The Year for Me?

Hello 2019. You sure came round fast.

Growing up new year never meant an awful lot to me. And recently all it signalled was the end of Christmas festivities and time for the kids to go back to school again.

As an adult I'll admit to setting silly resolutions: lose weight, save money. All of the usual things that people tend to say but I've got wise to it all.

Last year was the first time I didn't set myself any really goals and it felt good.

No expectations, no disappoint if I didn't manage to achieve certain things, it was a freeing feeling.

And in some ways this year is more of the same, I've not bothered with targets but in another way everything is totally different.

I'm thinking this could be the year for me.

How to Make Easy Savings this New Year

We're speeding through the new year, nearly half way through January now (how did that happen?). This is a busy time of year for me, lots of birthdays throughout January, February and March and while I'm trying to get over the expense of Christmas I'm always thinking about ways to save money whilst making sure there is still enough in the bank too.

People say a new year, and a new start! For some, it may just be another calendar year and whilst I don't typically set resolutions anymore, 2017 presents an excellent opportunity to start fresh on so many fronts and of course one of them is financially, and to ensure I start the year on sound financial footing, while instilling good habits in terms of spending and saving. 

2016 was a pretty challenging year for a lot of people, and with the Brexit process set to begin in earnest within the next couple of months, many believe that we could be in for a bumpy ride, the future is sort of unknown.

Now I know that most of that stuff is beyond our control so all I can think is that it is best to concentrate on myself and my family, taking care of things at home, and ensure that our ducks are nicely in a row. Here are some easy ways that I'm going to try and implement myself  and hopefully you’ll find them useful too…

Become a budgeter

It’s always something we plan to do, or vaguely keep track of in our heads. But how many of us ever actually get around to sitting down and putting pen to paper on what we actually spend each day or week? Shining the light on day-to-day outgoings will almost certainly highlight ways to save. Sure, we all need to have some luxuries we enjoy in life. But chances are, a bit of budgeting, and then sticking to it, will leave you with many more pennies in your pocket at the end of each month. My first cut is the amount of takeaways and eating out we do.

Don't Look Back to the Past Instead Reach for the Future

As another year draws to a close I can't help but contemplate on the months that have now passed us by. At the start of 2016 I stated that I wasn't setting any resolutions for myself as I was always left disappointed when they weren't achieved and I am honestly glad that I made that decision. 

Yes I've put on weight over Christmas, of course there are still home improvements to be made and yet and my bank balance isn't as big as I'd like but do you know what, I have no regrets, what will be will be and I refuse to sit and get upset about the things that didn't happen, perhaps they just weren't meant to be.

In a year that took so many celebrities from us and bought us a new British prime minister and an interesting American president, the focus seems to be on all of the negative news stories instead of focusing on any sort of positives. A quote that I want to remember as 2017 begins is, 

Doing Away With The Resolutions

Hello 2016. I don't know about you but every year I do the same as most and set myself some new years resolutions/goals and I can almost guarantee that the majority of the population (myself included) won't stick with them, realistically we'll be lucky to reach the end of the first week in January.

New year, new targets?

So it's New Years Eve 2014, did I stick to what I said at the start of the year? My list went something like this :

* Take more pictures of my children : 

I can definitely say that I took more pictures of my children. Joining in with project 365 made sure of this, I managed to take a picture of each of my children, every day of this year. Some days had seperate photos of all them whilst others had group shots, I must count just how many pictures I took. I will definitely continue to take more photos, it has been wonderful seeing just how they've changed over the year.

* Regular family activity time :

Well this happened to a point. With Daddy Hazelden working away so much it did become difficult but we managed to fit in a few activities including visiting Dover Castle a lot!! We also learnt a bit about geocaching and took to exploring our local area.

* Home improvements :

Ok so this didn't happen. Mid year we got evicted from our home as the landlord was selling our house.  Lets just say the second half of the year has been stress filled!! We finally bought our own home 2 weeks ago and will hopefully be doing some home improvements in the new year, watch this space…

* Make more time for me :

I think I failed miserably at this one. Cramping into Living in my mums house made it difficult to get any space what so ever, the only me time I got was at 2am when everyone else was sleeping. What I'd really like now is for Daddy Hazelden to build me my very own reading nook.

* Learn to love myself :

Believe it or not I feel I half achieved this. Ok so I'm not a big fan of my body still but I stopped obssessing over the scales so much and I stopped worrying about the food intake, although I am looking forward to getting back to running in 2015.

My targets for 2015 :

So this time I've decided to not set myself any targets, I'm going to go with the flow just remembering one simple thing, the best things in life are free. Living, laughing and loving is what I will be doing in 2015.

Here's to a happier and less stressful year ahead, cheers.

xxxx

Happy New Year

A Year Wasted?

I honestly can't believe that we are at the end of another year. Each year that passes seems to disappear faster than the last.

A few highlights from this year : my very last baby turned a year old, Daddy Hazelden changed careers and now works in London, I applied for Gracie to start primary school next year and we managed to have an amazing family holiday in Ibiza.

However the upsetting thing for me is that when I look back and reflect on what I have achieved in this time, it feels as though I have done very little, like a year has been somewhat wasted.

I rarely set new years resolutions because I always seem to break them, you know the usual ones :

* Lose weight - well after losing a couple of pounds I always manage to find them again plus a couple of extra ones.

* Eat healthier - as I say this I am tucking into a lovely packet of peanut butter cups.

This year I don't want to say I'm setting new years resolutions, more like small goals and instead of ones I know I will give up on trying to achieve, I'm picking things that I know I will be motivated to sticking to and I'm hoping by writing it down here that I can look back at this post one year from now and put an imaginary tick by each one.

So my goals for the coming year :