Resolutions 2010

I love goals! :) I am so excited that we have a holiday for "Goal Setting". This year I am taking mine very seriously, and I have already gotten started on some.

Resolution #1: To maximize our financial resources.

Soon we are going down to one income! Its completely doable because we have always planned around one income, however, there won't be much wiggle room. I will kind of miss my fun salary that we always used for projects, to pay extra on our mortgage, or to give beyond our regular offerings to charitable causes. Occasionally I would use it to splurge on gifts for loved ones!

I have already gotten started on this, and recently I shopped around for new Homeowners Insurance. Guess what? I went to a local insurance broker, and they were able to save us over $800 yearly on homeowners insurance compared to what I had been paying with a well known national company :).

The idea behind "maximizing our finacial resources" is to essentially keep as much of our money as possible. That includes - making sure that the Government doesn't get a penny more than they should, it also includes not allowing major corporations to take advantage of us, and just basically not paying more than we need to for things because I am too tired or not in the mood to shop around. Its easy for me to get lazy on two incomes.

Which brings me to...

Resolution #2: To master the art of couponing.

I recently realized that there is an entire craze going on now centered around saving A LOT of money at the grocery store! I used to think that couponing was a waste a time and that it actually cost money because you ended up buying things that you wouldn't use but you bought because you happened to have a coupon. Well, I have changed my way of thinking and I am very excited to get started. I had to have a major paradigm shift in the way I view grocery shopping though.

1) I can't be afraid to stockpile! I almost never used to buy something that I already had at home, mostly because it annoyed Nick if he realized that I bought something we didn't need. Now I need to build a stockpile of things that I will use when they are at low prices, so that eventually I only need to buy things at the store that I can get great deals on. One expert said that you should never, ever NEED to go to the store for anything!
2) Its only ok to buy things that you will not use unless they are FREE or are MONEY MAKERS. Thanks to Walgreens Register Rewards and CVS Bucks, you can actually make money sometimes when you use coupons correctly.

I've already started, and gotten a few great deals. I also have a special binder that I've made to organize my coupons!

Resolution #3: To give more.

This is the most important one and our motivation for the previous two! I would like to increase our charitable giving. We have always tithed (10%) at our church, and given above that for other things, mostly missions. It used to be really easy to give a lot extra when we had all of my salary coming in each month unallocated. Now its going to be much, much harder! We have been so blessed financially, and I know we are meant to use it to bless others. So I have a fixed percentage in my head above our tithe that is my "offering" goal, and I will be taking concrete steps towards achieving that.

"Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."~Luke 12:33-34

Ha, I guess you could then say that my heart is currently in my mortgage, bills, taxes, and insurance! No wonder I find it so preoccupying... isn't it crazy how much it costs just to exist responsibly in this country?