It’s Good to Have Goals

Or "Where I do a bit of an update on goals – frugal, green, and otherwise"

We are apparently moving overseas – will not happen this year, may not happen next year, but will definitely happen. In preparation for this eventuality, I need to do a serious declutter of our home, our finances, and my body. (Simultaneously.) I also have to do something about my career, but I’ll leave that for another month.

Finances: I think I have figured out some long term goals… We will be completely debt free (including the student loans and mortgage) by the time baby S. graduates high school. In the more medium term, I would like to have all consumer debt gone before we go overseas, but as that is a moving target, at the latest by June 2013. (Giving me three years.) For the very frugal of you, I’m sure three years doesn’t sound like a very lofty goal, but for us, between the mortgage, the student loan payments, the daycare payments, and various medical expenses, three years is super ambitious. To accomplish this, I have set the following mini-goals for this month:

• Have a budget meeting with my husband
• Track our grocery budget and menu plan again (this is probably the spending category we have most control over)
• Pack lunch every day.
• Set up a college savings account for Baby S (while this will not reduce our debt right now, I should help us avoid new debt in future)

Home: Our biggest clutter, as I’m sure it is for most people, is paper. If I could get rid of our mailbox, our home would be much neater! There are a few small goals related to this issue this month:

• Stop more junk mail (seems you have to redo this process every few months)
  
• File magazine clippings and recipes I would like to try
• Declutter/chuck/etc all magazines, except the most recent issue.
• File bills and other things I have to keep

Next month – the baby’s closet!

Me!: Declutter the baby-weight! I’m almost back to my pre-pregnancy weight, but that was no great shakes either, so I would like to continue working towards my healthy weight. This is important for several reasons but also dovetails nicely with my other goals – eating meals I brought from home will save us money, not having to buy (yet another) size clothing is definitely a huge money saver, and having only one size clothing inn my closet will be a fantastic decluttering exercise. Who wants to move five sizes of clothing halfway around the world anyway? Mini goals for this month:

• Keep a food journal (being honest with myself is always a good start)
• Pack gym bag to exercise at lunch time!
• Pack lunch every day (see above)
• Drink more water (I think I eat when I am actually just thirsty… besides it is hot as anything here right now.)