2013

Well, 16 days late, but....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Bob and I kicked around some ideas for goals to work towards in 2013 (and we do have things we want, erm.. NEED to work on) but what we ended up coming up with is a 2013 Bucket List!  We had a little mini New Years Day adventure and took the boys out to breakfast at the Black Bear Diner in Paradise.  Going out to breakfast on new years day is becoming a tradition, 2 years in the running now!  Anyway, on our drive home we came up with this list that I jotted down on the top of the to-go box that was holding my mini apple pie.  In no particular order, here is our list:

Boys baptised
2 camping trips
Visit 2 new Food Network restaurants
New ink
Find a church
Real vacation (Tombstone, Lincoln City, Great Wolf Lodge)
Volunteer opportunity
5K
Attend 1 sporting event
Geocaching
Family emergency kit
1 new recipe/month cooking together
Monthly dates

These are all things I'm really excited about!  A few are a little more daunting to me than others (finding a church and participating in a 5k), but I really feel like this is a great mix of experiences and things we want to do together and as a family this year.  I really want to focus more on living with purpose.  There is always going to be the daily grind, but I want to feel confident that we are experiencing life in positive ways, and ways that might be a little different than how we normally do things.

In addition to our bucket list for the year, we are focusing on building and following a budget.  Its hard.  We're not even completely 2 weeks in to the first budgeted pay period and I feel like I've blown it.  I need to remind myself though, that we haven't "blown it" we are learning.  Its going to be a process and if we can improve a little bit each month, by the end of the year we should have a handle on this!

Here is a rough outline of what our household budget looks like right now.  It always looks great on paper, but doesn't carry over quite how I would like it to in real life.  The biggest blessing of all is that Bob has a great job, and even though we don't have it all, and often have more month than money, we have a roof over our heads and food to fill our bellies!

Monthly Expenses - $2000
(rent, water, PGE, Directv, Sprint, Allstate, AT&T, car payment, Rx's)
Gas - $120
Groceries/Consumables - $500
Eating out - $100
Personal spending - $250
Debt Payoff - $200
(Tier 1 - Court, Kohls, Chevron, Sprint, Orchard CC)

I'm trying my best to get a handle on this budget thing.  We're not friends.  Yet.  My hope is that since a lot of our budgeting categories are going to be per pay period, that I can track our spending and update here as a way to stay accountable and also as a way to see where we started, and how we finish.  My biggest brag so far is that we had a debt free Christmas AND paid off the balance on the Kohls card in December.  According to www.undebt.it we are set for our Tier 1 debts to be paid off in April 2013.  I think we'll have them out of the way before that!

Here is to wishing 2013 is happy, healthy & successful!