I’m going to admit something I’m not too proud of today. I’m very fickle. My husband has been telling me this since before we got married. I think he secretly worried that I would change my mind about marrying him! ๐ (Probably one of the only things I haven’t ever questioned!) It’s very true that I’m indecisive and change my mind often. I come from a long line of fickle women so I guess it’s in my blood.
However, over the past couple months, I’ve tried very hard to think through all of my decisions extensively, talk to my husband about anything substantial, and carefully and prayerfully consider my options before deciding on something so that I would have less of a chance to change my mind.
Thanks to Crystal Paine over at Money Saving Mom, I’ve decided to choose a word to help me define my year and how I hope to improve upon myself, my marriage, my role as a mother, my home, my finances, and my blog. After much consideration I’ve chosen the word…
PERSISTENCE.
The webster dictionary defines persistence as:
firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.
Here is how I’ve chosen to use persistence to help me achieve my goals this year.
Personal
I will be persistent in the time I spend on improving my life by:
- Read through the Bible
- Honestly this has been on my goals list the past few years and I’ve never made it through. This year I’m going to do it! Please hold me accountable!
- Read 2 books each month
- I set out to read 4 specific books during the month of December and failed miserably. I did read, but not as much as I would have liked and not the books I had planned to read. My hope is that I can read at least 2 books each month over the course of 2016. My plan is to fit in at least 15-20 minutes of reading each evening.
- Make 2 NEW recipes each month
- This should be a fairly easy one for me. I tend to try new recipes often, I just want to be consistent with this each month so that I can continue to add to my family’s favorite recipes list. Plus, my wonderful husband got me The Pioneer Woman’s new cookbook for Christmas and I have almost all of the pages marked as ones “to try!”
- Make one “ME” project each month
- I really enjoy DIY projects and making crafty things for my home, whether that be painting a sign or sewing up a curtain. I’m going to make a conscious effort to do one fun project each month.
- Be physically active a minimum of 3 days each week.
- In all honestly, I’m hoping this number is more like 4-5, but 3 is my bare minimum. I did really good about this mid-year when I was trying to lose my baby weight after Ben. Then fall hit and I really fell off the bandwagon. I’m hoping to try some new things this year, start running again, maybe go back to Body Pump which I loved, and just get outdoors with my boys. I feel so much better when I exercise so this is towards the top of my list.
Financial
I will be persistent in handling my family’s finances by:
- 365 Days of No Unnecessary Spending
- I will touch more on this next week. Basically, we are both tired of spending money and want to cut way, way back. This was an idea we developed back in August or September and has been something we have wanted to do ever since.
- Pay off my student loan in full – $10,249.22
- In 2015 we were able to pay off our car loan about 18 months early and we hope to continue our ambitions towards debt freedom by paying off this final amount of my student loan. This is something that will take a lot of effort and a lot of extra cash being brought in on both of our parts. However, I do think it’s possible and I’m really hopeful that by this day next year I can officially say we are debt free besides our mortgage!
- Build emergency fund by $3000
- We follow Dave Ramsey pretty closely. However, we don’t agree with his first baby step of $1000 in an emergency fund. We tend to fall in the $3000-$5000 as a bare minimum, especially as home owners. Our roof is starting to show wear and our furnace & A/C unit is aging so we want to be prepared to replace either one or both of those within the next few years, if necessary. We hope to start a sinking fund for them both once the student loan is gone, but until then we want to build our emergency fund a little more to be prepared just in case.
- Pay cash for summer vacation
- This may seem to contradict our first financial goal. However, we haven’t been on vacation since August 2012 and my husband’s family is taking a trip to the beach and I’m one to never say no to a beach invitation! Plus, to be perfectly honest, my husband needs a vacation without house projects involved. So, yes, we are taking a vacation. And, yes, we will pay CASH!
Family/Marriage
I will be persistent as a wife and mother by:
- Spend 30 minutes of active play with Caleb each day.
