Well, since I procrastinated enough last year that I finally ended up joining the gym at the beginning of the year like the masses and it ended up working out, I thought I'd revisit my ban on New Years resolutions. I mean, it is the mother of all resets, and that is my new core principle I have developed and seem to be the most consistent with. I keep finding new ways to reset throughout my day or with my habits or whatever it might be, to keep me from being in a rut.
So without further ado, here are my top resolutions for the year:
1. Books. I was dropping off some books at my used bookstore the other day, as I continue on my quest to clean out and simplify my place. Except, I didn't leave empty handed. Even though I've run out of room to neatly tuck away any new books and have told myself, no more books. I just keep acquiring them. I mean they were free, since I had credit at the store, but that is the worst trap of acquiring more stuff - the free stuff. And since I haven't been commuting everyday which is where I got the majority of my reading done, my ratio of books coming in to books being read is getting terribly lopsided. Also, I remember being struck by what Marie Kondo said about books in her famous book about tidying up. That the time to read the book is when you first get it and if you don't read it then it's not likely you read it ever. I thought, that can't be right. But then again, I seem to be proving her right as I continue to not read the books I already have. Basically, this is the long winded way to say that I want to see if I can prove this concept wrong, that for me, I do read books I acquired years ago.
New Years Resolution: to finish two books a month - 24 by the end of the year. Pretty modest since I would average almost a book a week back in my commuting days - it would depend how bad traffic was. I've started getting into the habit of reading for a bit each morning when I wake up until 6 pm when I get up to feed the cats. So, so far so good.
2. Cookbook Recipes. Although I felt like I really cleaned out a bunch of stuff last year (or was it the year before), I still find myself revisiting what I decided to keep and ask, do I really need this/love this? For my cookbooks, I decided to use a shelf in my pantry to store them which forced me to decide to let go of some of the cookbooks so that they could all fit on the one shelf. Although you can look up recipes so easily online, I find I still like cooking from cookbooks. At least I like the idea, but am really using them. I was flipping through the cookbooks the other day, looking for a recipe and was reminded how many great recipes I had but hadn't tried. I've decided the book has to earn its keep to stay on the shelf. It has to have several recipes I love and will keep revisiting. This is part of my grand plan of putting together play books for parts of my life to make things easier and less to remember/decide.
The other category I'm counting in here is the folder of recipes I collected from magazines. I store it along side my cookbooks on th shelf. For awhile I had several subscriptions to magazines, including a cooking magazine. I'm really glad I stopped them as I don't miss them and it helped cut down on paper clutter. But I still have the remnants of them. I've weeded the clippings, and organized them and catalogued them and even used a few of the recipes but not very often. Again, I realize there are some good recipes in the mix but also there a bunch that represent my fantasy self. As I've been getting better at recognizing aspirational goals that are more realistic, I'm able to cut out a bunch of stuff.
New Years Resolution: this has two parts. Part one is the books. I have to cook at least one recipe from each cookbook by year end and have identified at least three more recipes I want to try, else the cookbook goes. Part two is my collection of magazine recipes. I want to have a final folder of no more than ten recipes I want to try. And if in the future I see a recipe I want to try, I need to swap it out. Else it will just get lost in the pile and I'll forget about it.
So far I've already been doing pretty well. I took out a third of my cookbooks that I like but don't feel I've used that often (they all have such pretty pictures, what is it with pretty pictures and cookbooks) and as I was flipping through the pages, I found one cookbook on brunches I was already ready to let go of and included it in my box of books I brought to the store to sell. I have five others that are on the fence. I think I might try a few recipes and then let them go. One caveat I should add is that I'm going through my recipe folder of go to recipes and revisiting everything. If I find a recipe that I will work into my cooking playbook, I'll make a note of it and keep it or a copy of it. So for some cookbooks that are on the fence, there is one recipe I like, but that's not enough of a reason to keep the whole book. A photocopy will do just fine. I also need to tackle my recipes on Pinterest, but want to set realistic goals and figured this would be a good first phase.
I'm roughly planning on trying two new recipes each month from my cookbooks/recipes on file.
3. Financials - small and cash diet. I've been trying out different things on the not spending side of things. I have to say that one positive of taking longer than I had planned finding my next job, is that I've really taken a super close look at spending and what I really need to buy. I love keeping track of things so year one I tracked my spending at the end of each month with my checking and credit card statements and categorized my spending into several main categories. All the categories but one were pretty consistent. The one category that was all over the place was what I called "miscellaneous". Not that surprising. It basically was everything I didn't really need, plus a few essentials (toiletries, stamps, etc). My main categories are mortgage, utilities, entertainment (Internet, phone and Netflix only), groceries, car, cats and then everything else was miscellaneous. So last year I kept track of my miscellaneous and wrote every expense down. A coffee meet up as a I networked, a new gym shirt, etc. I even kept track of all my cash spending. It wasn't too hard since I had really cut down on my spending beyond the essentials, so not too much to write down. But still enough to look at what I had spent all my money on and take stock. Mid-year, I went through everything and categorized my miscellaneous spending into three groups: essentials, wants that I would buy again, wants that I wouldn't buy again. Surprisingly I found my wants divided pretty much into half. Half the stuff I bought I didn't need to buy. It was a good learning experience on breaking decades old spending habits. I feel like I'm kicking my retail therapy habit much better than I am kicking my sugar habit. I had also tried to use cash for all my miscellaneous purchases and still used plastic for the main categories (groceries, gas, cats, etc).
Anyways, for various reasons, I want to buck the trend everyone else is following, and actually use more cash and less plastic. They say it's easier to spend more with plastic which is probably true, but I don't think it will make that much of a difference, I may be wrong. I also like the idea of just changing things up which I find makes me see things differently.
A second part is that I realize I can use my money to make a difference globally. I always was interested in ethical and responsible brands but felt overwhelmed trying to green all my purchases. But as you start buying less, it's less you have to consider and it's not as overwhelming. I'm frustrated with the capitalist democracy we have and want to make a difference. This last year I've moved away from buying stuff at large stores. I think I only went to whole foods twice last year (my go to grocery store) and instead visit a local farm/grocery for most of my food. I still have a ways to go, but the first part is where you are purchasing your stuff from. I want to limit giving my money to the large corporations and support smaller, local companies. This means limiting what I buy online. Hearing about how workers are treated at Amazon warehouses and what it takes to get you exactly what you want right away woke me up. I don't mind doing a little planning and don't need my paper towels delivered same day. Next phase will be looking at the products I buy.
New Years Resolution: Part one is to use cash for all purchases except autopay utilities and minimal online purchases (like airline tickets). Part two is to spend less than 10% of my expenses (excluding mortgage/utilities) from big corporations. Part three is to limit my online purchases to ten maximum throughout the year. I do need to go back over last year and see what my number was. If it was less than ten, I might reduce the number.
Overall, I think they are pretty realistic resolutions and I've already done something in every category to test them out before putting them in writing. So hopefully the success rate will be good. I had many more ideas for ways to reset some of my habits, but I picked these because I think they will help me with my bigger goal of shifting my focus and time on things that will give me a richer and fuller life, no matter how big or small the step.
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