March update on my yearly goals

Pin It    Man, I'm so slow these days! I was going to post an update on my 12 yearly goals last night but, surely enough, it's 9:34 pm, and it's the first time I'm here today. But here's the update:

1.Blog at least 15 times every month- DONE! I wrote here 26 times in March (including this post).

2. Have a "money meeting" at least once a month with my husband. - SO DONE!!! I finally had a LONG talk with Hubby about our finances, an hopefully, now we are on the same page. He actually created his own budget file, and he wants to track our expenses in April himself . I'll believe it when I see it but hey, it's a step forward, right?

3.Save enough to pay for Christmas with cash.- WORKING ON IT. I made extra $20 from a diaper cake, $6 from surveys and $14 from secret shopping . We will put all of it towards Xmas. So we now have $155.83 in this account.

4. Save as much as we can for a minivan.-Also working on it.- I only babysat 2 times this month, and she didn't pay me yet. And we haven't received our tax return yet but as soon as we receive it, we'll put $4000 towards it. 

5. De-clutter 366 things this year. Getting there. I cleaned tons of stuff in the garage, and have a huge bag of clothes for our Church cloth swap next month. And we listed 3 things  on KSL and sold 2 so far.Oh, and I cleaned more magazines in the living room ( 13 total. I'm a magazine junkie, especially cooking ones. I got all of them for free with different promotions but lately I don't even have time to read them!) I haven't really counted it all but it's at least 50 items altogether.

6.Keep track of our food waste. PASS. We only wasted $1.59 worth of food this month. I would love this number to be zero but I think, we still did really good.

7. Start putting again some money for retirement. Failed. Same as last month. Hubby is still looking for another job. Nothing new there :( 

8. Have 1 date night every month with my husband. Failed :( We went out as a family twice but we were just too sick for anything else. Hubby is still fighting an ear infection and sinus infection, so not much romance here...

9. Lose 12 lbs in 2012. I lost two pounds. I start having a feeling that it will really take me all 12 months to shed those pounds. I exercise so sporadically right now, and my weight loss is going back and forth. I really need to get back on track. 
 
10. Read 12 books this year. I read 4 books this month. First, I've read the Hunger Games sequel. I  also picked up "The silent land" by Graham Joyce from the library but  after just a couple of chapters I quickly took it back. It was WAY too much info about the personal life of the main characters. Let's put it this way- I felt like it's a porn movie written on a paper...Not my type of literature... And it was a Reader's choice book...So after that I really craved something tender, romantic, and ,well, discreet, really discreet. So I got a s novel "To love and to Cherish" by Kelly Irvin about an Amish family and the trials they are going through. It was sweet and a pleasure to read.

11. Write in my journal at least once a week. Kind of passed. I didn't write every week but I did write 4 times in it. I think, it counts... 

12. Create mini-goals every month through out the year. I did OK. We achieved most of our goals but barely.


   So here's where we stand. I think, we did pretty good this month but I can't wait for April to begin! I have some high expectations for it...