Thoughts for the upcoming year

Okay, I've officially made all of our Christmas purchases.  Tomorrow, I will need to focus on writing a special post that will be for the new blog; however, I plan to post it here first.  We are going to be beginning one of our New Year's Resolutions early because of the way our schedule works.   I want to talk about it but I want to have it fully explained.  Unlike last last year where I tried to conquer 27 goals and only really achieved approximately half of them I decided to do things differently this year.   What I tried last year required a level of self-discipline that I just don't have yet.  I know I can handle one goal for the year as I've done this blog for almost two years now.  The trick is to establish a daily habit.

This year, I'm going to try and achieve two goals.  Two big goals.  One will be to actually write entries regularly in my Investing in Living blog.  It's been something I've wanted to do for the past two years and I need to establish a routine so that it can become a habit.  Like this daily writing here in this blog, I think I need to dedicate a certain amount of time each day toward writing on that blog.  I'm debating between 15-30 minutes a day.   Unlike this blog, I won't be posting every night.  I think, at first, I'll want to post once or twice each week.  I'm still trying to work that out.   I won't be starting that one until the new year (though I plan to write entries for it prior) so I have some time to think about it the actual specifics. You guys have been following this for two years now so if you have some suggestions about the new blog, I welcome your thoughts.  Please feel free to comment or email me directly.

My second is actually one that I will be trying with Dave and it is very ambitious but I think is totally doable.  We've decided to do a Spending Fast after being totally motivated by Anna Newell Jones at And then she saved.  Yes, this is huge but I won't be going at it alone.  We also have those long term financial goals: we want to pay back our debt and we want to eventually buy a home.   Right now we are also living on one income (although I don't plan for it to stay that way).  We've tried budgeting and be more controlled but I think the "you're not allowed to spend on anything but the necessities" might work better.  It's not about being able to justify it, it's just "no."   Of course, we'll have different wants and needs which we've talked about and I plan to write about in that post.  We have been preparing for this for the past month so we've really tried to get some of those things that we think we're going to need.  Dave and I have this goal far more flushed out than I've outlined in this paragraph and hopefully I can clearly delineate our goal and the "rules" in my next post.

Please write me with your thoughts especially about the new blog.  I can't say that I will use everything you suggest but I promise that I will give what you say a lot of deep thought.