It’s weird to publish March’s report when April is more than half over, but here we are. That shows you how far behind I am. When we finished March, the first quarter of the year was over. By the time you are reading this, you have to be around 30% of the way to achieving your goals for the year. If you aren’t there, it’s time to get cracking. Summer will come soon, and I know I’ll want to spend time outside enjoying the weather.
On the topic of enjoyment, we spent half of March on vacation. That had a huge effect on my goal progress for the month. It will be a recurring theme in almost every area.
I often like to highlight some of the things we did for the month, but the vacation recap works well for that.
Setting Goals for 2025
I put all my goals in a spreadsheet. Here’s what it looks like for this year. I’ll explain what each one is in this article and give the results through March.
(Click it and it will open in a new tab.)
Steal this idea and make it yours. I make an absurd number of goals I know I’ll never complete. It gives me the flexibility to fail on some things as long as I’m making progress on others. Most people would do the opposite, focus on fewer goals, and aim to get them all done. It’s much less overwhelming. As always, I’m pretty crazy, so do what works for you.
Passive Income
I have three side hustles with a passive component: a dog-sitting business, this blog, and I manage a website for a non-profit. They all require some active work. However, I can get paid by all three even while working a full-time job. I do some other hourly work that isn’t passive income. That isn’t included here, of course.
In the past, I’ve written a whole monthly article on this passive income. I’ve cut out the fluff to give you the numbers with minimal explanation. If this area seems off or confusing, perhaps the last full article will make more sense.
Dog, Blog, and Web Income
Dog boarding income wasn’t great in March. It’s always one of our worst months since we are traveling for a couple of weeks. Compared to last year, we made 4% more – pretty much the rate of inflation.
Blog income was a little better than earlier this year. However, blogging barely brings in any money nowadays.
Finally, I make a very little bit of money by running a website for a non-profit. I get a set amount every month, and most months, I don’t have to do too much.
All of these require some work, but a lot of it is fairly passive. I can work at another job from home while I am boarding a dog. I make a very little bit of money in my sleep from blogging and simply being available to do the website work. I consider income from these areas as half passive income.
Last month, I made $4,431.19 in income from these sources. This month, the total dog/blog/web income was $2,341.90.
Rental Property Income
We have two rental properties. We still have mortgages on them, so the rental income is around $700/mo. We will pay off one mortgage in 2027. The other one is a small loan, but it has another 15 years on it. If they were both mortgage-free, we’d make around $25,000 a year after all expected expenses including maintenance.
Last month one our of tenants broke the lease and moved out suddenly. It’s always when you are on vacation, right? We’re renovating the property as much of it was from the 1980’s. It’s going to be an investment, but we should be able to make around $800/mo. More than what we were getting before.
For the purpose of this report, I calculate the rental property income using the following formula:
(Rents After Estimated Expenses) * (Equity Percentage Owned) = Income)
Estimated expenses are insurance, property taxes, condo fees, and condo maintenance. Equity Percentage Owned (EPO) is our total equity divided by the property value in Zillow. (Zillow is very accurate for our condos.)
In March, Zillow estimated our properties were worth about $3000 more dollars. We paid off another thousand in mortgage principal. That meant that our EPO went from owning 82.41% of our properties to 82.65% of the properties. The rents (when they were both occupied) after expenses are $2,218/month. Using the equation above, our income from this area would be $2,196.
I’m going to ignore the reality that we aren’t getting any money while we are renovating it. This is why I adjust the rents downward to include expenses.
Managing rental properties requires some work. We’re doing some of that now for the first time in a couple of years. For this reason, I only count 80% of this number as passive income.
Dividend Income
My wife and I have been nearly maxing out our retirement accounts for a couple of decades. The markets have done very well over that time. Overall, we have a nice retirement nest egg.
I don’t track dividends from all the accounts. I’m doing well to get my wife to log into her TSP (government’s version of a 401k) account and give me the totals. Instead of tracking dividends, I assume we could invest the money into an ETF that pays a 2.5% dividend. For example, HDV currently yields 3.3%.
I also have profit-sharing income with a private company in which I own a small stake. I get a check each month that behaves like a dividend – it’s just taxed a little differently.
I take all these numbers on the 5th of the month, so that I have rent checks cleared and mortgages paid. When April 5th came around, the market had a couple of days of the Tariff Crash of 2025. That sharply reduces this estimate.
In February, we could have made $5,042 in dividends. In March (well, April 5th), that fell down to $4,586. I started to implement my tariff playbook, and I feel well-positioned for whatever comes next.
