Good morning, Friends! Hope 2017 is finding you all well. I figured I'd get on here and share my New Year's Resolutions in order to keep myself just a little bit accountable or to have record that I made resolutions at all so I have something to look back on next year to assess my progress.
First off, on New Year's Eve, Michael and I wrote down several different goals and changes we wanted to make in our lives. We focused on health goals and financial goals, choosing a new aspect to focus on each month (ideally building on the month before). In January our health goal is to "Think Positive." We both have some weight that we want to lose. We went up a bit (over 15 lbs in my case) over the fall and winter and want to get back down to those ideal Spring and Summer weights and bodies. However, starting to really hit a diet hard (especially in January) can be rough sometimes. It's easy to get down on ourselves. So this month we're being positive about our accomplishments, what we're already happy about, and where we're going from here. Of course, making some dietary changes like more water and less snacking has been helping our weight and therefore making us more positive and hopeful for the journey ahead, but even in the times when our weight plateaus or we snack a day and end up going up a bit the next day, we're looking for positives each day. Even if it's something as simple as the scale stayed the same but I look skinnier to me or my jeans fit a little better, that's positive. Even if it's, the scale went up, but when I went out to eat with my friend I ate a salad, drank water, and did my best to make good choices, that's positive. So in January we're not putting a big, strict goal on ourselves, we just want to start the year off in the right mindset.
Our financial goal for January is to sit down and assess our financial situation. After the holidays things always seem to be a bit tighter. Fortunately, we're be doing our taxes soon, and that usually ends up with a decent tax return. We'll have taxes to pay for converting my KPERS to a Roth IRA, but we should still end up with a decent return. Also, Michael and I are considering diversifying our retirement contributions, especially in June when Michael is due for his next raise. Up until this point we've added more money to his 401k contributions at work. Between what he's putting in and the company is matching, he's got 13% each month going to his 401k. However, the company is only matching (1/2%) his first 6%. So he's putting in an extra 4% each month that's not being matched. While that's all fine and good, we're considering putting his next raise elsewhere. Our guy at Edward Jones is great! He's managing portfolios for Avery, Connor, and, like I said, a small Roth IRA for me from my couple years of teaching. Depending on how big Michael's raise is in June, we'd like to put another 3-5% per month into another account with Frank to mix things up and diversify our retirement accounts a bit more. Along with all those long term plans, Michael and I want to sit down and take a look at where all our money is going each month. We live fairly frugally, but there are places we could cut back to keep our savings growing and keep our monthly bills from being so tight. So that is another goal of ours this month, to assess where we are and plan where we can make changes to better our financial health.
Finally, I told Michael yesterday, if I narrowed my New Year's Resolutions down to one item, it would be: 130 by 30. As I mentioned before, I put on weight over the fall and winter. During the spring and summer months I stayed around 135 lbs, give or take a couple pounds. September was a particularly bad food month when I went up nearly 10 lbs and then continued to trend up through the end of the year. The last day of 2016 I was at (basically) an all year high for my weight. In December I went over 150 for the first time in all of 2016.
**Sidenote: 150 was what I weighed when I got pregnant with Avery, so even at my highest for the year, I was at or below my pre-pregnancy weight. So as far as thinking positive goes, even though I'm up, I'm still healthier than I was 5 years ago so I think that's a good thing.
Since 2017 has begun, Michael and I have tried to eat healthier. I pulled out recipes from my healthy recipe binder that we already had the ingredients (or most of them) for, so we only spent $30 in groceries this week. Today is only the 4th of January, but I'm happy to report that I am down 2.6 lbs! I have 18.8 lbs to go, but I am trending down and have been every day so far. Some days I go down as little as 0.2 lbs, today I was down 1.2 lbs. I was especially excited this morning, because I went out to dinner (and dessert) with my good friend Michelle last night. Making healthy choices when I go out to eat is a struggle for me, but I did it yesterday! I ate soup and salad and they only cost $7! Then, when we went to a hipster bakery for dessert afterwards, I only ate a little of my brownie and brought the rest home to Michael. I was THRILLED when I got on the scale this morning and saw a number in the 140's for the first time of 2017!
Anyway, back to my resolution... I turn 30 in a hair over 3 months. It's a steep weight loss goal, but I would like to weigh 130 (or less) when I turn 30. In June of 2016 I weighed the lowest of the entire year at 133.4. My goal was 130 lbs and I want supposed to get my new clothes until I reached it, but we were going to Kansas City and I was almost there, so I went ahead and went on my shopping spree. This year I'd like to hit that goal that I set for myself in June 2015, to get all the way down to 130 lbs. We'll see how it goes. At the very least I'd like to hit 130 this year, but if I could do it by April 7th, that would be tremendous! Time will tell. 2017 has started off well, I just hope I can continue to build on that momentum.
So those are my biggest goals for this year. Pretty standard as far as resolutions go. Stay tuned each month as I discuss different health and financial focus points each month this year. February is a dual month, our health goal is the same as our financial goal, no eating out. That means we'll be having date night in for Valentine's Day, but we're looking forward to these different goals each month and to see how they improve our health and our finances. :) Thanks for reading! More later! Love ya!
-Jen
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