starting fresh.

After feeling a surge of motivation and inspiration and change... all wonderful feelings for me... it has really helped me to give myself a huge reality check.  I am feeling so positive and motivated in so many aspects.  I've said it before in my previous post and I will say it again. I have to keep up the momentum and keep the positivity going.  I will keep it going.

I'm working on setting some goals for the new year and saving money is one of them. I've started making a list (because I really do love lists!) of all of the typical expenses we have every month.  I feel like we just spend so much more money that we "need" to.  I know we need to save more. I know we need to just honestly be more mindful when and how we spend our money.  So as of January 1, it's on.

photo by me

Partially inspired by life itself and the changes that I feel happening and partially inspired by friends and other friends and partially inspired by blogs.  My friends are amazing and the blog world is an amazing place.  I am surrounded by such rich resources!! And for that, I am so very thankful.

All of that said, Todd and I will need to sit down and really take a look at where our money is going.  What are some things that we spend money on that we could actually go without? The gym? Ugh. Probably.  It makes  me a little sad and a little excited.  The thought of putting that extra money towards a new house is the best part.  And expanding our family some day? That makes me smile too.  Every little bit will help.  That is the motivation that will help me to reevaluate our money priorities.  We are lucky and blessed in our lives and we are not hurting for anything. I need to keep that in mind when we start to pull those purse strings a little tighter.  We are doing it all for great reasons and all of it will be worth it later.  Hopefully in 2014.

Now that I'm really looking into where our money is spent, it leads me to budgeting. I really love using a system like Mint to track your transactions. What I need to really work on and maybe could use a little help with is setting spending limits for certain things.  Do we really need the cable package that we have...do we really need to spend that much money on groceries..we should probably set a menu and shop from a list... we might want to cancel that gym membership...stop going out to dinner as often as we do...is paying for little extra's worth it at the end of the day? Lots of questions are racing through my brain today!!

I apologize for the mess of jumbled thoughts. I am trying to get all of the thoughts and anxieties that are running through my mind into words. When I say anxieties, I mean that in the best way.  Change can make me anxious but I'm also so very excited.  So like I said, it is kind of a jumbled mess of words and emotions.  I just need to write the down. I think it will help me put my words into actions. 

So. Here are some of the places online that I've come across that bring some pretty good money-saving ideas to the table:

• This Blog.  They are amazing and very inspiring!  And I would love to somehow incorporate this idea into our savings plan for 2014.
• I haven't yet read all of these posts but I'm looking forward to having them for reference!
• Mint.  Seriously. We've used this before and if we start using it again, I think it will really, really help us!

I need your help, any tips for saving money?  Any more inspirational stories that will help me to stay focused on our goals?  "No Spend January" could be very interesting but I know it will all be worth it.  I know we can do it.