Goals Check-In, Week 1.

Week 1 of 2022 is in the books! I’m going to try to share small updates each Friday as a way to check-in on my 2022 goals!

Goal #1: Declutter. I tried to pick one space each day to purge and I ended up at Savers (a place that takes donations) THREE times this week! Some spaces I tackled were the upstairs bathroom, the playroom, the toy bins in the basement, the cabinet of board games, the drawers in the dining room, 8 kitchen cabinets and 2 kitchen drawers. I donated a total of 15 full trash bags (plus 4 boxes of stuff) and ended up with 2 bags of actual trash.

Next week, I’m going to tackle my stuff. I’ll take another pass at my clothes and then go through shoes, bags, and hobbies. I’m also going to purge the children’s clothing and pass along any sizes we no longer need to some friends.

Goal #2: Say no to stuff. I didn’t acquire a single thing this week! We did however begin a running list (sort of a joke between me and Sean) of things we would have bought if we weren’t being intentional. So far on that list of wishful items: a (third) Google nest doorbell, a saucepan, and a sled (we only have two.) I also said no to a number of friends offering me things for the kids that I otherwise would have taken. It’s hard to say no, but it feels good, too.

Goal #3: No Spend Challenge/Save $20K. Have you done a no spend challenge? It is HARD. It was a struggle every day and it didn’t help that every day, at least one of the kids asked me to get them Dairy Queen! You know how tempting that is? But we made it the whole week without any impulse purchases or visits to fast food places — we ate every meal at home and didn’t go inside a single store. I find ordering online or doing drive-up is the best way to curb unnecessary spending. I shared that every day we were able to do that (not waste our money), I was going to move $60 from our checking account to our savings account (that’s about equal to how much we were wasting each week.) So that’s what I did!

Week 1 savings: $420

Tomorrow starts week 2!