Unlike the previous two sections, this income is 100% passive. For this reason, I don’t have to adjust the numbers.
Total Passive Income
Dog/Blogs: $2,341 – Adjusted by 50% to $2,171
Rentals: $2,196 – Adjusted by 20% to $1,757
Dividends: $4,586 – Remains at $4,586
Dogs/Blogs Blue Line
Rental – Red Line
Dividend – Yellow Line
Total Adjusted Passive Income: $7,513.75
Usually, I don’t have a lot to say about this number, but I’m very excited about it. We had a double whammy of a being on vacation and a market crash. In 2021, $7513 was about the best I could hope for. Now, it represents a very bad case scenario.
Here’s a graph of the adjusted passive income since 2017, when I started keeping track:
The blue line represents the monthly total adjusted passive income. The Red Line represents the 12-month average. This removes some of the seasonality of dog boarding. I’m mostly focused on that red line. March was a new all-time, with an average of $8,735.90 over the last 12 months. Less and less of this income is dependent on my quasi-passive income, like dogs/blogs.
My goal is to get this to $109,000 for the year and I’m on pace for $100,000. It looks like it’s going to be close.
My wife continues to work as well. She has 26 years in the military and will be getting a pension that would double all this passive income.
I can’t think of anywhere else to put this information, but our net worth went down -5.98% last month. For the year, it is down -6.31%. Hopefully, tariffs will get figured out and things will go back to where they were.
Business and Other Money Goals
Personal Income ($75,000)
Three years ago, I made over $98,000 in side hustles. Two years ago, I made $88,000. Last year, I made a little more than $81,000. I see a trend, and it is not great.
This year, I’m going to aim for $75,000. I think earning income is generally going to head down for a while. That’s okay; our passive income is going up, so we’ll come out ahead.
Through March, I made around $16,126, which is a pace for just under $64,504. That’s about where I expected to be after the vacation. I’m not worried as the income earning engine is going well through April thus far.
Complete Estate Planning
Last year, I made a huge effort to get an estate plan together. I got it about 95% done. In March, I think we walked it over the finish line. I still have a “i” and “t” to dot, but we’ve signed all the paperwork with the lawyer. I’ll call this 99.9% done.
Kid Wealth (Goal: 50,000 Page Views)
For the fourth year, I hope to get to 50,000 page views on Kid Wealth.
In 2022, I launched Kid Wealth and wrote a lot of articles. It had 4,200 page views that year. In 2023, I got involved in other projects, but I tripled traffic to 13,708. Last year, traffic continued to grow to 16,352, even though I only wrote a couple of articles.
At the end of March, we had 40,659 lifetime views. It’s on target to get to 50,000 page views towards the end of the year.
I haven’t written any articles for it this year. I simply haven’t had any time with other interests. I’ve always looked at it as a hobby with potential to be a business. However, with Lazy Man and Money turning from a business into a hobby it’s hard to justify spending a lot of time on two money writing hobbies.
Professional Improvements
For now, I am creating a website and showing off a portfolio of what kind of websites I can do. Like most things, I got a start on that website, but my progress has stalled.
I’m not sure if I’ll make progress on this.
Health
I’m putting a large emphasis on health these days. It’s so big that I wrote a separate article about it. My health goals for 2025 are here.
Weight and Body Fat (Goal: 164lbs / 19% BF)
At the end of March, my average weight was 172.7 pounds, which was a gain of 0.1 lbs from last month. My body fat was 22.1%, which was a drop of 0.2%.
These numbers come with a huge asterisk though. For the last two weeks, I was on vacation and not weighing in. When I got back, I had gained about 9 pounds that averaged as one day in the March average. (When I fly, I always seem to gain an extra 4-5 pounds that disappears in a day or two and this was no exception.) So for April, I started off having my work cut out for me.
Before the cruise, I had gotten down to 170.3 pounds, so I feel like the goal weight is achievable. I’m not sure about the body fat percentage.
Body and Brain Points (300 and 200 respectively)
I score myself from 1 (poor) to 5 (great) each week for diet and exercise. I then add them up for the month. This was not a great month as the cruise lead to a poor diet. However, I got more exercise because I wasn’t tied to a computer. Poor diet and average exercise isn’t a winning combo.
At the end of March, I had 66 points, which at 22 points a month is a pace of 264 points.
