Some of my resolutions and goals I did publicize on the blog, while others were ones I listed in my bullet journal. They’re all totally doable — none of these are unreasonable, and not all of them are ones I need to think about every day.
- Post daily to blog
- Cook 50 new-to-me recipes
- Offload two items of clothing for each one I purchase
- Create a budget and stick to it
- Shop Amazon mostly using gift cards earned through my credit card
- Only shop ThredUp with trade-in credits
- If it can be mended, don’t buy a new one
- Return of Photo Thursday – post a photo to the blog weekly
So, how am I doing? In the style of Wil Wheaton’s Life Reboot, I’ll give myself letter grades for each point.
Post daily to blog. Haven’t missed yet! There were a couple of days when I posted a quickie to Twitter and set my blog to fetch from my Twitter feed again, so the total is two Tweets, six snapshots from Instagram (some with additional photos and text added after the fact), and the rest are long-form posts (with no minimum word count). Grade: A+
Cook 50 new-to-me recipes. We’re 5½ weeks in, and I’ve cooked six new-to-me recipes:
- Sous-vide chicken breasts with balsamic reduction
- Ham stock
- Sous-vide pork chops
- Split pea soup
- Sous-vide frozen tilapia
- Creamy Lemon Orzo
That’s not including ones I’ve adapted, like Paula Deen’s homemade BBQ sauce; or ones I’ve totally made up on the fly, like last night’s catfish paprikash.
However… the idea had been to cook one new recipe per week, and a few of those new recipes were part of the same meal, which allowed me to skip weeks. That’s following the letter of the resolution, but not necessarily the spirit. Grade: A
Offload two items of clothing for each one I purchase. While I haven’t been keeping careful track of how many items of clothing I’m dumping into the ThredUp Clean-Out Bag by my closet, I do know I’ve been steadily weeding out articles of clothing I don’t love. Also, after I bought one sweater from ThredUp, I made sure that I culled at least two not-awesome tops from my closet. Grade: A+
Create a budget and stick to it.
Part A, only shopping Amazon with credits, started out great, but then I succumbed to a few quasi-impulse buys later in the month. In the end, 20% of my Amazon purchases in January were paid for using a gift card or points.
Part B, only shopping ThredUp with credits, is a definite win. Not only did I only buy using credits, but I returned one thing I’d ordered and ended up not loving.
Part C, mending instead of repurchasing, I’m going to grade high, as well. I’ve starting learning how to darn socks (my first sock was pretty gnarly, so I hope I improve with practice), and I’m planning to wrap some electrical tape around my frayed Lightning Cable instead of buying a new one (even though they’re pretty cheap).
Averaging these three together, plus the fact that my Mint budget isn’t exactly balanced yet… Grade: C+
Post a photo to the blog weekly. Done — plus, one of those photo posts was a collection of iPhone and film photos from a wedding back in October. Grade: A+
Overall, I’m doing pretty awesome. As long as I can keep up my momentum on the good stuff, and work on cutting back on impulse buys from Amazon, I’m in good shape to create some new habits. Looking forward to seeing how I improve in future months!