Two-in-one: Weeks 3 & 4
07 Feb 2011 2 Comments
in Weekly Update Tags: appreciate, budget, children, coffee, family, goal, housekeeping, husband, mother, rewards, routine, sleep training, waking up, wife
Alright, I’m gonna jump right in and tell you what got done and what didn’t in weeks 3 & 4. Then I’ll share a little what I’ve learned from those weeks and what’s going to be different about week 5.
Week 3
Plan for February- done. But I realized that when I plan for the next month I should also budget for that month. So, I’m going to revisit this one sometime this week.
Add all daily tasks to routine- if you’ve been following along, then you should know that this refers to the chore planner I purchased here. I emailed The Project Girl (I think her name is Jen) to get permission to post a picture of each week’s page after the week is over. I haven’t heard back yet, so no pictures this week. Hopefully next week, you’ll get a glimpse of what I’ve been working off of.
Anyway… I added the tasks, but I have to be honest. They didn’t get done. More on this later.
Deliberately appreciate Matt on a weekly basis- I’m going to have a special post on this in a couple of days. But for now, I’ll tell you that this did get completed, sort of.
Week 4
Make bath nights for girls part of weekly routine- I picked out bath nights and will be implementing them this week.
Evaluate goals and make changes as needed- done and done. Which leads us into…
Changes for week 5 and beyond
When I evaluated my goals, I realized that on the days I managed to wake up earlier, I got so much more accomplished. And as you know from this post, waking up early has not been going very well. Last week I had a discussion with my dad about sleep cycles and how to make sure that I’m getting enough good sleep in so that waking up is easier.
He helped me come up with a plan on what time to go to bed and what to do in the morning to help get out of bed. It all sounded good and made perfect sense to me, until Matt pointed out later, that my sleep cycles are totally messed up because I get up a few times a night to feed Kennedy.
So we are trying 2 new things to combat my sleeping-in problem. First, we started sleep-training Kennedy last week. I promise that we didn’t start doing this for my benefit only. We could tell that Kennedy was really needing to start working on her sleep habits. She isn’t able to sleep through anything like she used to be, she’s too big for her bassinet, and she started getting very fussy without her sleep. Also, she was making it a habit to wake up every couple of hours and not go back to sleep without nursing. I won’t go into detail about how we are doing this because I don’t want to bore you or get into a heated debate about sleep-training. But if you let me know that this is something you are truly interested in, I’ll write a post on the topic later.
The second thing I’m going to start trying is rewards. I know a lot of sources suggest using rewards to help you accomplish your goals, but I’ve been trying to avoid them. First, I always have trouble thinking of good rewards that are free. And second, I would rather my rewards be intrinsic: the feeling accomplishment, knowing that I’m setting a good example for my girls, peace of mind, being able to relax with my husband at the end of the day.
But in this case, intrinsic rewards aren’t working. So here’s the plan: every other morning I’m going to get a coffee from McDonald’s if I have gotten up at 7:00 am both days. That’s 3 coffee’s a week. The first one will be a regular small coffee, the second a medium iced coffee, and the third will be a medium or large McCafe drink (I need to look at the cost of these drinks to make sure it fits in the budget before I pick a size).
I’m hoping that after a while, my body will naturally wake up at 7 and I can start weaning myself off my McDonald coffee runs. We’ll see how it all goes.
Is this journey going to be all bumpy roads?
If you have been following my blog from the beginning, I hope you aren’t too depressed. It seems like my journey so far has been more bumpy roads than smooth. I’ve had 3 not-so-great weeks and only 1 good week (2 if you count week 0) since I started again. But I am determined to keep on truckin’. I could give up at any moment and declare, “this just isn’t me. I will never be the woman with her life in order.” But I refuse. Part of this journey I’m taking is about learning what works and what doesn’t. Unfortunately, in the beginning, its more about what doesn’t. I haven’t given up yet, so don’t you give up on me either!
6 Months to a New Mann
16 Jan 2011 1 Comment
in Weekly Update Tags: budget, children, christianity, clean, family, Goals, home, housekeeping, mommy, mother, motivation, New Year, organize, time management, wife
Ahhh!!! Its been almost a month and a half since my last post. Sorry guys. If all goes as planned, this won’t happen again. I’ve set some goals for the new year and one of them is to write at least one new blog post each week, starting now.
And that leads into the topic of this post… my new year’s goals. If you have been following my blog, you know that I made a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish before Kennedy was born. Kennedy was born, and the goals were not accomplished. I got off track, but now I’m back at it!
The Christmas season is over and life is back to normal, whatever that means. Instead of setting New Year’s Resolutions (which generally come without a plan and thus fail) I made New Year’s Goals. The first week of January was spent writing down my goals and mapping out how I was going to achieve them. When I started, I thought I was going to spend the whole year working on them, but as I mapped it out, I think it can be done in 6 months. Woo-hoo! It won’t be easy by any means, and I hope that I’m not being too ambitious.
Most of these goals are the same ones I had before, but now they are written differently, with more specifics and with the smaller tasks needed to achieve them. Click here (or on the “My Goals” tab up top) to see what I came up with. You can also click here to see how I’m going to reach my goals.
If you are taking this journey with me (as opposed to reading from the sidelines, which is okay too), then my challenge to you is to…
1. Sit down with pen and paper and write out your goals
2. Break your goals down into smaller achievable tasks
3. Make a week by week plan on how you are going to achieve your goals
4. Answer these questions: what will you do if you get behind? get ahead? who will keep you accountable? what’s your plan if you get discouraged?
