I think making up your own mnemonics is a great strategy. I make up some of my own too.
I have this problem too, but I find that after getting it wrong a couple (or a few times) I start to figure it out.
I think once you get a little further along and know more Japanese, this will get easier because you can make mnemonics with Japanese words and then you won’t have this additional step.
Happy 3 month-versary @sushi-fish!
Here’s my stats update. 
As you can see, I hit my longest time on a single level - thanks to my work running a 4-day online conference for work. 
I think I’m still feeling the after effects of that upset to my routine - some of those kanji/vocab are coming back up and I seem to be getting more of them wrong and as a consequence my accuracy is going down slightly…I’m also starting to hit a lower accuracy with my summaries too. But overall, I’m still really happy with how things are going.
I had a pretty exciting moment this past month too when I came two instagram posts by native speakers where I was able to read all the kanji! (One was a previous student of mine when I was an ALT - I can’t believe he just celebrated his 28th birthday! - and the other is a Japanese friend I made while working on a farm in Japan during the summer almost 6 years ago).
I need to get back on some more focused reading practice though.
How’s it going with you? Also, how are you doing @samk ? I’d love to see stats from anyone else who wants to share.
Still going strong, I fell in bit of a drought when I tried to follow the “max 100 items at Apprentice” methodology which killed the forward momentum, but now picking up the pace again. Missed couple days just due to lack of energy, working 2 jobs and writing thesis at the same time can occasionally make it bit difficult to manage the study time.
My biggest enemy right now is the kanji for “Month” when it changes reading seeminly at random:
来月 = らいげつ
何月 = なんがつ
毎月 = まいげつ
For kanji like month and person (which kan be jin/nin just at random as well) I had to make a rule like “The default is getsu. Whenever the reading is gatsu, I have to picture the Great Gatsby doing something with the other part of the word. Like nangetsu - great gatsby eating nan. If there is no picture, then it’s likely getsu” 
an extra mnemonic but I couldn’t get it to stick otherwise!
Edit: Oh, and all the month names are gatsu, and nangatsu. Otherwise I think they’re all getsu.
