June Challenge & Goals

Good evening everyone!

I will survive!

Looks like a lot of my fellow bloggers have many noble goals for the month of June and I thought I’d contribute with my own monthly challenge!

In May, I had challenged myself to track my spending using Quicken. This has been a super-fabulous-success and I think it was reporting back to you, readers, every week that made this work! So thanks for stopping by, I’m starting to think these wouldn’t have been the same successes without you!

This month, I think I’m just going to keep my goals modest. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, this month is going to be incredibly stressful with some of the personal stuff happening in my life.  Largely, my aim is to survive the month and keep things as regular as possible.

A couple things I do when I’m stress is impulse spend on stuff that I don’t really need. The crafty thing about my impulse spending is that it is often disguised as smart purchases. Buying a book on money management? Sure, totally reasonable purchase. But the reason behind the purchase is because I’m feeling worried and/or overwhelmed about what’s happening in my life.

1. Goal: Keep my impulse spending down to a minimum.

I will plan out my spending for the week to keep things as purposeful as possible, keeping in mind life balance (friends, family, work etc.).

Another things I really struggle with is impulse eating. I love to stop by a drive thru or a coffee house and pick up something to get me through a moment of boredom or restlessness. This is unhealthy and kind of an expensive habit.

2. Goal: Since I’m not a fan of feeling bored, or restless, or anything negative really – I will have a list of things I can do instead.

For example, If I feel like going to McDonald’s, I will eat a healthy snack at home and go for a quick run around the block to get rid of the extra energy.

3. Goal: I will schedule at least a couple of hours a day when I have to focus on said crappy task.

I have taken some time off work over the next few weeks so I can focus on what I need to do. However, I like to avoid crappy things so I find all manner of useless stuff to fill my time with anything but the crappy thing I have to do.

I will work for a couple hours downstairs in our basement -free of distraction – to finish up the project I have to complete.

4. Goals: I will start hiking again at this local park at least three times a week.

It’s not a long hike (about 3 kilometers or 1.8 miles) but there’s hills and it takes me awhile. I’m in fairly terrible shape so this will be a good work out for me. It’s a beautiful park and it reminds me of British Columbia – which is where I grew up.

I always feel better in the woods – there’s less people which means I don’t have to make eye contact or meaningful conversation. As a general rule, I don’t like a lot of hobbies that involve either eye contact or meaningful conversation. I’m such a people person. 😉

So I think that’s all for my goals for this month. I’m just going to try and stay on track and not get too worked up if it doesn’t work out perfectly.

So readers, what do you do when you get stressed out?

Link Love

Budget and the Beach Job Anxiety Sets In

Debt Round Up What would you do? – Buying A Home

Making Sense of Cents Finding Time for it All: Summer Edition