2014 - The Year of Being Awesome

So, it is three days in to the beginning of 2014 so everyone and their cousin's neighbor's grandma's stepson's daughter is making resolutions that they intend to give up on in two weeks.  Not to be a "Negative Nancy" but you get what I'm saying.  It's the same thing each year.  I get it.  However not I!

I first of all, don't make resolutions ANY time, let alone at New Years. I do however set goals for myself. Sometimes these goals are daily, weekly, monthly, for the entire year etc.  Usually I manage my goals like a "to-do" list and mark things off as I accomplish them.  Sometimes when I have time I might blog about them but this year has been hella busy so my blog was kind of left behind.

With that being said....

My to-do list for 2013:

• Coupon Seriously - meaning save money and never buy anything full price if I can help it.  (The fuel to this fire might have been prompted even more by my five seconds of local fame on the WRAL SmartShopper blog which was written right when I first go in to couponing)
  

  

  Coupons Coupons Coupons
  

  

  One of many good deal "hauls" from HT

• Organize my closets and stick to the organizational plan - done, although still have more improvements I want to make.  So that one is still on the list for 2014.  Thus no picture.  Sorry!
  
• Redo the desk in the living room to make it prettier - done, like a boss might I add.  I rock!
  

  

  Desk - BEFORE
  

  

  Desk - AFTER

• Get my eye surgery - Booooooom.  Done.  Damn I look good too.  Worth every penny I had to pay out of pocket.
  

  

  First pic I took after eye surgery

• Meal plan each week - yep, did that too, even got a dry erase board for the refrigerator to write it down on.
  

  

  My cute weekly menu board

• Eat healthier - somewhat successful at that.  I attempted this year to recreate recipes I like to make them a little healthier, made sure I ate breakfast every day, became more mindful of the ingredients in some of the items I was buying, etc.  I also quit drinking cows milk and stick to only Almond or Coconut Milk which helped my digestion issues some.
  
• Create a budget and stick to it - I need a freakin' gold star ya'll.  I not only stuck to our weekly grocery budget by week but I also saved us a lot of money on groceries by sale shopping and couponing.  We were also able to pay off some credit cards last year as well.  (Patting myself on the back right now.).  I'm such a dork I kept track of what I spent at each store I typically go to (Harris Teeter, Kroger, Target) and the amount I saved per trip to make sure my yearly spend is what I had budgeted.  So for this year I was at my budget per week of $50.00.....oh yeah!
  
• Be Awesome - that comes so naturally that I had NO problem marking that one off the list for the year.

So basically I'm stating for the record that I accomplished ALL of those goals aka my "to do's" last year 100% or darn near close. The only thing that could still use improvement would be the healthy eating because I did have quite a few cheat days, but doesn't everyone?  Meaning that I'm still leaving that one on the list for 2014 because I'm currently researching the Paleo diet now and honestly there is always room for improvement in healthy eating anyway.

So my to-do list for 2014 looks a little something like this:

• Plan a budget friendly but beautiful wedding - already successfully working on that one - blog post in the making on that note
• Continue Couponing only this year with a $40.00 per week budget - might be hard but I'm up for the challenge
• Continue being awesome - hellooooo I do that EVERY year.
• Try to continue to eat better but not beat myself up if I have one cheat day 
• Organize the cabinets in the kitchen more efficiently
• Install shelves in the hallway closet
• Create a plan for the laundry closet and draw up plans for the "pantry" I want built in the kitchen.
• Repaint the foyer and hallway and decorate the wall at the end of the hallway accordingly
• Fancy up my "getting ready" station in our bedroom to make it cuter and more girly (I'm sure Love Muffin will be THRILLED about that! :-)
• Have a yard sale and get rid of some stuff, while making $ in the process
• More dilligently track our spending in areas we didn't track last year to better manage our funds in those areas
• Buy a new laptop.  For real.  This one has seen better days and is circa 2008 which is ancient in computer years.

So....basically we have established that I am amazeballs and rocked 2013 and made it my you know what. So I'm sure 2014 will be equally as amazeballs. (I think I'm too old to say amazeballs.  It's almost as bad as me saying "totes" or another one of those shortened words all the "kids" are saying nowdays.)

Anyway, do you make resolutions?  Do you ever find that you actually stick to them?  Or do you find that you are more of a goal setter and are pretty successful at marking the goals off your list?

Until next time...