Thursday, February 4, 2010

January Wrap Up and February Week One

I've been trying to post for 2 weeks now, so I guess I'll just condense my thoughts into one.

January was a pretty successful month, as far as resolutions go. Usually I abandon them by about Day 3, so I'm happy that I got through the month at least TRACKING my progress. Here's how it turned out:

  1. No Spend: 5 of 31 days. I was only looking at TRUE no spend days, no bill paying, no necessities, etc. Yeah, nearly impossible.
  2. No Drive: 0 of 31 days. Completely impossible. At least right now. I started out trying to at least track mileage, but it's just not happening.
  3. Exercise: 3 of 31 days. I was either sick or lazy or busy all month. Going to have to try harder here.
  4. Intentional Parenting: 5 of 31 days. This is the name I came up with (OK, read on another blog) for what I was thinking about the Mommy thing. More about that another time. Obviously I spent more time THINKING about it than DOING it.
  5. Weight: Went down 6 of 31 days for a total loss of 4lbs. Totally reasonable, so I'm happy. Also, that's 10% of my overall goal, so definitely happy with that.
  6. Cook: 24 of 31 days, which includes days we were not home for dinner but didn't eat out (party one night, ate at a friend's another). Based on my history, this is amazing progress!
  7. Water: I couldn't even track it, so I'm sure I wasn't drinking it!
  8. Kitchen: All dishes washed, sink/stove clear: 14/31. Not too bad!

I know some could use some work (Parenting, Water, Exercising). I'm not giving up and more importantly I'm not beating myself up. I've rearranged the goals for February. I dropped No Spend and No Drive, they are just not attainable right now. I've replaced them with turning off the computer/printer before bed and working towards the impending move. Since the start of the month I've been sick and I'm pleased with my progress so far despite that.

The other goal for the month is a Pantry/Freezer Challenge. As of right now, it would appear we could be moving within the next 2-3 months, so I want to clear out my stockpiles. My goal is to make do with what we have, buying only produce and dairy as needed. I know it's not 100% realistic because a demanding 3 year old will run out of cheese doodles next week, but I'd love to keep the grocery budget down to $100 for the month.

Last month, with the stockpiling, grocery expenditures were roughly $500 - that included diapers, wipes, cleaning products, etc. My savings are estimated at $350, so my TRUE spending should have been over $800. We won't need Cheerios for quite some time and I see a lot of chicken dishes in our future, but we have enough of most stuff for at least the next 2 weeks. That last week is going to be tough, but we'll see how it goes.

Finally, I'm hoping to blog more often. Ideally my thoughts would be more organized instead of all jumbled (you know, like this post), but I had to do a little brain dump tonight so I could get on with my life. I'm trying to make small changes, track progress and work towards building something better and more meaningful than passing my time until I feel like it's the RIGHT time to start trying harder. I can't change my entire life and outlook on it overnight, but I can try to be more intentional in all that I do. That's the goal. And, like I said, more on this whole intentional thing another time.

1 comment:

  1. You're doing GREAT!! Even if you just accomplished one of your goals, most of the time and you did more than that!! Keep up the progress and don't beat yourself up!! You're only human!

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