Goals for 2012

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Happy 2012 to you!  Hope you had a great weekend ringing in the New Year!

So a new year usually brings the dreaded “New Years Resolutions” – you know the “no chocolate in the house, lose weight, exercise” kind that we hate to do!   So did any of you make any New Year’s Resolutions?  They asked my hubby at work last week what his was and he couldn’t come up with ANYTHING??    Wow, I told him he could help accomplish some of mine.

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I usually don’t make a huge deal out of New Year’s resolutions.  Sure, a new year always brought some things to mind like cleaning/organizing, being a better wife… but I didn’t really keep track of them throughout the year.

I have been inspired by Crystal over at Money Saving Mom as she published a list of goals last year and has been doing monthly check-in posts on her progress each month.  Then she started doing weekly goals and reporting on them each week – not as much a to-do list but goals for the week.  I am also in the middle of reading a pre-release copy of her new book, The Money Saving Mom’s Budget: Slash Your Spending, Pay Down Your Debt, Streamline Your Life, and Save Thousands a Year.  Her first chapter, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any train will get you there” is all about goal setting.

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I am inspired, challenged and excited!  I want to be a different person, have reached certain places in life, and accomplish some great things in 2012.  But if I don’t do something to guide me or challenge me, none of that will happen.  So I have come up with a list of priorities for my life right now and then broke them down into individual goals for 2012.

Another thing I have done is made them specific and measurable – not just generic stuff like “become a better person, be a better wife.”  How do you say you have achieved that??  So HOW will I become a better wife? – specific things I can work on and check off.

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I followed this advice from Money Saving Mom and came up with 5-6 priorities for my life right now.  Then broke those priorities down with easy to do, specific goals to help me accomplish those priorities.

2012 priorities

1. Grow in my relationship with the Lord

2. Continue to nurture a loving relationship with my husband

3. Challenge myself to become a better woman, wife, homemaker

4. Grow my blogs and have FUN with it!

5. Be a good steward of our finances

6. Find ways to minister to those around me

Goals for 2012

Goals under growing in my relationship with the Lord are things like spending daily time in His word and in prayer, read through the Bible in a year, reading devotional books.

Under nurturing a loving relationship with my husband are things like  date nights every other Friday night, finding ways to encourage him (notes, spoken words), ways I can make his life easier (pack his lunches, clothes ready for work), make meaningful conversations a priority, and more.

Challenge myself to become a better woman, wife, homemaker.  Wow, so many things I can do here.  And some I might even blog about…

• Read books on the subject (more on that tomorrow!)
• Take better care of myself (exercise, eat healthy, go to bed earlier – yep, see that dreaded lose weight/exercise things still made it on the list!)
• Get my home organized and clean (“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”)  A whole series on that is coming – more details later this week!
• Develop and maintain a weekly cleaning schedule in our home.
• Keep the main living area of our home 30 min. to company clean(clean enough that a quick pickup, light vacuum, and it could be ready for company)
• Learn to LOVE where I live (more on that later)
• Make homemade laundry soap
• Learn how to make Artisan bread in 5 minutes
• Menu plan, menu plan, menu plan – got to get better with this!  Along with this challenge myself to grow in the kitchen with new recipes, making things from scratch, etc.

Grow my blog and have FUN with it!  I really enjoy blogging, here and at CentsibleSavings, and since I make money from it can also be considered “my job.”  BUT as you can see it is # 4 on the list.  And I need to remember that!  John and Sherry talk all the time about how the internet is on 24/7 and working from home can mean you work ALL the time!  So finding balance in home life, home priorities, and computer time is my # 1 goal under this priority. 

I am excited about all the fun things I have planned to do and share on The Frugal Homemaker in 2012 (and I am sure this list will grow as the year goes on.)

• Do and blog about a monthly Pinterest project – start doing some of those wonderful projects I have been pinning.
• Make a DIY scarf
• Make pillows
• Write several series  – more on one of those later this week
• Continue to work on room re-dos in my house – Kitchen, Half bath, Guest bedroom, Master bedroom, Master bathroom as budget and time allow
• Work on re-doing several pieces of furniture in my garage
• Learn how to use my camera better – work through several series on how to take better pictures
• and of course lots of fun projects, yard sale finds, decorating tips and more…

Be a good steward of our finances.  We made several changes in 2011 – I came home from working a part time job to working strictly out of our home (blogging, babysitting, decorating cakes).  So our income decreased, but we are challenging ourselves to save even more this year by managing our money better.  One specific goal we want to accomplish this year is save 75% towards the purchase of a new-to-us car (hoping to purchase in the fall/end of next year.)

Find ways to minister to those around me.  Some ways I will do this will be through my blog.  But another thing that I want to try to do (and this falls under being a better homemaker too) is have guests in my home once a month.  Keeping it 30 minutes to company clean will help with this as well!   We live far from our church so this isn’t as practical as we would like, but I am going to make a conscious effort to try to do this in the coming year.

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Am I superwoman?  Absolutely NOT!  Will I accomplish all of these goals?  Honestly, probably not, and some of them are things that I will have to continually work on.  But if I accomplish just half of them, it will be better then never setting any goals, therefore not having any goals to reach!

How about you?  Did you make any New Year’s resolutions?  Or did you choose some goals to strive for in 2012?  If you haven’t, you still have plenty of time!  And if you did, share or link them up in the comments.

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