000 helped us have a little "breathing room" for emergencies.

The challenge ahead is to build income from art sales back up through online sales only, since we still can't rely on face-to-face events being "a thing" in 2021. I am cautiously setting a goal of making $3,000 from online sales in 2021 which seems achievable with a lot of effort going to social media marketing.

Financial Goal No. 4: Publishing on Hive, Staking Hive and LEO, and What Thereof Follows

Powering up on Hive is essentially the only thing we have that even remotely resembles investing as our month-to-month income after taxes has been at or below what it costs us to live pretty basically for about 8 months now.

Sadly, there will be no "buying Bitcoin" or "buying Hive Power" for the foreseeable future.

However, I do plan to keep creating and publishing, and my "mini-goal" for Hive for 2021 is to make it to 10,000+ Hive Power by the end of the year, which will be the most I have had since starting here in January of 2017.

I plan to get there both via active publishing, as well as through extensive curation.

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I am going to keep some of my rewards in liquid form as an "Oh-shit fund" in case we suddenly need car repair, or a new water heater, or whatever this strange and unpredictable life might throw at us.

I am planning to publish a number of posts via LeoFinance, as well and my intention is to have at least 1,000 LEO staked by the end of 2021.

I basically view my Crypto Social activities as our long term savings plan, since pretty much any current cash we make tends to be spoken for, before we even have it in hand.

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Price Predictions for Hive and LEO

As part of this challenge, @theycallmedan also asks for a price prediction for both Hive and Leo.

Hive

I think Hive will slowly continue to sink — with a few minor up-blips — towards maybe 8 cents or so by the end of March or mid-April. Then "something" — potentially a broader alt coin rally when people take profit from BTC — will lift it to 20-25 cents in a matter of a couple of weeks, maybe even just a week. Then we'll see several months of it going sideways, but likely on increasing volume because there's more content creation activity.

Several new dApps/projects will come onboard, along with maybe another 3-4 2nd layer projects trying to emulate LeoFinance's success and we'll finally see some "value investors" decide Hive is undervalued and take substantial long positions, fueling a steady rise to maybe 50-60 cents by year end. I really don't see Hive having another parabolic rise to multiple dollars, but I hope I'm wrong!

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LEO

Feels a little harder to predict. Because of the low supply, it's easy for the price to move... a LOT. Projects like the @lbi-token can come along and substantially and unpredictably change the picture.

If all goes well, it probably won't be all that long before we see $1.00 LEO... and if the innovation and updates keep coming hard and fast without any flops, I'm not sure where the ceiling might be. However, pretty much all rallies take a breather to consolidate at a new level.

I'll cautiously predict that we'll be looking at $1.50-2.00 LEO at the end of 2021.

And that's about it for my 2021 goals and predictions. It'll be interesting to revisit this post in a year's time!

Thanks for reading, and have great rest of your week!

How about YOU? Have you participated in this challenge? What are your goals for 2021? Where do you think Hive and LEO are heading, this year? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Greetings bloggers and social content creators! This article was created via PeakD, a blogging application that's part of the Hive Social Content Experience. If you're a blogger, writer, poet, artist, vlogger, musician or other creative content wizard, come join us! Hive is a little "different" because it's not run by a "company;" it operates via the consensus of its users and your content can't be banned, censored, taken down or demonetized. And that COUNTS for something, in these uncertain times! So if you're ready for the next generation of social content where YOU retain ownership and control, come by and learn about Hive and make an account!

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(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly and uniquely for this platform — NOT cross posted anywhere else!)
Created at 20210107 14:18 PST

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19 comments
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@denmarkguy, Good luck towards your Editing Gigs. Crisis times really tests our Patience and Endurance. Have a abundant time ahead and stay blessed.

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Thanks @chireerocks, gonna do the best I can this year. These are uncertain times, so planning is important... but I'm also going to be flexible about it since we really don't know what's going to happen next>

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This has been a tough year and I feel you. This is a recovery year for me as well. I am not in the position to be taking big risk with my money and I have to keep it in relatively liquid form just for living expenses until I can find a job.

