My mini-goals for January

Pin It   Well, I finally decided on my mini-goals for this month. I will post 5 goals every month this year and give an update on what I achieved at the beginning of the next month.

    So here we go:

1. Blog at least 15 times this month.
   It's the same goal I have in my yearly goals and it seems to be easily achievable but considering that last time around I stopped blogging before I could even reach THIS amount of posts, I think it's worth to be mentioned as a separate monthly goal.

2. Stay within our food budget.
   Our current budget is $280 for 2 adults, 2 kids (one in diapers) plus 2 more kids that I babysit two times a week and feed at least twice a day. I was blown away to see that just a year ago my food budget was only $175, and I was pretty close to making it. The prices really went up ! My "food budget" actually includes food, all HBA, household cleaners, diapers and other necessities.

3. Create a menu every week and post it here.
   I was pretty good with working on my menu lists the last quarter of 2011 and I want to keep doing it. Cleaning the refrigerator on Mondays and creating a menu really helps me to know what we need to buy, what needs to be used and what we have more than we can eat ( like candies after all the holidays...Now I just need to convince my ODS that we don't need that many...)

4. Try at least 1 new recipe this month.
   I like to cook, and we hardly ever eat out. But I tend to stick to the same meals over and over again. I want to expand our collection of favorites and try some new frugal but delicious recipes. I'll post my favorites here too.

5. List some stuff on KSL Classifieds.
   As part of our De-cluttering goal this year, we want to try to sell  some things that carry some value. We also have a specific piece of furniture in mind (a dresser from IKEA...) that we want to save for :)