Category: money

Butterfly Bliss–Volume 2

For those of you who haven’t read about my butterfly challenge, I’m following the lead of one of the bloggers I greatly admire, Charley Forness at Scribe for the Tribe, and trying to make small changes every week in the hopes that the small changes will add up to bigger changes in my life. Last week’s article is here. This weekly checki n will include a report on last week’s progress and on my goals for next week.

Goal–Lose 30 lbs by 12/31/2009

Progress

  • Walk at least 20 minutes three times a week— I did a good job of this one as Cat and I took one walk around the neighborhood this week, we walked around the Forest Preserve, and we went to the zoo today and walked quite a bit.
  • Drink three bottles (aluminum ones) of water a day–I didn’t do such a good job on this one. Three days I managed to drink two bottles of water, but there is still a lot of room for progress on this one.

Butterflies for this week

  • Walk at least 20 minutes three times a week—I think I need to work on this as it isn’t habit yet.
  • Drink two bottles of water a day—I need to be realistic about this and acknowledge that I’m struggling. Hopefully, I can start drinking two bottles and then work up to three.

Goal–Have Sean’s tuition and the taxes paid by 12/31/2009

Progress

  • Cook dinner at home six nights a week to save money.–I did a great job at this one. We actually ate at home five nights this week (for us that is excellent) and when we did eat out were mindful about it and did not just go for junk food.
  • Update the budget in my online budget tracker.–I did update my budget for the week and know what I spent and what I’ll spend next week.
  • Cut my driving to use only one tank of gas a week–This one was actually the easiest of all my goals. I just filled up this morning, which meant that my last tank of gas lasted a little over a week.

Butterflies for the week

  • Cook dinner at home six nights a week to save money. This is really saving us money as I was spending over $100 a week on fast food. This is definitely one I need to keep.
  • Pack my lunch four days a week—I usually skip lunch, but that leads to me drinking more coke, which is also a waste of money.
  • Not buy any magazines—I usually buy two or three magazines a week, which is from five to six dollars wasted with information I could find online.

Goal–Build my online presence

Progress

  • Post five book reviews at Amazon—I actually posted four reviews, so I did make progress on this one.
  • Comment on at least 10 blog entries around the blogosphere—This was pretty easy as I read a lot of good blog entries this week.

Butterflies for the Week

  • Post five book reviews at Amazon
  • Comment on at least 10 blog entries around the blogosphere
  • Get listed on three more blog stes

Goal–Build KUDOS Power

Progress

  • Post three articles on KUDOS Power—I actually made two decisions that impacted this item. I decided that I would split my KUDOS Power entries into two blogs, one for individuals and one for organizations. There will be some cross over and I will post some entries on both blogs, but based on some guidance from the ProBlogger book, I decided this would give me the best possibility to grow my business. I also made the decision, that I was going to focus on writing articles and not posting them for a few weeks so that I have articles I can set to post on particular dates. This was a lesson I learned from this blog as I found when life got busy, I didn’t write so there were no new postings. Now I write blog entries ahead of time so that on days when I don’t have time to write, there is still new content.
  • Post three articles at free article sites with links back to KUDOS Power—Not done, because I don’t want to post articles on other sites until I formally launch KP.

Butterflies for the Week

  • Write five articles
  • Find five sites to post articles on
  • Reorganize the site in line with the above
  • Rewrite The Portable Coach

Goal–Build better relationships with my family

Progress

  • One dinner or activity with John this week—I didn’t make it out with John this week
  • One dinner or activity with Cat this week—Cat and I went to the forest preserve and the conservatory and went to the zoo with Sean this week.

Butterflies for the week

  • One dinner or activity with John this week
  • One dinner or activity with Cat this week
  • One Dinner or activity with Sean

Wish me luck this week. I’ll check back in next Sunday.

Bliss in the Bills

Some say that money doesn’t buy happiness, but having enough money to pay my bills is one of the most blissful feelings in the world. There is a deep sense of satisfaction in knowing that as a result of our efforts, we can pay for the basic necessities of life and afford a few extras. I get extra satisfaction out of being able to pay my bills on time every month because a few years ago we weren’t always able to keep the lights turned on and there were a few times when we had to borrow money from our parents for necessities.

Sometimes it’s all too easy to forget those lean years as I sit in my beautiful living room looking out at the park with my almost new car parked in the driveway. However, I know those luxuries come at a price of free time. To pay for life in Arlington Heights, my husband and I both have to work full time jobs which leave us exhausted and cranky. All too often, food comes from the closest fast food joint and not from the pantry.

The lean years weren’t all bad as I was freelancing and wasn’t working full time so I had plenty of time to volunteer at the kids’ school and spend time with them before and after school. Despite how much I hated not having money for all the extras I wanted to give them, I wouldn’t trade those years for anything in the world. I got to be there to watch my kids in school, be there when they came home from school, and I had the time to take them to the park whenever we wanted.

We always managed to make the most of the money we had and in a lot of ways life was better without a lot of cash. We spent more time together in the evenings instead of all going our own way and there was a sense that we were in it together. Meals were better too as we didn’t have money for fast food, but had to cook at home. We also managed to take our kids to Disney World during those lean years with a trip cobbled together with freebies from the Web and a little bit of savings.

However, I am pragmatic enough to realize that despite the highlights of our lean years, there was plenty of strife as we struggled to make our pennies stretch to cover our bills. There was always a sense of failure as we realized there was too much month left at the end of each paycheck. There is no glory in having your lights shut off.

As I sit and reflect on life then and now, I realize that I need to find a way to balance the bliss of more time with my family with the bliss of having my bills paid. It isn’t easy, but I’m finding my way back to bliss.