My Personal, Financial, and Business Goals for 2015 – July Update

My word for the year is BALANCE, so I’ve chosen goals that mesh with living a year of BALANCE.

Personal Goals

• Take a trip to Michigan this year to see family and friends.  Unfortunately, unless we get a sudden windfall of money, this probably won’t happen, but I’m not ruling it out yet.
• Spend no more than one hour on social media a day (this includes when I have to use it for work).  I’m definitely getting better, but this month I need to start timing myself.
• Read 26 books and review them on Mom’s Plans.  So far I’ve read and reviewed 15 books, so this goal is 57% complete.  In July I read The Winter People, Before I Go to Sleep, and The Wild Truth.  In June I read Crazy for the Storm, and in May, I read Forever Liesl and The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight.  In April, I read a few books, but I have not yet reviewed them on the blog, so I won’t include them yet.   In March I read The Moon Was My Witness.  I also read Thick as Thieves with Bookworm. February I read and reviewed 3 books: Real Moms Making Real Money, at Home in Their Pajamas and How You Can, Too, Have a Little Faith, and Sala’s Gift. In January I read and reviewed 4 books: In My Brother’s Shadow, An Amish Christmas,  The Year of Learning Dangerously, and Dream House.
• Exercise 3 days a week.  No, but wow do I need to!  The kids and I had a 3 hour marathon cleaning session one day, and the next, my shin was in intense pain.  I was even looking on the Internet to see symptoms of a blood clot.  (Hypochondriac, much?!)  At night, my husband gently reminded me of all the cleaning we did the day before and that I’m getting older.  Ugh.  Time to start exercising regularly!
• Finish the Candida Cleanse and be rid of candida!  No.  I fell of the Candida Cleanse wagon and have to back track and start over again, but I haven’t decided when to start yet.
• Do something fun with my family two times a month.  We didn’t go anywhere since it’s been too hot, but we did go to the pool together and we’ve also been playing some board games on the weekend.
• Have at home date night with my husband twice a month.  Not in July, unless you count watching old episodes of Switched at Birth on Netflix!
• Read through the entire Little House on the Prairie series with my kids.  Progressing, 70% completed.  Cuddle Bug and I finished reading Farmer Boy, our first book of the year and then Little House on the Prairie, and now On the Banks of Plum Creek.  (We read Little House in the Big Woods late last year.)  We finished By the Shores of Silver Lake in mid-July and are now reading The Long Winter. (Even though we read it less than a year ago, Cuddle Bug insisted that we read it again).
• Make at least one homemade present for each of my children for Christmas next year.  Not yet, but I did make PB & J Girl a skirt, and I’m currently working on a pillow case dress for Cuddle Bug.
• Clean up my Facebook feed.  (I belong to too many groups and am friends with too many people who aren’t friends.  Time to clean up and clear out.)  Not yet.  After I sell off some of my extra curriculum, I plan to drop a number of groups that are no longer relevant.

Financial Goals

• Save 3 months’ worth of living expenses.  Yikes.  It’s been a rough year financially, and I don’t think this one is going to happen, but you never know.
• Live off my husband’s income and put my income in savings.  No.  We are living on my husband’s income, but rather than my money going in savings, it’s all gone to paying unexpected expenses.
• Save $750 for travel in case my husband’s family comes to visit this year.  Not necessary.  We were trying to save money to take my husband’s family to various tourist destinations, but they won’t be coming this year.
• Spend $500 or less on groceries every 4 weeks (for a yearly total of $6,500)  Yes, though this remains a challenge.
• Put aside $3,000 for a replacement minivan.  Not yet.  We’ve actually decided to cut costs by buying a Toyota Camry instead.  We went to a dealership, and all three kids fit in the back, so that will be our choice.  Now, to start saving the money!

Work Goals

• Reduce my work load to no more than 20 hours a week, (though ideally it would be 15 hours).  Completed.  I reduced my workload.
• Come up with a work schedule that allows me to get my work done but still have fun with my family.  Completed.  I’ll share this with you soon.
• Officially set up my business as an LLC.  Not yet.
• Reapply to Amazon’s affiliate program.  (As an Illinois resident, I wasn’t able to be an Amazon affiliate, but as an Arizona resident, I am.)  Completed.
• Post to Mom’s Plans at least 4 times a week.  No, for the summer, I reduced this to only two or three times a week so I can do some behind the scenes work on the blog.
• Organize my blog.  (This includes deleting old/irrelevant posts, making posts more Pinterest friendly, and editing and adding categories.)  Not yet.
• Have 2,000 Pinterest followers.  (If you’d like to follow Mom’s Plans on Pinterest, I’d appreciate it!)  Not yet.  I’m up to 1,129 followers now.  In the beginning of  February, I was at 994 followers.

What goals do you want to achieve this year?  How are you doing?

I shared this post on Money Saving Mom.