February challenges. Bring it on!

Okay, Carla - here are my February goals:

1. Choose a financial goal for the month!

·         $200 - $300 to VISA card

·         $100 into my travel fund, $50 to vet, $50 to car, $50 to EFund

2. How will you achieve your goal this month?

·         Similar to last month: take lunches to work; use my calendar, debit and notebook to track my spending; and use more cash. This is also so I can have more coins to roll, to put back onto the VISA card

·         Shave some off the grocery bill where I can: $50 - $60 week for food

·         Shave the gas money to one fill per month - $80. This means *gasp* walking if it’s getting low. Easier now that it’s slightly warmer and staying light a bit later.

·         Can I get away with putting $70 onto the hydro bill, rather than $90?

3. How will you allot your spending this month?

·         Cats. They’re continually hungry (imagine!), plus Dinah’s specialty diabetic food. I’ve upped my budget for them from $80 to $100 per month.

·         As above, cut the gas budget from $150 p/month – which I’m not sure I’ve ever hit anyway – to $80. I have a friend visiting for a few days and will likely use a bit more than normal, but hopefully I’ll be able to keep it to just one fill regardless.

·         Be diligent about making lunches and breakfast daily. It’s working well so far, so I think lowering the grocery budget is feasible. Besides, how much food can one person eat anyway? (Answer: you’d be surprised!)

4. Track your purchases!

• Doing well with this, so it shouldn’t be hard to carry on. I now have a little notebook to mark my purchases in. It was an old one hanging around at work, so I asked if I could have it. FREE! J

5. Are there any “exemptions” for the month

•  I have a $150 payment I need to make, plus at least two dinners out with friends. I go out for dinner very rarely, so this will be a treat for me. I still have to make sure I don’t go overboard with the meal, though, so I'll budget $20 for each of those.
•  Chiropractic appointment(s). I will get 80% back for these, so that money can get rolled back into a budget at some point.

Here’s how the Decluttering challenge will work:

1. There will be 4 main challenges for the month. I pick the theme, you pick the challenge!

Week One: Personal Space Challenge

It’s all my personal space, but I will concentrate on the 2^nd bedroom as that’s where I spend a lot of time. It’s my office and there’s still “stuff” I can finally let go of cluttering a corner. Can probably also find more stuff on the computer to delete.

Week Two: Family Space Challenge

As above, it’s all my personal space, but the living room could still use a declutter, although there’s not much left to get rid of. Old magazines, a board game I’ve never used, DVDs I’ve never watched…

Week Three: Productivity Challenge

What? The above isn’t enough?! I’m not really sure yet. I can improve productivity in many (most!) areas of my life, so perhaps it will show up on its own as I’m purging, cleaning, decluttering, etc. What I’d LIKE to see is more time spent doing creative things: drawing, writing, knitting, etc., rather than sitting down in front of the computer or TV to unwind. Spend time with horses?

Week Four: The “Dreaded” Challenge

Hmm. Kitchen? I have lots of stuff in the pantry and cupboards that I don’t use or need, so will count that.

2. Bonus Challenges!

Looking forward to these!

3. Purging!!

I’ve already started collecting a bag of things, plus a pile of books. This is a work in progress. I will be taking the books to the second hand store for either credit or cash (or both – I don’t know what the options are). The “things” vary and I could probably sell at least some of them online, but is it worth the cost of mailing them. I may have to sign back on to Facebook and use the buy, sell, trade site that has worked well for me in the past. This is not the ideal option, so I may end up just donating it all instead. We’ll see.

4. The Proof is in the pudding!

Comparatively, I don’t have a lot of clutter, so not sure photos would be all that useful as the only one who would really notice is me. But I will anyway, to stick with the spirit of the challenge.

So. I guess we're rolling... :)