Spending fast

Okay. Here are the requirements for my "modified' spending fast.

(Side note - The idea for a spending fast first came from Anna over at And Then She Saved. Check it out. She has great tips and ideas for saving money and getting out of debt! She paid off thousands of dollars of debt in her first year of doing a spending fast.

• I have to save. save. save. I work hard for everything that I have and I'm of the mindset that if I have the money and if all my bills are paid and my affairs are in order, feel free to spend money...usually, that results in me spending money on clothes that I certainly don't need and on fast food that I most certainly don't need. So, I'm doing a saving guide that I found on Pinterest at the beginning of the year (that I don't feel like looking for, just know that I didn't come up with the idea lol) - basically you save a certain amount of dollars equal to whatever week of the year that we're in. So the first week, you put 1 dollar in a jar, savings account, etc., and the second week, you put 2 dollars....and on and on until the last week of the year when you'll put in 52 dollars. It totals up to 1300 and some change. It's a good way to save a nice chunk of change, so here we go!
• I can only go out once a week...to some that seems like a lot for a spending fast...but I have a group of friends from school that usually grabs lunch after class...and I don't want to have to bail on them all the time. That being said...once a week means once a week, so if I go out to lunch on Monday, I can't go out for dinner on Saturday...if I eat out on Monday, I can't catch a movie with them on Friday night...and so forth. 
• No money on CLOTHING at all. for any reason. I have PLENTY PLENTY PLENTY to get me through YEARS without ever buying anything.
• No shopping. except for food and needed personal items.
• I'm also going to look for a parttime job to save some extra cash. I'm thinking of either setting up a profile on Nanny.com and babysitting on the weekends. Or getting some type of server job, which I think would be really cool, since I've never been a waitress before and I feel like it's an important coming of age job lol.
• No iTunes purchases.
• No Redbox rentals (except for my free coupon that comes once a month! Yay for freebies!)
• ....and anything else that I might think of later.

Here's to saving money! Woohoo!

Before time gets away from me, I figured I should write down what I'm hoping to accomplish in twenty-thirteen. I haven't set hard goals...I, like most of America I'm sure, don't do well with hard goals (yes, yes, I'm lazy, privileged, comfortable..none of which are crimes, are they?? lol). Instead, I just came up with some things/actions that I would like to begin and/or do in the new year...which I guess are hard-set goals. I guess I'm trying to psych myself out...and I'm okay with that. Here are my not hard-set goals -

1. Spending fast, of sorts - My sisters and I did this for a few months last year and Dehli and I are going to do it again this year. Unlike last year, I have no credit card balance or large bills or anything to pay off (sans my car and student loans...but everything in its season lol) but I want to take some pretty wicked vacations after graduation next summer. That being said, I will be participating in a modified spending fast...which I guess means I can't call it a fast, but whatever lol. I'll be describing my criteria in tomorrow's post.

2. Work out - 

- I have two apps on my phone. 0 to 100 push-ups and 0 to 200 sit-ups that I want to conquer. I started last week and I can already feel improvements. The apps have three work outs per week to build your endurance. So far so good!

- I also want to run a 5k this year. I did one last year...but I didn't train and I had to walk a bit. I have another app on my phone to help me build endurance and learn to pace myself.

3. Spend more time getting to know God. He deserves far more of me than I give him.

4. Blog more. Self-explanatory. I usually do really well in the first part of the year and then quickly trail off.

5. Sleep more. I want to be in bed no later than 1030 every week night (Sun-Thurs). I have an alarm set on my phone to further remind myself of the goal.

6. Keep on top of my school work and get more A's this semester than I did last semester.

7. Finish reading the Bible through. I'm on track to finish the New Testament this week, in fact. But I want to read the OT straight through. I've read a good chunk of it...but I tend to jump around, purposefully avoiding some (*cough cough* Deuteronomy...lol)

What do you think? Any tips? What are your no hard-set goals for 2013?