I made some really good progress with my financial goals throughout July. This includes my newer goal of saving towards a house deposit.

If you want to see a run down of each of my goals, with details on how I plan to achieve them, check out my original blog post for my 2020 goals here: https://nathanchallengeslife.com/2020/01/06/goals-for-2020/

Financial/Wealth

1. Reach a net worth of $100,000
   • Throughout July, my networth increased 18.7% to reach $61,188! I was really happy to see this. All of my investment and money accounts increased. Always excited seeing it increase and super keen to see how it goes over the next few months!
2. Grow my Australian investment portfolio to $70,000
   • My portfolio grew from $52,945.45 to $54,959 over July. This was great to see considering I haven’t been putting anymore into this due to my goal saving for a house.
   • I use Self Wealth for my main Australian portfolio, due to its very low brokerage fee. If you sign up using my link, you and I will receive 5 free trades 🙂 – more than happy to discuss investing and get you started if you are interested in long term wealth creation! https://secure.selfwealth.com.au/Registration/Plan/5/zRml4
3. Save/invest at least 50% of my income
   • In July, I saved 52% of my take-home income! It always feels amazing to reach the monthly goal – which will help reaching the yearly goal. For those curious, my monthly income for July was $5549, with expenses being $2659. See below for a run down of my spending in July. Again, expensive dentist visits were the major expenses, but also multiple smaller items added up.

4. Save for a House Deposit – NEW GOAL

• As mentioned in my mid-year review last month, my new goal is to save as much as possible towards a house.
• Since beginning this goal a few months ago, I’ve now saved $3,188!
• It’s a long way off a decent deposit – but it sure is gaining ever so slowly! All of my savings throughout each month are going to this. Hopefully I have around $15,000 by the end of the year.

Health/Wellbeing

1. Lower body fat to 15%
   • I went to get this tested at the mPort machine, now that it’s open post-covid shutdown. I came in at 19% body fat. While it isn’t too bad considering the long break from the gym during covid – I’m quite dissapointed with what it is, considering my starting point was 22% at the start of 2020.
   • I will be creating a video series on my YouTube channel on my journey to 15% body fat.
2. Increase lean muscle mass
   • The scan came in at 65kg lean muscle mass. I was 66kg at the start of the year, so definitely have to work on increasing this.
3. Increase strength across major lifts
   • My strength is returning post covid-gym-lockdown. Still a bit off from where I was at the start of the year, but gaining it back slowly. I will probably reassess my strength in the new few months to see where I’m at and to see whether I need to focus more on it in the last few months of the year.

Happiness/Other

1. Expand PedalPay (www.pedalpay.com.au)
   • Not much has changed here. I’ve been finding it hard to commit time to this given my interest is much more on expanding Nathan Challenges Life. I will need to commit some time to this over this month to catch up. Even posting on social media will help.
   • Check out PedalPay on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
   • Currently at 66 members and 4 stores.
2. Expand Nathan Challenges Life (www.nathanchallengeslife.com)
   • As at 8 August 2020, I have published 22 videos on my YouTube channel, with 8,390 total views and 86 subscribers! Really happy with how it’s going. I was trying to stick to a weekly upload schedule, but a few things got in the way. I’ve got a lot of videos to work on and publish, probably about 3-4.
   • Check me out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more recently, TikTok.
3. Reduce single-use plastics and non-recycled products
   • This has been going well – during the cheap food challenge 30-day challenge we completed recently, we didn’t really buy any snacks.
   • We will be doing a 30-day no plastic challenge – which will really help to progress this goal.
4. Reduce consumption of added sugar in foods and drinks
   • Definitely made progress on this. Given dental concerns, I’ve tried to avoid all sugary and carbonated drinks, only having about 2-3 over all of July.
5. Read 25 books
   • In July I finished Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, Unshakeable by Tony Robbins, Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc, and The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma.
   • Currently reading The Art of Resillience and a number of paper books to get through. Currently at 15/25 for 2020!

Overall, it’s gone well throughout July.

A couple of things I need to work on:

• Specifically, working harder on my fitness goals of losing fat and gaining muscle. Definitely need to put more effort into those.
• Try not to spend money on useless items.
• Work on my YouTube channel

Until next time, keep working on your goals and challenging yourself to be a better version of yourself.

Nathan