January mini goal wrap up

Following the inspiring leads of many others, I decided to set myself a few mini goals for January to get the ball rolling and make that New Year's momentum keep rolling.

Let's see how I did:

Snowflake - $100. Either from change or skimming off leftover weekly jar money. This money I will put towards my Back to School goal of $500

So I flaked $62 from my Christmas lottery scratchers. That gave me a  healthy start to my goal. It was added to my 'back to school goal' earlier this month. I did four noon hour supervisions. deductions take about half of the 'earnings' but that brought me in about $40.  thank goodness for these two since rolled change was zip this month.

track my points

I would say I was 90% successful with this. Being away with the curling team for a couple weekends threw things off a bit. Rink food is hard to resist even with a few healthy snacks. I also learned my old phone won't take the new upgrade for WW

Lose 3 lbs

Success. Wheeee

Treadmill 6 out of 7 days per week

This was 95% successful. The weekends I was up at 6 AM and didn't get home til 10 PM threw this off a bit. Add to that a couple migraine days where breathing made me cry.

Read 1 fiction and 1 non fiction book

I read my fiction book. My non fiction was on recipes for colitis.

Do one outside the box thing this month

Well originally I planned to go see Gail Vaz Oxlade in Saskatoon. That would have been awesome. It ended up that we had to take our curling team out of town that Tuesday, so it was a no go. I did end up going to a presentation by the Muslim community. I hadn't been to anything like this before.


I would have to say that overall, my mini goals were successful and it gave me a different way of framing things as I looked ahead for the month.

It takes....

So today is four weeks of WW and treadmill.


Do I see my body changing? 

Well there is a small difference on the scale.
I have a bit more energy at night.
I am able to do more time on the treadmill in one shot.
I do feel more 'at peace' ie: less stressed

My big barometer was 'will I be able to do the bottom button up on my winter coat and will it hang properly and not pull.'

Answer - not yet

so...
Keep going I shall

It's payday!!

It's been a LONG time since my last payday before Christmas. It feels like one of the longest pay waits of the year.

Traditionally, January is what I call my 'pure check'. It's a full cheque, WITH all those darn deductions so I can actually see the difference if we have had a raise. Last year, however, we still didn't have our two year late agreement on a contract from 2013, so I can't use my January to January.

The retro pay was added onto a cheque last spring so I can't really see the net increase without trying to figure out what deductions were for the reg cheque and which were for the retro part.

If we do noon supervision, that is added to the cheque and then deductions come off that too. Having the noon supervision throws everything off figuring things out :-)

But I can compare gross monthly wage to gross monthly wage.  The gross dollar difference is a raise of $137 per month.

It looks like I will bring home a net of $70 per month. 

Time to figure out where to add that to my budget.

La Loche

I had a few emails and messages from folk inside the blogging world and outside, making sure I was ok. thank you.

Today in our province there was a community/school shooting that has made international news. It was a few hours from me, but I teach with folk who have taught there and know the people involved. It is quite a bit north and a community that has  had much tragedy, suicide and mental illness.


Two young men were killed in their home. The shooter then went to the school and killed a young, 21 year old teacher assistant and one 35 year old teacher in his first year there, as well as injuring several others. The suspect is in police custody.

Such incredibly sad news.

First snowflakes

Literally, Wednesday night and Thursday, we had one of our bigger snowfalls this winter. It looked pretty falling down yesterday morning against the lights of the school as I trudged into work at 7:45 AM.

I finally had time after school while the banks were still open, to take in my first snowflakes. They came in from the lottery scratchers I got over Christmas. I had a decent set. Not a $10 000 set, but I will take the $62 I won, and appreciate them  I put the toonie in my money jar, and put the $60 towards my first 'snowflake' goal, which is my Back to School Jar. That jar balance is now at $230.

I am trying something different and seeing if the cash snowflakes can take care of that planned spending goal, before it becomes to my next target on the budget. (First Target is Summer 2016).

Where the money stands

as of January 5th

Debt
Mortgage - $18 523.91
College LOC - $14 394.91

Total Debt - $32 918.82



Savings/Planned Spending
TFSA/EF - $7100
RESP - $10 600
RRSP - $10 976
Summer 2016 - $500
Back to School - $230

January mini goals

I see a lot of  you have great success breaking down your goals by month, so I thought I'd give that a whirl this year. Anything to keep up motivation and momentum!


So here are my January mini goals:

• Snowflake - $100. Either from change or skimming off leftover weekly jar money. This money I will put towards my Back to School goal of $500
• track my WW
• Lose 3 lbs
• Treadmill 6 out of 7 days per week
• Read 1 fiction and 1 non fiction book
• Do one outside the box thing this month

Wrapping up the holidays

Well, in T minus 10.5 hours, I am back to work. It has felt like a long break, so that is good. Lots of time to putter and visit and relax. recharge my brain and my mind.

The holidays started with me taking an earned day off so I could do the airport runs for the boys. That bad boy took me 30 hours of weekend extra curricular to earn (mostly volleyball), but it was worth it. I could take care of things around here without that panicky stress of having to still work.

I had short but sweet visits with my boys. DS1 was home and away during his time. DS2 was home for less than 3 days. It's tough to fit all the bonding in that I wanted, but I have to appreciate what I have, and each moment. Miss them already.

Christmas groceries did not break me this year. In September, I started tucking $20 a week out of my grocery budget into a jar for Christmas groceries. There was a nice little nest egg in there to buy the extra things we needed/wanted for when the boys came home. I am definitely doing that again.

