Categotry Archives: finances

0

New Year, Big Changes

by

I know it’s been a little while since I posted.  The past few weeks have been BUSY!  First I had to get ready to start my new job and then once I started my new job, I had to get back into the swing of working.  I’m starting my 4th week and so far so good!  It’s been mostly training but I needed to brush up on stuff plus, I needed to learn their ways and how to use their systems.  I like my team and I think this will work out nicely.  On the 25th, I’ll actually start doing my job and I have a feeling it will be busy which is what I have always liked about this particular position…there’s never a dull moment.  I know I will never get bored!

It has been an adjustment for everyone though.  I seem to be doing OK with getting up and getting ready to go in a decent amount of time (until today…no clue what happened there).  I haven’t started the actual schedule I was hired for yet but I have still been going in late enough to take L to school.  Literally my second week of work, both girls ended up with stomach bugs so that put a cramp in things.  But B has been great about getting dinner stuff ready so I can just throw it on the grill or whatever when I get home.  We had already gotten used to eating later since we moved here so even my working later shouldn’t affect things too much.  We’ve been making meal plans and sticking to them and that definitely helps.  It’s been much smoother than I thought it would be.

I think the person this has been hardest on is Buggy.  She was used to having me there when she got home from school, etc. so one night at bedtime we put up her bed rails for toddlers, then I told her I missed her during the day, she said, “I miss you too, Mommy.  When can you stop working?”  My heart just about broke but I explained that I wasn’t going to stop and that next year she’ll be in school full time and she won’t notice as much.  I explained that with Mommy working, we’d be able to do a lot more fun stuff and she seemed to understand.  I had thought I had been handling it pretty well but last week it hit me too.  My manager told us we might have to stay late last Friday and that combined with PMS and the things Buggy had said led me to pretty much burst into (controlled) tears.  In the end, we didn’t have to stay late and I realized that it was all just a delayed reaction to going back to work after being home for four years.

The addition to our finances has definitely been nice!  I managed to get our taxes done early so we got our refund in no time.  I got my first paycheck on Friday and I had actually budgeted to close to the right amount…I was off by about $30 and it was MORE than I though so that was nice!  We spent a night at Disney and it was nice to not have to nickel and dime everything although we were careful not to go crazy (everything there is so darn overpriced!).  Our goal is to still follow a budget but it won’t nearly be as strict which is nice.  And now we’ll be starting on our household projects list which we are BOTH excited about.  Once thing we have always been responsible about is our finances so I don’t plan on letting that change. To feel better you can look at this website and check out the products.

I know I am still getting used to being back at work and I promise that once I get into a normal groove, I will be sure to make time for blogging (on ALL my blogs).  I just hope my life doesn’t get too boring and my writing dries up!

1

My (LATE) Goals For 2012 Post

by

weiYeah, I know, I’m really late on this.  First it was because my daughter didn’t go back to school until the 9th.  Then I got caught up in my duties with The Band.  On that front, I had to ask for some help and luckily, I was granted even more than I expected so, now I have more time to blog.

I am going to start by saying that I don’t like the word “resolution.”  I like the word “goal” better, so that is what I’m going to use.  I started thinking about my goals for the New Year Back in October and I think I have a decent list of OBTAINABLE (that’s KEY) goals to reach.

My first goal is to set SMALL goals that lead to bigger goals.  I have learned that if I am overwhelmed with a goal, whether it be weight loss, blogging, etc., I get frustrated and give up.  So now I am going to start breaking my big goals up into little chunks and go from there.

My first goal will help me head to my ultimate goal of losing weight is to buy Proven.  My end goal is to lose 50 pounds this year (about a pound a week).  The first small goal is to get my eating back on track.  I was doing so well in the fall and then we had guests and then the holidays came.  Now that all that is over, I need to retrain myself and I am off to a good start.  I am planning a menu every week and sticking to it.  I am buying ONLY what I need and nothing extra (which will help toward another goal).

Once I get my eating back on track, I will get back into exercising.  I was doing the Couch to 5k Plan in the fall and I may go back to it.  Or I may start a new plan of walking and running sprints.  I need to decide.  But either way, I need to TRY to exercise for 150 minutes per week, per my doctor.  You see, when I went for my physical, my blood sugar was a bit high and my good cholesterol was a bit low.  So, I need to get on track for my health.

Now I am going to move onto my balancing life goals.  My first goal is to get organized.  I needed to make a schedule for each day that balanced my home and my blogging/Band life.  I have used my email calendar to break out each day and so far it is working well.  I have stayed in track with my household goals and now that I have freed up some time, I can hopefully reach my blogging goals too, though I have not set a firm goal on that front yet.  I do need to figure it out because I would LOVE to get my writing out there so I can someday get paid for it but I wonder if that might be a pipe dream. I am concentrating on buying healthy snacks and keeping myself in check by using www.myfitnesspal.com.

I have a also set a financial goal.  We need to try to save money and reduce our (small, thankfully) debt. A recommend to visit this article about 4 Thrifty Ways to Save Money on the Whole Families Health, in my case it has helped me a lot to read about financial articles. Planning meals and sticking to grocery lists has really helped.  We have paid off quite a few things and will use our tax return to rebuild our safety cushion (which went down because we needed a whole new AC system last year).  When B gets his bonus, a small portion is budgeted for our beach vacation but the rest will be used to make an even bigger dent in the debt.  I have updated my financial Excel sheet and I am being diligent about looking for ways to save. But whenever there’s a shortage for our funds, I just try to borrow a few cash from my relatives from other countries and they send it to me through ofx when they learned about this top ofx review.

My last goal is to start thinking about what I want to be when I grow up.  Buggy will be starting Pre-K in the fall and I will (hopefully) go back to work in some capacity.  The issue is, I don’t know what I want to do.  I don’t want to go back into insurance.  I am looking into getting into the school system in some way and I also keep an eye on county jobs.  I have my resume out in a couple sites and I am on LinkedIn.  Hopefully, I will find something I can enjoy.

So, there you are…my 2012 goals.  I plan to keep my myself accountable with my weight loss on here so you will see more posts about that.  I plan to revisit all my goals in June and see where I am.  Hopefully, I will have made some headway!