Sunday, December 30, 2012

old year, new year

The 2012 year is drawing to a close and lucky for me I have many wonderful things that both me and my little family have been blessed with during this year. We were able to sell our home in Ogden and move to Brigham City; to a home that offers us a little more space and a safer feel for a neighborhood. We got to welcome a new addition to our family, our sweet son Beckam. Jared amazingly enough finished his drafting classes at the OWATC, he still needs to test to get his certificate but I guess its just baby steps (ugh). We got to ride yet another roller coaster ride called "employment" this past year with Jared being hired at a great job, laid off, hired at another job, and then being "re-hired" at the old great job with a completely new position. I know that the Lord has had his hand in the whole processes and we've ended up where I feel like He wanted us to be (and were so blessed for it). I am impressed with my daughters Kindergarten teacher and her school, she is doing fantastic with her reading, I know I couldn't read as much as she does at her age, and I completely cannot take any credit for it. So over all its been a really great year for us.
I have some big and small goals for our family in the new year and years to come hopefully. I'd like to begin getting us out of debt (again) and if I follow my plan we could be "debt-free" in 3 years (other than our home). Unfortunately we have two car payments, our dear truck bit the dust and we decided that we couldn't live with one car and bought another. I've built a budget that allows Jared to get gas to go to work, and us to have some money for groceries, diapers and then what we put on debt. The rest of our money goes toward all our bills and tithes. I'd like to pay off our smallest debt first and then snowball that money onto our next debt and so forth. Its very simple and I'm hoping that it will at least give me piece of mind.
I understand that there are a great many people who get depressed after the holidays, I honestly feel relieved after the holidays. It is incredibly stressful to make sure every one's gifts are accounted for, and the cost of it all even when your trying to be as conservative as possible still seems to bite. I see pins on pinterest that challenge people to do a no spend month, I feel like I live a "no spend month" so when Christmas passes I truly have a mess on my hands. So what would be a better way to start out the year than an enormous challenge of getting out of debt.
I'd also like to make over the way me and my family eat, so I am trying to incorporate more greens into our diet via smoothies in the morning. I'm trying to give up on juice itself and replace it with milk, water or a blended smoothie with fruits and the like. My daughter hates milk and I'm not entirely sure how that came about because she used to drink it just fine, so part of me thinks that I've allowed her to have so much juice and its obviously more tasty than milk so that's why she chooses not to drink it. She does drink water, and probably drinks the most water out of all of us. Over all I would like us to have more of a whole foods diet, and ultimately get rid of most of our processed foods and replace them with a healthy, safer alternative. Whats your goals?

2 comments:

Megan Passey said...

I love your post! Very similar to what we're doing. Dave Ramsey plan?

z&jarnold said...

totally dave ramsey, i also just borrowed his book from the library