2012 goals

I hate making goals because I hate seeing the failure when I don’t accomplish them. But I know it’s important to keep trying.

Personal Goals:

1 ) Health-Despite being pregnant, I would like to keep my health up. I mentioned in my post about last year’s goals that I feel so much better now than I ever have, and that’s because I am making my health a priority. I am finally motivated to exercise for health sake, rather than for a number sake. Because honestly, that never really motivated me anyway. So my health goals for the year are:

 a. run a 5k- probably after the baby. There’s a 5k for the Wentzville firefighters out here in October. I almost signed up for it this year, but ended up being sick that weekend anyway. I believe it’s for breast cancer awareness. If I feel super motivated, I may do one before the baby, but I honestly get really hot when I run. I prefer to run outside, so even though it’s been in the 30s or 40s in the mornings, I’ve been out there running. And It’s great. I finally found a pair of pants on clearance, so I am wearing those and a light jacket and if the sun is out, I end up taking the jacket off before my run is over. I imagine running a 5k anywhere from May to September will be miserable for me, especially being in my third trimester. But now I’ve put it out there, so I better make it happen, right?

b. keep running. At my very first appointment for this pregnancy, the nurse practitioner that I met with was concerned about my running. She said I should just walk. The other OBs I’ve seen haven’t been concerned. So I want to keep running as much as I can. I said before that some days are REALLY hard. I go as much as I can, and I’m okay with that. I know I am out there doing something, and that’s better than anything else.

c. eat healthy. This one is really hard for me during and after a pregnancy. Fast food sounds SO good ALL THE TIME when I am pregnant. It’s ridiculous. Add to that the sudden ravenous hunger strikes and you can see where I may have issues. I try to keep a granola bar in my purse or car all the time for when I am out, and in general I try to plan outings to occur before lunchtime, but it’s a big weakness for me. And we can’t afford it either. I’ve had so many stomach issues with this kid. The first few weeks, fresh fruits and veggies were the only things that tasted good to me. Then it was processed foods. Then everything I ate for lunch made me sick. Now, I seem to be okay with most things, but definitely craving seafood a lot. And focusing on providing lots of fruits and veggies to my kids is important to me too.

2) Blog more. I know. I’ve said it before. But I get really discouraged when I sit down to blog for “15 minutes” and it takes me 45 minutes to write the post and then I want to add pictures and blogger won’t add pictures and ugh. Right now I’m having to add pictures to blogger by using picasa because it won’t upload any photos for me. It’s frustrating.

3) Pictures. Continuing to take photos of my kids is important to me. I love looking through them and remembering how they have changed. I tend to pick my favorites and save them separately and when I see a free prints code somewhere, I get prints made. It works pretty well. I rarely spend any money on printing them. I did okay last year, but I want to do better.

4) Journal. Still something I struggle with. I want to write, but I have a hard time. As long as I can keep up wit hthe kids, I guess I’ll be okay for now.

5) Scripture study. This is one place that I feel I am doing really well in, but can always improve.  What helped me this year was printing a calendar all on one page and I mark off every day that I read. It’s really good for me to see what I am doing. I like the record. I tend not to read on weekends, which needs to change. So that’s my goal. I want to read every day. My mini goals for this are: read the Book of Mormon by Easter and read the Gospels (aka Life of Christ) by Easter. Can I do it? I hope so.

6) Prayer. This is another area I struggle with. It’s so hard for me to say a morning prayer. Unless I am able to get up before the kids every day, I just don’t have any me time until they go down for naps. So I am going to try to make morning prayers happen.

Family goals: These are my goals for our family. Alann generally supports me and trusts me to show the kids the way.

Where we are doing good: prayers. We switched a while ago to making our breakfast prayer more of a family prayer. We are usually together for breakfast, so it made sense. That has definitely been a good change in our lives. We almost always pray before eating- assuming I get everyone’s food on the table before the kids finish their meals anyway. That’s mostly a lunch problem. We often have different lunches because we are eating leftovers. So be the time I sit down, they are done. But Claire is asking to pray more and Alex is asking to pray, though he doesn’t really talk. He just folds his arms and bows his head and mumbles while I tell him what to say.  And the kids rarely let us go to bed without saying prayers. If we do, it’s because they fell asleep in the car or something.

FHE- Okay, seriously, this year, we are going to do it. Claire is definitely old enough to sit through 10-15 minutes. I think I will just go through the nursery manual for FHE or something.

