First off, Happy New Year! I wish all of my family, friends and blog-friends a happy, healthy and prosperous new year! There’s something so nice about a fresh new year. The holidays are cleared out of the way and there’s months to go before summer, so why not try to get a little “out with the old, in with the new” action, right?
It seems as if everyone is down on “resolutions” nowadays and the new message being preached is to make very specific, written goals. I have not come up with those goals yet. But I probably should. Right now I just have the vague resolutions that everyone has: lose weight, save money, spend more time with family, read more, be a better person, etc. 😉
The only really specific thing I mentioned in my last post (which was just a menu plan Monday) is that we are trying out the envelope system for budgeting. Marc and I read a Dave Ramsey book a while back (…I want to say it was Total Money Makeover, but I really don’t remember) and he definitely presents a solid plan for paying off debts and saving your money, but it is a wee bit extreme. But the envelope system really makes a lot of sense to me, it is where you set aside envelopes of cash in advance, so that you can plan to spend only that amount each week. Marc gets paid every two weeks so I just made two weeks of envelopes at one time. Right now we are doing five envelopes, one for gas for each car, one for a (very) little spending cash each, and one envelope for groceries. We’ve done one week so far and it’s been pretty hard. But in a way it’s also fun to try and make it work, I like a little challenge.
Today we also unearthed and purged our total mess of a garage. It was essentially a dumping ground for all the boxes and bins when we moved in, and it really, really needed to be done. Since Marc had off today we made that our day’s focus. It was a bit difficult at first, we had Rayna outside with us and she was in the way, then Marc was being disagreeable and dramatic about it all, and then finally, later when both kids were down for the afternoon nap we managed to pretty much finish it. There’s still a lot more to organize, but it’s 1,000 times better than it was. So that was really nice to start the year off in such a productive way.
Now I will just have to sit down and come up with specific, actionable goals and then I’ll share them here. I read the Money Saving Mom blog and I have to say her goals are so intense. She has broken down homemade projects to try every month, books to read every month, audiobooks to listen to every month. It’s amazing. Maybe if I can even have a fraction of those goals I’ll be in good shape. 
Photo credit: danielmoyle
