New Year’s Resolutions for 2012:
1. Be Healthy
2. Budget
1. I’m certain that many of you, like me, in years past have had the New Year’s resolution to lose weight. As far back as even the 7th grade, I remember having this as my new year’s resolution. Has it ever happened? No. All who know me know that I’m not grossly obese where I can’t even move and I’d have to be lifted by a crane to leave my house, but, I do have a lot I could lose. As of late I have been thinking of my health in general. I don’t take very good care of my body. I’ve never been a regular exerciser and have never had a well-balanced diet. (Ramen noodles don’t give you much balance, according to the label anyway…) I just want to live a long and fruitful life. Already at 23, almost 24, I am worried about constant heartburn and swollen ankles. So I want to change my lifestyle. I want to be healthy.
Over the years I have tried many things: more exercise, less carbs, calorie counting, weight watchers (which worked for a while until I stopped doing it), juicing, and the list could go on and on. I do well usually for a couple of weeks then go on back to my bad habits.
I have found that I do not do well with extremes, like juicing, or with strictness in my diet. I find that when I decide to limit let’s say bread, all I want is to eat bread. Or when I say no Dr. Pepper I want it even more than usual, which is quite a bit.
So I have decided to simply be healthy. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas break I did really well. I didn’t have a set diet plan but I just wanted to eat better and it worked. I didn’t buy snacks when I grocery shopped and I tried to eat a home a lot more than I usually do. I hardly exercised during that time but put both exercise and eating better together and it should get me on my way to being healthy. I don’t want it to just be something I do but who I am. I want to BE healthy. It is going to be very difficult to change but I am confident it can happen. So no more crazy antics or yoyo diets, it’s going to be healthy me. Yay : )
2. Not once in my life have I budgeted. You may ask how I have survived this long. Well, my take on finances is to make sure the big bills are taken care of and then use what’s left for what I need and then survive without until the next paycheck comes. Yeah, not really the best way to handle my money but its worked thus far. But now that I am currently jobless things are definitely going to have to change.
I really quite loathed my last job and finally gave my two weeks’ notice two weeks before Christmas. I had wanted to do it for a while but I hadn’t found another job and in all actuality I was getting paid for sitting at my desk for 4 hours a day. So I stuck with it for a few months. One Sunday I was pondering on the subject and decided it needed to be done. I was really nervous to tell my boss but I felt really good about it otherwise. So it is the beginning of a new year and I have no income. Strangely enough I feel fine. I have some $ that I can use to get me through for the next little while but it will only last me a short time. My plan is to try to find some piano students to teach and if that fails I’ll get a job, even fast food if it comes down to that.
So since I won’t have any extra cash with no pay check to count on every other week, I need to tighten down on my finances. I thought that with living in a bigger city I would be spending most of my extra money on shopping since I had more of a selection than Wal-Mart, but that was not the case. Also in a bigger city, there is a wider selection of places to eat. So that is what I did all the time. Eat out. If I would have budgeted I probably would have been able to eat out and shop. But now with my first new year’s resolution to be healthy, I won’t be spending nearly as much on eating out.
So there you have it. My goals for this year, 2012. I’m hoping next year they won’t be the same as they have been for the past umpteen years. Who knows, maybe next year I won’t even have to worry about a new year’s resolution. The Mayans could be right…
HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!
(Don't worry, its just sparkling cider)