Scriptures- also something we need to work on. I’ve got another calendar just for family scripture study to mark the days we read. And I really want this to work. I don’t care if the kids just run around while we read. I want to be reading.

Preschool for the kids- Alex is now at the age where he might enjoy some more learning type stuff. I do try to get the educational stuff out – the play doh, the finger paints, the beans (for scooping, pouring, making a general mess). We color. But I feel like so many of my days are spent doing anything other than interacting with my kids. They love to play together, which is great, but I also need to spend more time playing with them and teaching them. I’m not sure how I am going to tackle this one yet. I’ve still got the other program I was thinking of using for Claire. I can use it for both of them. It’s really still the preparation that bogs me down. He’s too young to understand a workbook. I think Claire may be as well. I just worry. I read a few parenting magazine and they all say kids in preschool do better in regular school. They tend to graduate from college and get advanced education, which is something I want for my kids. (Hopefully something with a little more use than my college degree, but if it makes them happy…) There are desperately few preschool programs here in town. The ones I’ve seen are $70 a month or more for a 3 year old class and there is no public preschool. And she wouldn’t be able to enroll until August anyway. Part of me says just find a good curriculum, buy it outright, use it with all the kids, and save lots of preschool moneys.  But the other part of me says “we don’t have the money and you won’t follow through anyway”. I really admire those women who homeschool their kids from scratch and piece together a curriculum and get just the books they want. But honestly, if I were to homeschool, I could not do it that way. I would have to buy a curriculum. So I don’t really know where to go from here. This is one of those ephemeral goals that may or may not be met.

Temple/Date Night- we do fairly well and get out about every 3 months. It’s pretty difficult to find a sitter here. I’ve got one that isn’t too far away and drives her own car, and the kids know her because she is one of the sitters at bible study, but she isn’t always available and Alann and I are so last-minute planners.  That’s my own fault I know.  Temple is also hard because they do the youth temple night the same night as the adults, so we can’t really go then because we have no sitter. But I want to work on it.

Less yelling/stress/fighting in the house. I’m not really sure how to work this one. I’m working on my part of it, but the kids are getting to the age where they are fighting over things now. Alex cries pretty often- probably 10 or more times a day. I’m trying to not be so quick to comfort him so that he learns to comfort himself and so they can learn to work things out themselves. Mostly I try to step in before someone loses an eye.

Goals for the New Year

Here are my goals for 2011. They are long and ambitious.

Personal-

1.  Blog more- I’m hoping this will be easy. Alann and I aren’t playing our online game anymore, so that frees up a lot of online time. I’m sure I can find something to blog about in 10-15 minute increments. I’m shooting for twice a week, but more would be great. I just tend to want to post everything at once and that takes a long time. It's the same problem I have with journaling. I feel like I have to get everything completely caught up which is overwhelming so I fall more and more behind. I'm trying to overcome this feeling.

2. Lose 30 lbs- I’m hoping to do this without adding exercise, because I don’t do well with exercise at night, which means getting up before the kids. Not a fan. But we will see. We have made some dietary changes and I’m giving that a week or two to see what happens. (Lost 3 pounds the first week! Of course, I also weaned Alex, so that may have something to do with it.) I’ll post more about that later. My goal weight is 150. That’s my “easy” weight. It’s easy for me to sit there. It’s still “overweight” according to the BMI, but let’s face it- I’ve had two kids, I’ve always had big hips and curves anyway, and I haven’t weighed the medically suggested 130 since freshman year- of high school. I’m happy with 150. So I am shooting for 140 (you can do the math yourself to find out what I weigh now. That’s between me, Alann, and Wii to know) and then will balance out to 150. Since I’m not nursing anymore, I’m hoping the last few Alex pounds will shed themselves. Then it’s just the Claire poundage.   

3. Keep a journal, okay, several journals. I have journals for Alex and Claire. I intended to journal about them periodically to help remember what they are doing. I packed Alex’s into a box by accident when we redid the old office, so I never even wrote in it. Claire I wrote in when she was 1, and haven’t touched since. So I would like to write for each of the kids, maybe once a week or month. And then a journal for myself. Sheesh. I’ve got a lot going on.

4. Picture a day- I want to keep this going. I’m shooting for a few days a week this year. I didn’t make every day last year, but that’s fine.  I definitely did better than Claire’s first year.

5. Learn to make soap- specifically liquid soap. I’ve got everything but the lye. I’m just waiting to get some other projects done first.

