Summary Saturday: My Last Check-in Before 2019

It’s that time again! Time for me to publicly post my progress toward the New Year’s resolutions I laid out for myself in early December.

My progress toward some of these resolutions has been commendable, while progress toward others has been abysmal. Regardless, I decided when I shared these for the first time that the missing piece in my follow-through from previous years has been a certain factor starting with the letter “A”. No, not Almond Joy (although I wish it were that easy).

I’m talking about accountability, silly.

As a result, I’ve committed myself to regularly analyzing and publishing my progress in the hope that I will be more successful in achieving the things that are most important to me this year.

So, I give you my 2019 New Year’s resolutions.

Prioritize family time. I’m blessed to have a job that gives me 10 days off at Christmas time. Even though the holidays have been crazy busy thus far, I have been able to spend a good amount of quality time with my husband and daughter. Lots of snugs, lots of hugs, lots of happiness.

Now, I’ll be honest. I wouldn’t have included this as a New Year’s resolution if it was easy for me to prioritize time with my family. To be clear, spending time with my family is not the hard part. I mean, have you seen them? They’re pretty amazing.

The hard part is consciously deciding to step away from that seemingly endless list of things to do in order to be fully present with them. It’s a work in progress.

Exercise 4 or more times per week for at least 30 minutes. Does chewing count? OK but seriously, last week I got to the gym twice and to dance class once, which makes three sessions of formal exercise. This week, not so much.

Stop eating after 8:00 PM. LMAO! Good one. I see myself tweaking this one in the coming weeks. While this is an important personal goal for me, and one that I plan to continue working toward, I think it would be even more meaningful to look at the types and quantities of food I’m eating. I signed up for an app called Noom. It’s not free ($45/month for the basic program…*cringe*), but I’m choosing to look at it as more of a preventative healthcare cost. I haven’t been using it long enough, let alone with fidelity, to have anything of value to share at this point. But, once I’ve had a chance to really try it out, I’ll share my experience.Stick to our budget categories. So motivated, so on track! See how I stay within our grocery budget by embracing our sad, sorry, little leftovers.

Channel as much money toward our emergency savings account as possible until we hit our target. We are on track to deposit an extra $1,681.00 into our emergency fund this month. Not bad, considering we’re nearing the end of perhaps the most expensive month of the year.Build up our travel fund. No change here. We’ll tackle this once our emergency fund is where we want it.

Establish and stick to a consistent schedule for blog posts. Doing great here! I missed this week’s Tuesday Tips because, well, Christmas. Otherwise, I’m sticking to my plan of posting two regular features per week (Tuesday Tips and Frugal Food Fridays), and a third feature (Summary Saturdays) every other week.

Well that’s it! You win some, you lose some. This coming week, I aim to get to the gym 4 times and to get back on track with normal meal times.Have you set your New Year’s resolutions yet? I’d love to hear what you will be working toward. Share in the comments below!