I got a fair bit of cleaning, decluttering and sorting off my to do list. I bought new dishes, put down contact paper over the old cupboard bases, got rid of four big bags of 'why are we keeping this'. Would anyone notice but me? probably not, but as usual, the house felt lighter as I took the bags out.

I always try to do a 'one in / one out' at Christmas to balance the new gifts and keep the house from getting fuller. With two of the gifts being trips and the boys taking back with them most of what they were given, I definitely took more out of the house than came in.

On the morning of the 31st, mom and I headed to the city for my next infusion of my Colitis biologic. The nurse there said that out of all the people who come to her clinic for that particular med, I am the only one not getting relief. I don't like being that kind of special. I had a long talk with my colon and spent lots of moments visualizing the medicine healing. Can't hurt to try.

On New Year's Eve, DH and I went to a Senior hockey game here in town. I honestly haven't been to one in years. It was something different to do, and got me out of the house and not 'thinking' for New Year's Eve. We were home before 10 and watched the second part of the Hunger Games series "Catching Fire". I had seen it before, but DH had not.  I was in bed before midnight.

New Year's Day was just me for most of it. DH went ice fishing by 8 AM. I got up and enjoyed a leisurely cup of coffee before planning my day. I wanted to get a ton of things done around the house before going to my parents by 4:30 for NY Day supper.  And I did. I went on the treadmill a couple times, I went through 2015 bills, and sorted and shredded and got the folder ready for 2016. I cleaned and did laundry, including the bedding from when the boys were home. I wrote a letter to my great uncle, who turns 98 in three weeks. Need to mail that this week. I coloured my hair.  I scratched my lottery tickets while enjoying another cup of coffee and some HGTV.  I read some from the Colitis book I got from library, seeing if I could find any recipes that would work for me.

For supper, Sister 1 and 2 were there with some of their children (and their children). I played ministicks and some old school Mario with the 5 and almost 3 year old. We had prime rib, baked potatoes, garlic toast, stuffed mushrooms and salads for supper. It was delicious. In lieu of dessert (mom's  home made pies), I took her dog for a walk in the unseasonably warm temps for January in Canada.

Over the holidays I have spent about 20 hours at school, marking and cleaning and planning. It is never enough. never.

I hope that I can maintain my energy and motivation as I start work tomorrow morning. I don't want to go back to that exhausted, come home and do nothing, all the time.

My vehicle is washed. Groceries are bought so that I have things for lunch each day. Laundry is done. Sleeping in past 7 is over. Let the games begin :-)

Aspirations for 2016

I feel like for a New Year, there should be all sorts of new and different kinds of things one has goals or plans for. As I looked back over the previous year's goals/plans/aspirations (word choice depending on my mood :-) , I can see that there hasn't been a whole lot of change.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I have been reasonably successful at most of my goals. They have provided me with focus, been achieved, and helped me be somewhat ready for the money issues that come my way.

So my aspirations for 2016, money, and otherwise, are not terribly earth shattering. Just a plan to follow... a path to lead me on my journey.



1) Summer 2016 - $1000
This lets me enjoy my time off, knowing there is money there for camping, and other things that may come my way

2) Back to School - $500
Just me...so this goes for my professional fees, some back to school clothes and maybe something for my classroom

3) Christmas - $1500
So nice to have this money saved and not be terrified of Christmas bills

4) Vehicle Plates - $1200
This is for DS's car. Once he is done school and working, this bill will be his, so in a couple years this won't be part of my planned spending (fingers crossed)

5) College LOC - Get it under $10 000
I will keep whittling at this. I save each month for college. Reality is that the costs, plus the US dollar, is a bit like trying to bail out a boat leak with a thimble. I will keep at it though. I hate that I pay interest on this each month.



Ok the following two I am not even sure about. Yes saving for retirement is super important. Is the bit that I get  in interest  or from the tax refund for the RRSP worth it? Or would I be better putting the money I would normally put towards TFSA and RRSP  do better if I slammed it on my college LOC?  or buying US dollars for DS1?

My mental jury is still out on these two.


6) RRSP - $1000

7) TFSA - $1000




And then the personal ones.

8) Lose 3 lbs per month
I am overweight obese. I have to move. I have to lose. I have to.

9) Do something outside of the box each month
I am in a rut. I work. I do my extra curricular. I come home, make supper, do dishes, mark and sit. Most of the time. ok. almost all the time. This is not how I want to spend my next forty years.

10) Read 20 books this year.
I really dropped off the reading in 2015. I honestly was just rereading old books, that I did not put on my reading list page. They were comforting. They were easy. They helped me through some quiet in the house months. I would love to pick this back up again. Maybe even challenge myself to some 'thinking' books.

11) Move at least 20 min x 6 days a week
This ties into #8. My treadmill is back up and running (will write about this in another post). It lets me walk at my own pace, in chunks if need be, and I don't have to leave the house. Time for it to be more than a place to dry my clothes.

That's it for me.  Bring on 2016. (be gentle with me 2016? ok?)

Happy New Year!

 

 

 

 

I finished off the last four months of 2015 reacting, or avoiding or sleeping, to avoid thinking and feeling and doing. Let's call it a necessary buffer time, but not one that can continue, or I have stopped living.

 

I searched for the right 'inspiration' stickie that best matched where I am in my life. So many great ones out there I have read on your blogs as you find your focus for 2016.

 

And then I found this one.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

It resonated to my soul.

 

So.....

 

 

Thank you to all my readers, those from the start  and those along my journey, for being here for me and inspiring me with your own journey.