6. Speaking of projects- I will not pick up any more projects until I finish some. I seriously have a mountain of fabric in my sewing room that I need to go through- some is business, some is personal. I have so many projects to do- Alann's blanket, couch cushion covers, aprons, shopping bags, cloth napkins (using washcloths now and that works well). I have a post-it note army somewhere of all my projects. I need to pull it out again and look it over. I FINALLY finished Alex's second blanket. He was getting to the point where he knows if it is his or not, so I toughed it up and finished the second. Actually only took about 90 minutes of work. Some things that are catching my eye right now that I will NOT take up- quilting (why, I don’t know. Nobody I know quilts. Alann's blanket has been on my mind a lot and it is basically quilting, so maybe that is it), a better homeschool/preschool/teaching regimen for Claire. (Any pointers on teaching almost 2 year olds? She does play a lot, and read a lot, and I try to vary her activities, but I want to be more intentional about the time I am spending with her, about the things I am teaching her. She surprised me today. She can say about half the alphabet. Not in order, or without prompting, but she can actually say the letters. She can count to two on her own. She can say numbers up to six. AND!! She is starting to call me mom. A little. Every now and then. The other day at church, her nursery class walked by our open door, and she saw me. She said “mom mom mom!” until I looked at her.  It took me a minute to realize it was her and not her friend whose mom was sitting next to me.)

Religious goals

1. Scripture- I’m being ambitious. I want to read both the Book of Mormon and the Bible. I’ve never read the Bible all the way through. I haven’t finished the Book of Mormon in oh, about 2 years now. I’ve had a really hard time finding time for these things. I have found a breakdown of “how to read the bible in one year” that I printed off. It is both old and new testament. I picked the chronological breakdown, because it seriously confuses me when  the time changes back and forth. I’ve read the Book of Mormon at least 5 times now, and I have just recently figured out the historical context of some passages and how certain groups of people relate to others. I’ve decided to start taking a lunch break. I’ll eat with the kiddos, but then once they go to bed, I take my lunch break and study my scriptures for 20 minutes or so. I think this will really help me out in the long run.

2. Personal progress- I really want to finish my personal progress this year. This is for the Young Women in the church, but when I was in the stake leadership, I was encouraged to do it, and I still feel like I need to get it done. It will help me relate to my young women that I teach if I have done it and can help them or tell them how I got it done.

3. Temple-  every month. Go and do. It’s harder now. It's farther away and now I have two babies to leave with people. I also have several families who have offered to babysit. It’s just getting Alann

4. FHE- Claire is at the age that she would probably really like Family Home Evening with a lesson and everything. I think it may be easier if we did it not on Monday, just because Sunday we have church and Tuesday we have playgroup. So maybe Thursday would be better just to kind of space out the  “fun” stuff. I’ll have to talk to Alann about it.

Business

1. A new item 2x a week- this really means posting a new item twice a week, not necessarily creating a new offering or product line. It’s important in etsy to keep your listings at the top by posting frequently.

2. Alann's goal for my business is for me to have fun doing it. My goal for my business is to be able to pay for my upfront materials, and then maybe make a little profit. So far, I have paid my "business" credit card every month with sales since I have been open. I count that a blessing on my business so far.

3. Get the business aspect all up and running- LLC, business accounting, business taxes. I assume I am not going to make enough to get taxed on it, but I don't even know that. I really need to talk to a real small business expert in the financial field.

