It's February!

Read 20 books.
Reduce waste.
Pay off consumer debt.
Do two "low spend" months.
Eat more homemade meals.
Stick to a healthier lifestyle.
Deep clean the house.

1. Read 20 Books. Earlier this month I read a thing saying that if you read for 30 minutes before bed (the same amount of time you tinker around on your phone before bed), you would read about 175-200 pages every week. That being said, it should be easier to read 20 books this year! I'm almost finished with The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up... and am about 1/2 through The Power. Not gonna lie, the book about tidying up is kind of blowing my mind - I guess I've been doing it wrong the whole time.

Reduce waste. I have actually been doing REALLY good at this one. I recycled most of my plastic grocery bags. I still use some for things like animal waste clean-up (thanks, dog vomit!) and the bathroom trash cans. But I have been using reusable grocery bags so much I ran out of plastic ones! I had to pat myself on the back when that happened! I've also been using my water cup at work more (instead of getting styrofoam cups) and using my reusable coffee cups more. AND I've been working on filling the first half of my compost bin, so all of the fruit/veggie food scraps go in there. I barely had a full trash bag to take out last week!

Pay off consumer debt. Chugging along - my tax refund will take a big bite out of this.

Do two "no spend" months. (I am amending this to "low-spend months") So January was my first "low spend month" and I didn't do super great at it. The first two weeks I destroyed it! I didn't buy anything outside of necessities on my grocery list, didn't buy coffee, didn't buy clothes. The third week I started slacking and the fourth week I went down the tubes. I went out to dinner more than once/week. I bought lunch at work instead of bringing it. I went and got coffee during work a couple days a week. Better than I was doing? Sure. As good as I set out to be? Nope. It did kind of reiterate how spending less money is what I need to be doing. I think I'll set my next low-spend month for the summer time - maybe June or July.

Eat more homemade meals. I have for SURE been eating more homemade meals. Every breakfast and most lunches and dinners have been homemade. I feel like I have a lot more control over what I am eating when I eat at home.

Stick to a healthier lifestyle. Again, I was kicking butt at this for the first two weeks. And then I started slacking. I'm back on the wagon though! Even though Logan and I are going to grill cheeseburgers for dinner.

Deep clean the house. I'm a little torn on this goal. One of my plans was to do one room a month. Really focus and throw things out. BUT THEN I READ The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and she actually comes out and says that this plan is hugely flawed. Harumphf. Unfortunately, I don't have the time nor the space to line up every single item in my entire house at the same time. I think for the most part I can accomplish my goal by doing it one room at a time. Hi, my name is Rachel and I have too much stuff. (Hi Rachel!) Either way, my first room was the kitchen and I really did good! I was able to throw out a lot (broken things, items missing pieces, empty boxes that got put back in the pantry, etc). I think my next "room" for February will be the hallway closet, guest bedroom, and hallway bathroom. There isn't much in any of those rooms, so I don't think it will be terribly difficult to do them all together.

My to do list:
1. Keep reading before bed.
2. Keep using the reusables!
3. Keep paying shit down.
4. Nothing here - keep applying the "low spend" mindset
5. Keep eating at home.
6. Keep going to 9R. Keep drinking water.
7. Clean the February rooms.

This is the new year! New goals!

Hello, 2018! I am looking forward to setting new goals, honing in on some old news with new focus and new direction, and getting some shit done in 2018. Let's do this! My goals for 2018 (in no particular order):

Read 20 books.
Reduce waste.
Pay off consumer debt.
Do two "no spend" months.
Eat more homemade meals.
Stick to a healthier lifestyle.
Deep clean the house.

1. Read 20 Books. I really like reading. I started thinking about the years that I read much more than I have recently. What's changed? One thing is the amount of time I spend at home - between work, 9Round, driving around to places, and Logan's house, I am not home as much as I used to be. I should really try to bring a book with me to Logan's house. Or maybe I can get the kindle app on my phone and have a book of short stories queued up to look at rather than flipping through lists of crap on Buzzfeed. The point is, I am resetting my goal of reading 20 books in 2018. I feel short in 2017 and this is something I *want* to do rather than *need* to do.

Reduce waste. In the trunk of my car, I have a laundry basket. In that laundry basket is a stack of reusable grocery bags. Do you know what I forget to bring with me damn near every time i go to the grocery store? THE BAGS. Yesterday I cleaned out the floor of my pantry. I have a few big bags stuffed to the brim with more plastic grocery bags. Easily a hundred of them. Which is stupid because I get out of my car, walk past the trunk and walk right into the grocery store, where I just get even more plastic sacks. So I decided yesterday to do better about this. I am also really bad about getting coffee in disposable cups even though I have a few reusable ones. I can do better.

Pay off consumer debt. Ugh. In 2018, I will pay off my windows (seriously though, I am so close!) and credit card. I'm going to do it, dammit! I took a retirement seminar through work recently and even though I have heard the whole "every dollar spent is a dollar not saved" schpeal before, it really kind of sunk in. Even if I am putting that money into a shorter term savings account rather than a retirement account. It would be pretty baller to be able to just write a check for new siding or new flooring rather than have to take out some consumer loan for it. That takes me to my next goal...

Do two "no spend" months. I did a couple "no spend" periods last year. They are hard! As a reminder to myself, a "no spend challenge" is when you can spend money on the necessities - bills, gas, groceries - but that's where the spending stops, no matter how good the deal is. I give myself a couple allowances though. I will allow myself to have $20 on a starbucks gift card (but once it is gone, no more starbucks for the month) and one restaurant meal/week. All the other things I find myself spending money on have to call it quits for the month. That means no frequent restaurant trips, no clothing/shoes/accessories, no cute toys for the dogs (they have plenty), no extra stuff at the grocery store, no target trips. I am actually going to make my first one in January. From January 1-31st. No spending!

Eat more homemade meals. This shouldn't be super hard to do since I can't spend money for 17% of the year! I also got a couple cookbooks for Christmas and have dogeared some recipes that I want to try. And I got an InstantPot a couple weeks ago and have really put it to good use already, but I want to keep using it! Although, I will say that it's a little misleading and some recipes are much quicker to just whip up using regular pots/pans.

Stick to a healthier lifestyle. The goal that is always set. Sigh. But seriously, I need to get it together. This body isn't getting any younger. Going to the gym is great, but I need to follow that up with eating better - sticking to something as simple as Michael Pollan's suggestion, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants" (which also means to not eat "almost-foods" - processed foods.) I think by eating more meals at home and limiting how much I can eat out at restaurants, I should get to this goal pretty well. I'm also going to *actually* stick with Weight Watchers. And while I don't ALWAYS agree with their point system (I feel like a hotdog should be worth WAY more points than a handful of chocolate covered raisins, but here we are), I did lose weight using it. Consistency is key.

Deep clean the house. Similar to 2017's goal of "do little things around the house," but this one involves CLEANING. And holy cow do I need to CLEAN. I am going to give myself a different room every month to seriously clean. Get rid of stuff I don't need, want, or use. Get under the beds and into the closets and the nooks and the crannies. First month - kitchen. (I'm already a step ahead, I cleaned out the floor of the pantry yesterday. Turns out, I had a few just random empty cardboard boxes down there. For no reason. Makes no sense.)

So here we go, 2018! Let's get to work!