2008 Goals Update

Since my birthday is in March, it makes a good check-in time for the goals I set at the beginning of the year. I try to evaluate again at the beginning of the summer, and then once again at the beginning of the school year. If I were ever NOT in school, like that one year in 2006, I would just do it in September, I guess.

Here's a look at how I/we have fared in the first quarter of 2008:

Do 30 minutes of activity every day, and closer to 60 on the weekends. We did pretty well at this to start out, but lately we've fallen totally off the wagon as Matt has developed some pretty painful tendonitis along the side of one foot. He had been beating the pants off me in the walking-to-work department (as it is still dark when I go to work), but lately it's just been too uncomfortable (and very likely detrimental) for him to walk to work either. And I'm not too proud to admit that when Matt doesn't walk, well, I don't either. However, we're hoping to get this under control soon so that we can get out and enjoy the weather.

Use the car as little as we can. See above. Having a repair on the car last month sort of jolted me with how much we really do need it still.

Go back to cash envelopes for Groceries and Entertainment. We haven't done this since February, in part because we're still banking in Iowa and we do what we can to avoid ATM withdrawals out here. And because I'm a little lazy about it. But, I know that we get two fee-free withdrawals from our bank a month, and we would be smart to use those to fill an envelope for each of these categories, because I know that we've been overstepping them a little bit by using our debit cards and "just keeping track." This month we'll get back on track and be better about staying within our limits.

Pay off both car loans by August. So far, we're pretty much on track for this. I'm hoping it stays that way.

Learn more about investing. I haven't done as much with this as I could. We have an ING Savings Account that we contribute to at least monthly, and we definitely have an active plan for reducing our debt, but I know this is the next important piece to our financial puzzle. Two books I'd like to read soon are Simple Prosperity and Your Money or Your Life, and I need to master the basics of index funds.

Continue to make an effort to eat high-quality unprocessed foods. "Continue to make an effort?" Boy, did I give myself a lot of leeway in the wording of that one! Anyway, this is something we're sort of spotty about. While we do cook the majority of our food from scratch, we would do better to include more produce and less animal fat, unprocessed or not. To that end, we plan to be more diligent about what I call the Four S's (soups, salads, smoothies, and stir-fry), and we're switching from breakfasts of mainly eggs to mainly oatmeal and smoothies. We've started making whipped butter (which is great!) and using more olive oil, and making sure to have a vegetable with dinner. We could also stand to drink more water.

So, in other words...it's a good thing the year is still young!