couponqueenofcorning

Wow, it’s hard to believe that tomorrow is the first day of 2009! Crazy! I guess it’s time to make up those resolutions that I am determined I will keep. Because I do want to be able to keep them, I am keeping them realistic. Ever so often I will post on here about how I am doing with keeping these. Here they are:

• I have a tendency to procrastinate. Bad, bad, bad me! Only, of course, with the things I really HATE doing, like the dishes. LOL. I also tend to do it sometimes with school work, especially if I don’t know what I’m doing or I have a paper to write. I don’t think I’ve ever written a paper that a majority of it was not written the night before it was due! lol. So, I am going to work on starting things early and making a schedule for my class work. Dishes will be done first before I get on this computer or do anything else.
• I have some weight I need to lose. Having 2 babies so close together is one of the causes, the other is that I love chocolate and goodies. I’m addicted! My goal is to lose 5 pounds a month, so that I will be down to around 140 by the end of the year. Wow. I would be so happy - I would fit back into my old jeans. Yes, I did keep them. It really wasn’t all that long ago I fit into them. In order to achieve my weight loss goal, here is what I will do:
  • Food:
    I am going to concentrate on just eating better and eating smaller  portions. Because I know how I am, banning myself from eating something will only lead to my binging on it. So, every once in a while, I will make some semi-healthy goody (probably with chocolate in it or on it. LOL). If you have any such recipes, please leave me the recipe in  my comments.
    We will be eating more whole grains, fruits and veggies. I will be making more foods that are on the South Beach diet. I will also be using Dr Ian’s weight loss site in order to keep track of what I’m eating and my weight loss.
  • Exercise:
    At first, I will be concentrating on working out at least two times a week, and hopefully by the end of the year, be up to four or more times a week. Since our basement is not the best place for working out right now, I will be using the several dvds and videos I have. I will also try to maximize my calorie burning by doing things such as parking further away from stores, taking the stairs, etc.
  • Liquids:
    Right now, I am not getting enough water. I need to make sure I drink 2 glasses of skim milk a day and I will start with a goal of 4 glasses of water a day and work my way up to 8. I will keep my diet soda consumption at less than 2 cups a day

Both of these depend on getting a good schedule going. I also want to do up a cleaning schedule so that I am not trying to do everything on certain days. I will continue with the once a month shopping, as that worked out pretty good last month and seemed to save us money.

I also have some money / frugal goals:

• Savings:
  We already contribute $20 a week automatically to our online savings accounts, but I would like to boost that up to $30 this month, and up to $40 by the end of the year.
  I also want to get a baby emergency fund built up. So, any extra money we get will go towards building up to $1000.
• Debt:
  I am concerned with our debt and will be using at least some of our income tax return to pay off credit cards. We were very good this Christmas and didn’t use our credit cards, so that will help. I want as much of this debt gone as is possible before we move into our new house, sometime in early summer.
• Other:
  We will be reducing our cable down to channels 2 through 1, which will save us about $30 a month. With having  less channels, the tv will be on less, therefore, reducing our electric bill at least a little bit. I will continue stockpiling and using coupons to get really good deals and keep our pantry full. Work on getting Little Princess potty trained, which will save us tons of money in diapers. Limit eating out to once a month and try to get gift cards from MyPoints in order to do so. Find new recipes and try at least one per month.

Well there you go. There are my resolutions. They are fairly simple and seem very realistic, so I’m hoping I will be able to keep them this year.

I was just wondering what you think of them? Does the page load quick enough? Do you like the colors? Do you think I should change it? Please let me know in my comments. Thank you.

Well, actually we start on the first of January. My hubby and I decided that we would start trimming down with the start of the new year. We had bananas that were going bad, so I made up some banana bread. I also figured because I am going on a diet in two days that I need some chocolate, so I made up some brownies. Sorry HASAY!!! I will try not to eat too much of the good stuff, but I can’t make any promises. By the way, my husband complained that the banana bread was too dark (I added more bananas, also used half brown sugar and half white) - I think he should be banned from the bread! LOL. Even though it was a lot browner than most banana breads, boy, was it tasty! MMMMmmm.