House

1. Schedule schedule schedule- I need to keep up with my schedule. I have a housework schedule worked out that should work, I hope. So far, it seems to.  The schedule thing has really worked well for me in the past, as long as I keep up on it. I’ve learned to just let it go if I don’t hit something, unless it is REALLY important like vacuuming the mountain of dog hair off the couch. The schedule I have means I hit all the important stuff often enough for the house to be decent. I’ve hit a few cleaning breakthroughs lately. Mainly, I bought a stick vac for the hard floors. Honestly, in our UT house, I rarely used the broom. Yes, it was all hardwood. But, there was a big rug in the middle of the living room, which meant vacuuming. And the house was so small that I could easily just vacuum up all the dog tumbleweeds roaming the corners and crevices of the house. Really, I could reach from one end of the house to the other with the vacuum plugged into the same outlet. My vacuum does have a decent length cord on it, but still, it wasn’t that far. I would get out the broom when the floor was crumby, and once a week or so, but I vacuumed up tumbleweeds two or three times a week. Our new house is LONG. The cord on the vacuum on the main floor- not so much. (Yes, I have multiple vacuums thanks to my generous in-laws who left some.) So, the tumbleweeds were really piling up. It was just SUCH a hassle to sweep that much and sweeping dog hair doesn’t really work well. (and don't get me started on swiffer. My dog hair LAUGHS at swiffers.) But using the vacuum meant replugging in three or more different places (and all the undoing of child prevention plugs and drawing attention to the cord and outlets that that entails). So I bought a stick vac, and it’s great. I’ve had it just a few days, and already Alex is MUCH less hairy when I pick him up after he has been crawling around. He will never be completely clean, because I just can’t vacuum in front of him no matter where he goes, but it is a significant improvement. This thing picks up the dog hair, the baby’s food, the crumbs, pretty much everything I could hope for. It’s cordless with a rechargeable battery and has a power brush on it. So far, the battery life is great. And the handle comes off so I can use it on the stairs. I bought a stick vac for two reasons- dog hair and the stairs. Two flights of stairs people- no vacuum small enough to use on them. And the dogs like to hang out on the stairs for some unknown reason. So you can imagine the state of the stairs. Much better now. My second main improvement: I’ve started keeping a clean kitchen. I know, I should always do that, but I just hate doing dishes. Something in it just makes me cringe. So I kept a perpetually dirty kitchen. But for the last week or so, I’ve been making an effort to clean the kitchen throughout the day and make sure it is clean, as in counters wiped, floors vacuumed, before bed. It has made a huge difference. I didn’t do it one night after doing it for a few nights in a row and it took me almost 3 times as long the next day with the kids interrupting. So that is a definite win. I will definitely be working on keeping that as one of my habits. And I am continually trying to improve my “while cooking” skills. I try to clean or set the table while I am in downtime parts of recipes. That helps too. I made soup and by the time we sat down to eat, the only thing left to clean was the pot. I’m also unloading the dishwasher first thing in the morning and loading dishes all day. I know a lot of this isn’t revolutionary, and most of you probably think I am gross for not doing these things before, but really, I just hate dishes. If I had a maid, she would clean the bathrooms first and do any dishes second.  Also on my schedule- laundry throughout the week instead of all together; and planning specific days for outings.

2. Speaking of being more intentional: A house binder- I’m working on creating a house binder. This is basically going to be all the important stuff- my cleaning schedule, menu, grocery list (maybe), daily schedules for me and the kids, and my scripture study materials/schedule. A lot of people keep them and I’ve never tried it. I have just a few pages put together and it really makes it simple to know where to look for things. I’m also going back to once a week or every other week grocery shopping. This fits in with the daily schedules thing. I have too many outings lately and not enough home time. It’s not good for the kids and it’s not good for the house.  Now, not being a waster of resources by nature, I’ve figured out a way to not have to print new pages all the time. I printed a blank menu page (just two weeks of days with spots for breakfast, lunch and dinner) and put it in a super-clear page protector. I can write on it with dry erase marker. It doesn’t come off too easily (works more like wet erase actually), but I can reuse the same page many many many times without waste.

3. Finances- I’ve let my financial upkeep fall by the wayside. I’m trying to fix this with a “financial hour” every week. This way, I can settle the accounts a few times a month instead of oh, 6 weeks later. I’ve been late with a bunch of my mortgage payments lately by just a day or two (luckily no actual late fees), and it’s just starting to get annoying. The mortgage company gets really concerned when you don’t make on-time payments several months in a row. I would get 5 calls a day from them until the payment went through. Part of my problem is not knowing where the money is (fixing that by getting a joint savings account) and not knowing how much we have or will have coming in (no real way to fix that yet). Alann’s work situation is hopefully changing for the better soon (he hasn’t really talked about it, so I won’t either), and that will require a different set of financial tools I think. So I am bracing and preparing for that.

So yeah, those are my goals for the year. A bit ambitious, maybe, but I am currently motivated to get them done. I’ll try to remember to revisit them throughout the year too. Oh, and a copy of my goals are going in my binder.

Recap of last year's goals.

So, here are my goals from 2010 and my analysis. I'm hoping this helps me some this year.
Religious Goals:
1) Really study my scriptures every day. Nope, giant fail. I went through periods where I would and then periods where I wouldn't. For a while, I was doing good about reading along with Sunday school. Fail. Having Alex has really made life more difficult. If anyone has any tips for getting this done, let me know.
2) Daily prayer- morning and evening. Still bad about morning. Evening prayers are usually more fervent and feel more better. I can't really find a useful way to describe it. It's more like it should be and less like it shouldn't.
3) Hold Family Home Evening and / or family scripture study. Nope. Big fail.
4) Go to the Temple monthly. Not so much. I think we went maybe 3 times last year.
Wow, as far as religious goals go, I failed hardcore. This year will be better maybe.