I have been writing on LeoFinance as more of a form of therapy. I only have 3 Hive Power, so I don't expect to make much writing or curating. For a while I wasn't even able to respond to comments and vote because my Resource Credits were so low.

Then luckily, a person on here took pity on me and delegated 100 HP to me just so that I can post. I won't name that person because I don't know if he would want me to.

Hopefully, I'll be getting some Leo soon. Best of luck to you in 2021!

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Thanks for the thoughtful comment @therecantonlybe1.

LeoFinance/Hive is definitely a catharsis for me, as well. The reason I even got involved with St€€m in 2017 was that it reminded me of the kind of "social blogging" venues I was part of from about 1999 to 2008-ish, before Facebook "ate the world." People would mostly write about their days and experiences and interests... and the engagement was excellent. There are still shades of that here, even though some of it has been lost to the focus on money.

I'm glad you got a delegation... it's frustrating to be part of a social site when your hands feel tied by inadequate resources!

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Yeah, I was very late coming into Facebook and I still really don't use it. Facebook is really about broadcasting yourself to try to attract attention and I am not want of those people that actually likes drawing attention to myself. I like this platform because nobody knows me here and I get to just engage with people. I don't really expect to make any money, so I try to just be me. Getting the delegation was really fortunate for me because without it I have to be very judicious with my upvotes, post, and replies. Even interacting with the wallet was difficult. I found myself having to wait half a day just to respond to something and then waiting again before I could do anything else. In retrospect, maybe I should have just bought some Hive on an exchange and powered it up just so I could post.

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I am definitely not a fan of Facebook, either. I do use it regularly, because my wife's non-profit has a couple of very active support pages there, and I keep pretty active business pages for my businesses and belong to a couple if interest groups. However, I can't get into the whole "Me, me, me, look at MEEEEEE!" circus.

I actually came to the old Steemit in early 2017 because I was fed up with people's bad behavior and hatefulness after the 2016 Presidential election... so I was very open to a new social venue. The fact that it felt like "social blogging" was the fringe benefit that made me stay here.

I'm still not really here "for the money," but I can't deny that the idea of using this as a sort of "long term savings plan" is very appealing.

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Congratulations @denmarkguy! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You distributed more than 54000 upvotes. Your next target is to reach 55000 upvotes.

You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

Do not miss the last post from @hivebuzz:

Feedback from the January 1st Hive Power Up Day
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Excellent financial plan, I hope you can achieve all your goals this year.

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Thank you! I definitely intend to to the best I can to reach them. 2020 was a very depressing year, around here!

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How on EARTH I didn't make the connection between you and @alchemystones I do not know, but to be honest, it's only lately that you've started commenting on my posts more than I realised! I wonder if little motivating quotes on the stones would make them more sale-able? Don't get me wrong, I totally love your beautiful artwork, but in these COVID times perhaps little inspiring quotes could be a winner? Just a thought, hope you don't mind the suggestion.

I'm sorry things are a bit dismal on the finances front - luckily i have a bombproof career as a teacher, though we didn't really want to go back and were using this year to find something else. sadly it's not a good time to be free and easy with job decisions!

Hopefully you'll find a good balance and niche.

I lvoed your prediction for HIVE - look it it doubles ish to 25 cents I'll be happy really. 12 cents is ridiculous. I still actually don't know why there aren't more people here - I mean, all moaning aside about little things, it's still way more fun than facebook.

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Yes, on the side I am @alchemystones! Both the part of walking on the beach and finding just the perfect stones to paint on (not as easy as you might think!) as well as the painting is a meditation and a crucial part of my mental/spiritual wellness. I don't mind suggestions at all; you're actually the 3rd or 4th person to suggest inspirational quotes or even just single words like "Love" and "Peace" and "Harmony" and such... I have previously resisted it because "it's already been done to death," but maybe with a unique twist it'll get things moving!

I'm glad you have such a solid job; that's definitely an asset in this day and age! My wife and I are both self-employed so we're entirely at the whim of the general consuming public... which can be tricky, at best.

Yes, Hive at 12 cents is ridiculous, but then I was also saying that when Steem was 7 cents. And it stopped being 7 cents, even though there were no significant developments happening there, while we DO have things going on.

And yes, I'll take this over Farcebook, any day!

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