I measure brain points on the same scale. They are based on doing things like the daily Wordle, Connections, and a new thing I’m looking to add: Murdle. They are a mix of a logic puzzle with the board game Clue. If you are into that kind of thing, give it a try. That’s an affiliate link, by the way, so I’ll make a dollar or two if you do.
At the of March, I have 33 brain points. That’s a pace for only 140 points for the year.
Blood Pressure (Goal: 115/75)
I have a family history of high blood pressure. I had a little medical scare in the first couple of days of the year. I started taking my blood pressure and graphing it for my primary care physician. My blood pressure in January averaged 138/92. My doctor saw the results and decided to put me on lisinopril 5mg. In February, my average blood pressure dropped to 132/90. It was an improvement, but not enough. In the middle of March, I had enough data to ask my doctor to increase it to 10mg, and she agreed. However, I went on my trip and didn’t get good data on if it improved things.
For the first part of March, my average was 126/88, which is at least heading in the right direction. This month should be better.
Doctor Appointments
I didn’t have any doctor appointments in March, but I will look to book a Cologuard test soon.
Longevity Research
I’m also way overdue for getting another DexaFit scheduled. I couldn’t fit it in before the vacation and I wanted to get back in the swing of health stuff after. Other than that, getting my blood pressure and colon tests are more important right now.
Hobbies
Boost AI Skills
I want to get better at the following:
- Google Notebook LM
- Creating AI human video avatars
I didn’t make any progress on either of these, but like nearly everyone else, I played around with ChatGPT’s much-improved image generator. I haven’t gotten around to making an Action Figure/Barbie Box if you’ve been following that viral meme.
3D Printing
I had this on my list all last year as I have a 3D printer, but I haven’t been able to load the filament correctly. It feels like I should be able to carve out a half hour and move forward with this. Yet, here we are, and it’s still on the list.
Journaling
I should be keeping a journal of some kind. Lazy Man and Money is my money journal. The goal is a journal for everything else.
Here are some other ideas of things I want to work on this year:
- Learn to fly a flight simulator
- Play a modern song on a ukulele
- Rubik’s Cube – I can solve it, but I was thinking about learning an advanced algorithm to do it faster. This is unlikely to happen
You may recognize the last two of these hobbies from my brain health goals for 2025.
That’s a big zero improvement in hobbies this month. The kids and I enjoyed rock climbing on the cruise, so maybe we’ll add that to the mix.
Family
Declutter and Organize House
In March we got a bunch of Lutron Caseta lights put in. They are smart lights that work with home automation stuff. Now, I can almost say a single command and have the lights go down and the TV turn to a dog channel on YouTube. The second part still requires a couple of buttons, but it great to calm the dogs or if I have to run an errand. This is probably 50% hobby for me and home improvement.
Also, on the topic of home improvement, we had two rooms painted while we were on vacation.
While neither of these fit into the title, they fit the spirit.
Travel
I’ve written enough about our recent trip already.
Upcoming trips:
- June – Annual trip to Block Island. It’s cheaper during shoulder season, and we can get there by short drive and ferry. I love to get away from technology for a little while.
- August – We’ve just started planning this, but it looks like we’re taking a road trip to Toronto and stopping at the sights along the way. None of us have ever been to Toronto, so it’s something new. We can stop by the Basketball Hall of Fame, the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Niagara Falls on the way. We can come back through Hershey, Pennsylvania, and American Dream in New Jersey, which are two of the kids’ favorite places.
- December – Usually, we try to go to Aruba around this time. It’s always hard to fit it in with the kids’ break and getting back for Christmas. We sold our use of the timeshare this year, and it was more than expected. That money will cover most of our costs for the June and August travel.
Kids
The kids continue to do their elite private school thing. It’s getting absurdly expensive, but my wife’s military discount gives us a big break. Outside of that, the biggest things are summer camps and after-school activities.
After School Activities
The 12-year-old had a successful play performance in Alice in Wonderland and is gearing up for another with Hello Dolly. The 11-year-old started lacrosse. He had his first game, and it went well, but he told me that he’s afraid he’s going to get hit. I think he signed up without knowing what lacrosse is. If that’s the case, it’s a valuable lesson learned.
Summer Camps
I’m still waiting to hear of a cyber camp that opens up in May for the 12-year-old. Depending on how that works out we’ll have to fill in another camp or two.
Final Thoughts
A month when I’m on vacation is always a difficult one to write about. When you add a tariff crash to the mix, it’s a recipe for a reset. It seems like everything is about 20% off of where I want it to be. April’s report should hopefully cut that in half.