Personal Goals:
1) GO TO BED EARLIER! I try to make it to bed by 1030, but since we've moved, 11 or 12 is more likely. There is just SO much to do in this house that I don't even get time to myself until 10 at least.
2) Sew weekly. Doing pretty good with this. I've realized that I don't have to do a big project all at once. I can do small parts, and that helps. Claire likes to "sew" too, so that tells you how much I am doing it.
3) Take a picture every day. I did pretty good about this. I would say I took pictures of the kids at least once a week, on average. My new phone helps a lot, because it has a decent camera and can post straight to facebook.
4) Write in a journal. Nope. Failed again.
5) Read to Claire daily. I don't actually do this, but this is a huge win for us. Claire suddenly just decided to like books one day. She gets stories before bed now, currently read by Daddy. I do it every now and then, but she prefers him. I guess he's a better storyteller. Since I see her all day and he doesn't, I am more than happy to let him have that time with his baby. I do usually end up reading something to her a few times a week, because she will just bring a book over and ask.

Household goals:
1) Donate 50 items to DI (Goodwill) over the course of the year.  Done and done. We got rid of lots of stuff. I quit counting. Of course, moving helps. I am in the habit of keeping a box of donatable baby clothes and when I find something that I just don't like, in it goes.
2) Keeping up with housework. This is a roller coaster. I'll talk more about it when I post new goals for this year.

I think the take-away with this is that I need to take more time for myself this year. I need to put the Lord first. And I might have to actually set an alarm clock and get up before the kids. Ugh.

Goals for the year

I won't call these New Year's Resolutions, because honestly, I don't think I have ever kept a single one past Jan 5th. But these are goals that I have for this year. Things that will hopefully make me a better mother and better disciple of Christ.
Religious Goals:
1) Really study my scriptures every day. I struggle with this so much. I feel 100 times better when I do it, and 100 times worse when I don't, and I still have problems actually getting it done. I've started reading the Ensign (church magazine) at night before bed, and that has helped me feel a lot better in general too, but it doesn't replace the scriptures.
2) Daily prayer- morning and evening. Evening is easy. Mornings are rough. I tend to get up when Claire does, and then she wants to eat right away and needs to be changed. So an hour or more goes by before I can even think about taking any time to myself.
3) Hold Family Home Evening and / or family scripture study. I know. We should be doing both. But we are starting from zero here. I'll be happy if we can do our FHE every week.
4) Go to the Temple monthly. This is always a goal of mine, and some times are harder than others. I think we went three or four times last year total. Not so good. This year, I want it to be different.

Personal Goals:
1) GO TO BED EARLIER! Sheesh, I cannot stress that enough. Going to bed at 11 just doesn't cut it for me. My goal is to be in bed by 10. This will hopefully lead to getting up earlier (as in before Claire) which will lead to a happier mommy.
2) Sew weekly. Sewing is really my creative outlet right now, and I am feeling a little stifled by not doing any. So I really want to sew once a week.
3) Take a picture every day. (I found this on another blog, but I'm not a regular reader of it so I don't know where.) It can be of anything. Really, I just want to get in the habit of taking more pictures. Sometimes a whole month or more goes by and I realize I haven't taken any pictures and Claire has changed SO much in such a short amount of time. So I am working on a daily picture.
4) Write in a journal. I tend to view this blog as my journal, which is and isn't good. It's good if the internet continues on and my grandkids can find my blog and read about me. It's not so good if the apocalypse comes and electricity and internet goes away. So I want to keep a paper journal. I guess a good place to start would be writing down these goals.
5) Read to Claire daily. At the moment, I end up reading to an empty room because she has run away from me. She won't sit still and look at the pictures. But I think that if I just keep reading, maybe she will get interested and come look at the book with me. I'm hoping anyway.