I am currently in search of recipes that are healthy for us, including recipes for semi-healthy goodies. So, if you have any that are relatively good for you, please share these in the comments section. I know that if I go cold turkey on the goodies, that I will binge on them, so I would rather not do that.

We have a lot we are trying to get done in the next week and a half. On the 12th, my hubby and I are both going to be taking classes at the local community college. He will be taking only one class on Wednesdays for three  hours: some type of technical math. I, on the other hand, am actually taking 4 classes.  Though I am taking 4 classes, 2 of them are one credit courses. So, I will be taking 9 credit hours this spring semester. I am taking Java programming, Business Statistics, and Intermediate and Advanced Spreadsheets.

So, my list of things to get done in the next week and a half:

• By tomorrow I need to get my resolutions done for the new year.
• I need to catch up on my filing. Currently all the papers that are waiting to be filed are sitting in a To Be Filed folder at the front of my filing cabinet. I would daresay that they go back to before fall semester began, so we’re talking about probably July or August here.
• I need to get myself and the kids onto a good schedule. Little Princess is getting to an age where activities and games are becoming a possibility and I would like to incorporate this into her day. Also, with more of a schedule, the kids will know what’s next. I need to get myself on a better cleaning schedule and an exercise schedule.
• Some spring cleaning (early) is needed in certain area of our house. The frig needs a thorough cleaning, our bedroom needs organizing, the cupboards and closet in the kitchen need to be organized, etc.

I’m sure there are more things that I should add to my list but right now I can’t think of any.

Monthly Shopping :
Tonight or tomorrow I also need to do up our monthly meal plan and shopping list. We did pretty good last month, with only running out of coffee. We did buy some extra stuff with a gift card for a local grocery store and bought a few things because we found REALLY good sales: 2 liters of Coke for 88 cents (I’m a Pepsi fan but will drink Diet Cherry and Diet Dr Pepper) and Stove Top stuffing for 89 cents a box (bought four of them for that price). On Thursday, we will be off to the grocery store for our monthly shopping trip.

I hope everyone had a great holiday, and have a great New Year!

Yeah, I know. I forgot yesterday, but if you read my last post you will see that I have a very good excuse! So here’s yesterday’s four calling birds:

And today’s gift of 5 Golden rules:

Until tomorrow…..

As you can imagine, the last week has not been the most optimum atmosphere for losing (or even maintaining) weight. I haven’t been upstairs to get on the scale yet, but I will later and I will update at the bottom of my post.

All the Christmas cookies and goodies are gone. I gave most of it away as additional gifts to my family. Get it out of my house is all I could think about! Of course, now I could really go for a piece of fudge or a sugar cookie with nice sweet icing….. Bad thoughts! Bad thoughts! We’ve got a few dark chocolate hershey kisses left from the stockings. I will have to go get a couple of those to keep my craving at bay. Santa was very good this year and only brought an apple, nuts, some hershey kisses and M&Ms this Christmas. So, that, along with all the cookies being given away, has hopefully helped my waist from gaining 3 more inches!

Losing weight is one of my New Years resolutions, and I will further address those in my post tomorrow or Wednesday. I need to get on track and need to do it now. My classes start again on the 12th and I need things organized and going smoothly by then. I’m taking Java programming, Business Statistics, and Intermediate and Advanced Spreadsheets. I know the classes will be tough, I’m just hoping that they won’t be stressful like the one course I took last year. We all know what happens when stress rears its ugly head!

Some of you may be wondering why I didn’t post yesterday. I received the whole Twilight series of books from hubby’s  uncle (beautiful hardcover set) and let’s just say I’m halfway through the second book already! I hate putting down a good book. It’s the equivalent of pushing stop on a really good movie halfway through and not watching the rest of the movie until later! Ggggrrr! I’m not sure how I put the book down long enough to blog about it! LL. There’s a lot to do around the house today, and I’m going to TRY to stay away from the books! After I’m done reading them I will write my opinions on them, so you can decide if you would like to buy them, or better yet, take them out at the library.