- I’m planning to read The Five Love Languages of Children early during the year, but I’m already pretty sure that Caleb’s love language is quality time. I’m really going to make a conscious and persistent effort to play with him doing things he enjoys (aka Legos) every single day.
- Have one “date night” each month.
- No this is not in our budget and probably won’t be something we spend an exorbitant amount of money on. I posted just a few weeks ago about 6 frugal date ideas that we will be putting into play over the next year! We plan to try to squeeze $5-$10 a month out of our grocery money. My husband finally has a Friday night off in over 2 years which means we have a babysitter possibility with grandparents hopefully once a month! This is going to happen! We are going to make it happen! ๐
- Take Ben to story hour at the library.
- This probably won’t start happening until at least mid-year since Ben is only 7 months old right now. However, I want to start doing this sometime this year. I really enjoyed taking Caleb when he was little and I can’t wait to take Ben!
Blogging
I will be persistent as a blogger by:
- Increase page views to 50,000 per month by December
- This may be a rather lofty goal since I just set out blogging less than 2 months ago, but I’m hoping that if I set a big goal I will make big progress.
- Consistently make a monthly income by December of $100+.
- I love blogging and honestly didn’t know how much I would enjoy it until I really got started. However, I’m a stay-at-home mom and we live on a modest income. While I love blogging, it does take up a ton of time and I do put in a good deal of effort to make it happen. I would love to begin to bring in a consistent income to help provide for my family during 2016.
- Write 3 blog posts per week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday)
- Since this little blog of mine started, I’ve posted every weekday. And while it’s been fun, it’s been a whole lot of work churning out posts and I haven’t been able to put much effort towards other aspects of the blog. With a new year comes a new blogging schedule. I’m just cutting back to Monday, Wednesday, Friday and plan to keep up this schedule long term.
- Keep at least one month of posts scheduled and 2 weeks of posts completed in my queue
- I did really good on this in December, although I took some time off around Christmas and now have to catch up about a week. It’s really nice to not be blogging by the seat of my pants so to speak! ๐
Home
I will be persistent as a homemaker by:
- Always go to bed with a tidy kitchen.
- This is one more for my sanity than anything else. My entire day runs so much smoother and I’m able to accomplish my other goals when I wake up to a clean kitchen.
- Continue to keep up with weekly cleaning.
- I have always been really consistent about cleaning my house weekly. Then I had a second child and bam! My house fell apart. I have finally gotten back into my groove the past few months and want to continue to keep up with my cleaning. It doesn’t have to be perfect and I don’t want to make it an idol. I just don’t want to live in chaos. I think we’ve all been there!
- House project list
- My husband and I have a list of about 12-15 house project we would like to accomplish this year. All of them are DIYs since we HATE to pay to have things done. I’m not going to share our list because it’s definitely subject to change at the drop of a hat and is very dependent on funds. Most projects are in the $0-$100 range so they can probably be accomplished.
All of these goals are ones that I hope will improve my life and the life of my family. It will require a lot of persistence on my part, but I’m hoping you all will keep me accountable!
What goals do you have for 2016? If you wrote about your goals, please link to them below! I would love to read them.
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Betsy says
Love your blog!! And I hadn’t picked a word for this year yet. But I think I have now – persistence. Love it. I am so good at setting goals and making plans, but I do fail to follow through. I have lofty goals for this year. I just finished mapping them all out and blogging about it. I just opened up a bazillion tabs of your posts. It’s going to be fun checking them out!! Oh, here’s my post on goals for this year: http://www.amothersroad.com/monthly-goals-february/
Betsy recently posted…Monthly Goals for February
Kaitlin says
Betsy, your sweet comment just made my week! ๐ I just hopped over to check out your blog! It’s wonderful! I’m going to be doing the same to your blog now! You’ll have to let me know how Shepherding a Child’s Heart is. It’s on my shelf, but I haven’t read it yet!