Thursday, April 4, 2013

April.


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April is the first full month of spring, though you wouldn’t know it considering we’ve dropped back down to the thirties and low forties around here. I was very much looking forward to wearing dresses to work, but I guess I’ll have to wait a bit longer.

This month, I have a few pieces of my life I’d like to improve.

Limit spending.
I wanted to cut out spending completely, but I definitely need gas, coffee, and food. My goal is to refrain from spending on anything that isn’t edible (besides the gas, obviously). This allows me to buy groceries, treat myself to lunch and coffee, and split the bill on any dinner dates with Erik. It’s too difficult to try to cut these out, so instead, I’m building my goal around them.

Budget.
When my lunch (half) hour rolls around at work, most of the time I go out and get coffee and something to eat. It’s an excuse to leave my cube and to be lazy about meal planning, but it’s not financially healthy. I’m also prone to impulse shopping: buying a new nail polish ‘just because,’ picking up excessive amounts of candy, or seeing a cool Groupon for something I don’t really need. At the very least, I want to look at my spending and see where I’m willing to cut back, or oppositely, decide it's something I 'need,' budget properly for it, and stop guilt-tripping myself.

Pack lunches.
Yeah, these goals are pretty much all tying in neatly together, aren’t they? This one is both money- and health-conscious because most of my lunches are from McDonald’s. (Which I find funny because I work for a Burger King franchisee. Whoops.) I need to plan out time to research easy-to-prep lunch options and start implementing them.

In addition to these goals, I’m participating in a group called PassionPower, created by Ashley from Your Super Awesome Life. We’ve only had one call so far, but I already know it’s going to be really great for me. April is going to be a really great month and I've got a good feeling about 2013 in general.