2009 Goals & Challenge

I’ve never been one to make New Year Resolutions. When I did, I would just make them to make them..generally not a whole lot of thought into them. I would find myself either forgetting them in a few months, or just not able to attain them.

I have, however, always been goal oriented. So, I’ve decided that this year I will make a list of goals in all aspects of my life and seek to attain them all year. Basically, not a whole lot different from any other year..other than that I’m looking at all areas of my life and posting them for the world to see!

Since I have taken up a frugal lifestyle and began to implement many more things in my day to day life, this entails many a goal at this point. There are areas of my life that need more work than others, I seem to be broken in some areas!

Spiritually

• Actually set aside me and God time in the morning. I have a yearly devotional that I plan on using as a starter. I hope that this will refresh me for the day and set my focus on Him throughout my day.
• Become more knowledgeable with The Word. I read the Bible, but I don’t know the Bible, if that makes sense. I also know that this isn’t something that I’m going to be able to accomplish in just one year, but it is something that I find very important to me in this season of my life.
• Know Him more. I truly need to rely on my Creator for more things, instead of trying to handle them on my own. I need to turn all things to Him, instead of just things that I want to. This is so incredibly hard for me, if you haven’t been able to tell, I’m a bit of a control freak.

Relationships

• Wife: Be his help meet. Be more understanding.
• Mother: Patience! I’ve really been trying to work on my patience, as well as yelling. I grew up in a home that it was okay to be yelled at, and while I’ve never been a fan of it..I’ve noticed that I, too, yell. I really don’t want my kids to remember that from their childhood. Also, I need to be more understanding. My oldest has behavioral issues. I’ve touched on them lightly before, but not in depth. Quite frankly, we’re unsure. Sensory perception? Mild Autism? ADHD? All? None? Anyway, both patience and understanding are key here. There are times I lack both, and throw in yelling. Not good. *Now, I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I continually yell at my children, because I do not. But, in my opinion, a child (or anyone for that matter) should never be yelled at. Sometimes I lose my cool, and it just happens. I’m sure we’ve all been there.* Spend more time with them doing things they want to do.
• Daughter: I will admit that I am not a very good daughter. Period. This area needs a lot of work. But, I am happy to say, that things have drastically changed (for the better) within the last year. Praise God! My mother and I used to be very close, before 2 things happened. I made choices as a young adult that she didn’t agree with, and my father passed. When dad died in 2003(great health, very unexpectedly in the middle of the night) things crashed to the ground. We both said things that are just hard to get past. I was not a Christ follower at this time in my life. Thankfully I am now, and I am forgiven! I need to remember that life can change in the blink of an eye.
• Sister & Friend: I live away from all of my family and most of my friends. I really need to communicate with all of them better. End of story.

Financially

Oh how I love talking finances! This area though is a toughie. Our original goal was to be consumer debt free by January 1, 2010. But, at this point that would mean that we would have to pay over $19,000 in debt in a year. Hmm. That is close to $1600/mo. Something about that just tells me that it probably won’t happen. So…Plan B.

• A total of $4000 (including EF) in savings for: Health expenses, and vehicle/home maintence. I talked about this a little bit here, but I’m going to throw it here as well since it is still our goal for 2009. Just hopefully one that gets crossed off soon!
• Bump up our contribution to our Christmas Club account. No, this doesn’t have to do with our Budget Massacre! I actually want to go ahead and set the money aside for Willie’s annual trip as well, since it falls at the same time. As I outlined here, the money that goes into my Christmas Club account goes for Christmas as well as our personal property/real estate taxes.
• And, as far as our debt goes…I think that it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to say pay of $16000 of our $19000. I’m seriously tempted to put $19000 so we will push ourselves. I’ll compromise with myself and put $17500.

Home

• Finish painting the interior rooms.
• Update flooring in the Living Room. (Orange Shag just isn’t my thing, ya’ll. Don’t be jealous!
• Make it a haven.
• Fall in love with my home! I think that this is very important. You have to love your home in order to want to stay in your home and be comfortable and at ease.
• Be more efficent in my housework and day to day duties.
• Finish my Home Guide, Budget, Gardening/Food Storage Notebooks *More to come on all these later*
• Continue Couponing…Of course!

Gardening/Food Storage/Cooking

• Oh wow. After all the learning from last year, and all the fun we had..we are really looking forward to this year. We plan to do organic (atleast try to) and switch to all heirloom seeds (if the budget allows these things).
• Build Greenhouse/Permanent Garden Beds. I loved the idea of these type of beds versus the typical row garden.
• Plant beginning stages of our orchard.
• Grow our own herbs.
• Preserve all our own veggies, fruit.
• I want to get my 3 months of food storage up. I currently stock a lot of the typical food storage items (powdered milk, flours, sugar, etc)…just not in a 3 month stockpile.
• Continue to make from scratch and the switch to whole grains. I would love to expiriment with grinding grains, but I don’t know that I am that ambitious quite yet.
• Cook more healthy, more nutritious meals. Learn more about nutrition/vitamins.
• Have the children assist more in the kitchen and garden. I tend to be a do it myself type of gal, sometimes it seem to be easier for me to just do it. This is how I grew up, and as an adult I’m having to learn all these things on my own. (With friends of course!)
• I would love to be more self-reliant. Entrust God to bless us with our harvests.

Self

• Let go of my perfectionism. This gets in the way a lot. More than I care to admit.
• Become healthy. I have some minor health ailments that need taken care of.
• Lose weight. For real! I’m thinking that once the above is taken care of, that this one will be easier.
• Read More books that I am interested in. I love reading to my children, but sometimes it seems those are the only books (other than the Bible) that I read. Definitely need to broaden my horizons here!

While this list may seem overwhelming, we are doing some of these things now, just on a smaller scale. So, in the big scheme of things, I don’t think it is too much. As the year progresses I will come back and update in blue on our progress and or challenges.

Overall 2008 was a great year for us, and I look forward to all of the things God has in store for us in 2009.

I’m interested to hear what goals or resolutions you are making this year. I challenge you to make atleast 12 goals, so that we can work on one a month. My plan is to focus on a set of goals a month, since some goals will take all year, and less on others.

Would you join me?!