Household goals:
1) Donate 50 items to DI (Goodwill) over the course of the year. This is roughly one item a week. I got the idea for this from someone who is donating 750 items to Goodwill over the course of the year- that's 2 a day. Luckily, I don't think we are that cluttered, so I went a little more conservative. I did set myself some rules though- if I replace an item, giving away the old doesn't count. And 5 items of baby clothes counts as 1 item. We do have a good amount of girly clothes, and have been given some from friends. Some of it, I just don't dress Claire in and I honestly can't see myself dressing ANY of our children in it. So that stuff needs to go. I don't want to get rid of stuff just to get rid of it. But I want to purge our house of seriously unnecessary items (like the knife block that has been sitting on our counter for 5 years, that I haven't actually used in at least 3. I finally wrapped that thing up in plastic so nothing falls out and am giving it away. The knives are okay for amateur cooks, but I just don't see myself in that light. A girl can dream okay).
2) Keeping up with housework. I'm doing pretty good since I set myself a schedule, but with baby 2 on the way, I'm sure I will need all the reinforcements I can get. The kitchen is the place that I consistently try and fail at. Now that Alann is unloading the dishwasher for me, I am finding myself more able to keep the counter cleaner. Not clean yet, but cleaner. And I am really trying hard to do dishes daily, especially pots and pans. I am trying to at least get the day's pots and pans washed. If the dishwasher is empty, I can load the eating dishes in there right away. I am also trying to let go and put more things in the dishwasher. Now that we have a baby who eats real food, we do use more dishes, and the dishwasher needs to be run almost daily. If I can overcome my prejudices and do things like put the mixing bowls in the dishwasher, I can run it pretty much every day. I still won't run my pots and pans in there, because I love them and don't want to ruin them, and they specifically say to hand wash. My knives are the same. But other stuff can go in there. I say "it's easier to wash it by hand than put it in the dishwasher and take up the room" but not if it sits on the counter for days. I've also added a few things to my schedule that have been on a "as needed" basis which turns into a not done basis- sheets and bath towels specifically.

So those are my goals for the year.

My goals for Feb 2008 (because it's a short month, hopefully this will be easy)

1) Double my fast offerings. Alann told me a story last night about a couple that were on the point of bankruptcy who heard Spencer W Kimball’s promise to double their fast offerings and they would receive an increase in their household. (They turned into millionaires.) I tried to find President Kimball’s exact talk, but I couldn’t. I did however find an article from President Hinckley that mentioned that, as well as a few other very good pointers about life. It is called “Climbing out of debt” by President Hinckley, in the July 2002 Ensign. We already pay $10 a month in fast offerings. Theoretically, you should pay the cost of 2 meals. I have never actually done the math, $10 just seemed right. I just did the math, and assuming we spend $200 a month on food (we usually try to spend between $50 and $100 every 2 weeks), we are spending $7.14 a day. So $10 seems right. But this month, my goal is to spend $20 on my fast offering. It should be easy. I just got a raise. The hard part will be continuing on from here. But I have the faith. I trust the Lord. He has never steered me wrong.
(Hopefully, this link will point you in the right direction. If not, go to LDS.org, and search the title of the talk. )
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=b8f876e6ffe0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1
Also, check out "To the Boys and To the Men" by President Hinckley in Nov 1998. This is the talk that the previous link refers to. My, how prophetic it sounds now...
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=cac5605ff590c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1
2) Don’t buy anything. Okay, don’t buy anything unnecessary, or more accurately, don’t buy anything that isn’t in the budget. As in, we can buy groceries, because oh my goodness we have NO food in the house, and it is a budgeted expense, but I will not buy anything from Wal-Mart, just because I am there. (I am actually thinking about returning some things that I know I want and will use but because it will help me out.) This is partly out of necessity (my spending is doing a dangerous upturn again) and partly because I REALLY want to pay off my debt. February is shaping up to be an awesome month. We both have third paychecks, we will hopefully at least know what our tax refund will be, one of my CD’s is maturing, and I am reading Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover. Oh, and I got a letter from the Post office yesterday saying that I have a check to pick up. I thought I got my last check, but apparently not. So I am way excited about that. I don’t have any idea how much it will be or anything. I thought I timed my quitting right so that I would get a full paycheck. So we are talking may $350 or $400. (Capital one, here I come!!)
3) Increasing the value of our home. We want to get an appraisal done at the beginning of March so that we can see if refinancing is even an option. So we need to clean up: add baseboards (maybe), trim and paint the kitchen, put the hood up, paint and clean up the bathroom. We want it to look pretty spiffy, so that even though all of the work isn’t done quite yet, it still looks good. I am totally committed to doing the work. And luckily, we have most of the stuff already, so it won’t go against my previous two goals. The only thing we need to buy is paint for the kitchen. I am pretty sure we already have bathroom paint.
Wish me luck!