I’m going to try to add a new post every Saturday, so stay tuned. Topics to be discussed in the coming weeks: my new Household Management Notebook and how you can have one too AND week #2 (this was week #1 by the way).
Budgeting
06 Dec 2010 2 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: budget, craft, craigslist, earn money, envelope system, family, finance, God, hobby, housekeeping, mommy, save money, wife
So far the majority of my posts have been related to housekeeping because that is the area I struggle with the most and I’ve decided to work on it first. But there is more to being a wife and mommy than keeping a clean house. I have several other goals that I’m working on, too. A couple of those include saving money and earning money.
Budgeting
I’ve learned that no one can do it all and when it comes to making changes you have to take it one step at a time. I know how to really bargain shop. I can match coupons with sales and stockpile when prices are low, making our grocery bills super low. However, at this time I have added real true bargain shopping to my list of things I’m not doing (also on this list is planning creative learning activities for the girls and meal planning among other things). This doesn’t mean that I don’t keep my eyes out for good deals, but I’m not taking the time to clip coupons, make a pricebook, research sales, or shop at multiple stores. I plan on doing these things in the future, but for now I am focusing on organizing and cleaning the house.
However the past few months, our house has added budgeting back in the list of things we are doing. We have gone through Financial Peace University and want to follow Dave Ramsey’s advice for budgeting. It just really makes sense to us.
If you aren’t familiar with Dave Ramsey let me explain his principles in a very small nustshell. Dave wants everyone to live completely debt-free and pay for things with cash. Delayed gratification reaps greater rewards, so if you can save up and pay cash, you end up paying less and you don’t have to worry about creditors knocking at your door later. Financial Peace University teaches you how to get out of debt, budget your finances, and save for the future. Dave’s motto is “If you will live like no one else, later you can LIVE like no one else.”
So, what are we doing right now to be like Dave? Since October we have created a budget where we allocate every dollar we make. Our budget includes all the basic necessities (like mortgage, utilities, groceries, and gas) and other items (like blow money, childcare, and clothing).
In October, our budget was just done in theory. It was made but not really followed. In November however, we started using the cash envelope system. We had 4 envelopes labeled groceries, clothing/diapers, blow money, and babysitter. Each envelope had a weeks worth of budget (in cash) placed in it. When the money ran out, the money ran out. It’s easier to follow a budget when you are only spending cash.
We did pretty good. A couple of weeks we forgot to pull out the cash so we used our debit cards, but we made sure to stick within the budget. And we did make a few big purchases on credit (like a new-to-us minivan and computer). We justified both of these with different excuses and we know Dave wouldn’t like it, but neither purchases were made on impulse and we are aware of the consequences that come with them (like being in debt longer). I have a feeling December is going to be really tough to stay within budget because of Christmas, but we are going to try. Be sure to ask me in January how we did (a little accountability always helps).
Earning Some Extra Money
In my last post, I briefly mentioned how studying for calculus is helping our budget. Let me explain. It is very important to me to be able to stay home with the girls. (Not to mention that paying for quality childcare for 2 under 2 would cost almost as much as I would probably get paid at any job I could find). So I have been doing some research on ways to make some extra income at home.
I came across a website that hires online tutors. Right now they are only hiring for advanced science and math tutors, and since math has always been my favorite subject, I think I would do well as a math tutor (probably not science though). I took calculus in high school and again in college and really enjoyed it. Yes, you read that right, I enjoyed calculus. But, that was 8 years ago and I haven’t needed it since, so I’m pretty rusty. I’ve recently started studying calculus to refresh my memory and to become an online tutor.
I’ve also been trying to sell stuff on craigslist. Check out my listings by searching for “km061409101010″ on the Springfield, MO page. So far I’ve had lots of people interested, one no-show, and one sold item. So its not going too well, but I plan to add more items and it might pick up during this Christmas shopping season.
I also spent some of my Thanksgiving break making headbands and hairclips for babies, girls, and adults too! My mom and I are going to take them to a Santa’s workshop to sell (but let me know if you want to buy one directly from me).
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There are more ways that I plan on bringing extra income to the family, but again that’s not an area I’m focusing on right now, so these 3 things are it for now. They won’t bring in a lot, but every little bit helps.
What is your financial plan? Do you make and follow a budget? Have any creative ideas for bringing in extra income?
Photo Cards
06 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: budget, cards, christmas, discount, free, mommy, photo, prints, wife
I have never sent Christmas Cards, but this year I would really like to. It’s something that I envision myself doing as the wife and mommy I want to be. We recently had family pictures taken by the talented Amy McGuire and I plan to use those photos to make the Christmas cards.
Our budget is tight (more on budgeting in the next post), and so I have found a way to get free photocards through Shutterfly: posting this blog (Disclaimer #1- I am getting free photo cards for posting this).
In the time that Matt and I have been married, I have never printed any pictures. We don’t even have copies of our wedding pictures (minus one that is printed on regular printer paper). Because we have so many pictures just waiting to be printed, I have been searching for ways to get free or close to free prints. There are several sites that offer free prints or discounted photo gifts just for signing up. I have found Snapfish and Walgreens to have the best deals. But lately Shutterfly has had good offers to bloggers.
I have already made my Christmas cards through Shutterfly and I can say that I found their website the easiest to edit photo cards. The Walgreens photo card application froze on me and I found the zoom and crop features easier to use at Shutterfly than at Snapfish.
Here is the Christmas card I made. (Disclaimer #2: I am getting a $25 credit for sharing this with you.)
