11 Goals for 2016

March 3, 2016

Normally people write goals in December for the upcoming New Year. At the latest, maybe January? But not me. Being huge and pregnant, feeling like my life was on pause, I just couldn't wrap my mind around creating goals for myself or with my husband for our family. I really wanted my pregnancy to be over so that I could feel like I could move forward instead of waiting for something to happen. And it is. My pregnancy is over and we're snuggling our 4th baby and I am ready to move forward.

I'm going to spend 2016 focusing on health. Physical health, nutritional health, and financial health.


1. Lose, on average, 2lbs a week. That is roughly at 104lb weight loss in a year.

My physical health is our family's number one priority. Im obese. There's no way to be cute about it because obesity and the health problems that can occur aren't cute. I am going to accomplish this goal by cutting out all processed foods in our home that have more than 5 ingredients. My husband doesn't know this yet! He's naturally thin but his eating, like mine, isn't the best. So if I'm not making the whole out of a sum of ingredients or if the product has more than 5 ingredients, we're not eating it.

The exception to the rule: Vacations/Family trips, eating over someone's house/eating a meal provided by a friend or family member

2. Exercise at the YMCA 3 times a week (starting when baby Mo is old enough for child care).

Our YMCA offers 2 hours of uninterrupted childcare for members. This is an amazing opportunity to use that time to take classes for myself and give my kids the opportunity to run their energy out.

3. Limit calorie intake to 1,800 calories a day

I've found that the combination of real foods and calorie restriction works best for me. Im going to play around with these calories because I am breastfeeding and I don't want to mess with my milk supply but I know as it is right now, Im eating too many calories. Im going to keep track of my calories on MyFitnessPal.

4. Pack my husband's and my daughter's lunch every day.

This is a great goal because I love packing lunches. You can check out my weekly updates on my instagram account every Friday if you want some inspiration. Doing this will also help us financially because as of right now, my husband is eating either unhealthy lunches he's thrown together or spending money on eating out. This will be a test though, more so for him than me, to see if he'll actually bring the lunchbox back when he's done at the end of the day.

5. No eating out

We're not eating out anymore because a lot of times it goes against our real food goal and because its expensive. Eating out as a family of 6 (well, 5 because the littlest one doesn't eat "real" food yet) is expensive. It's anywhere between $40-60+ dollars a visit.

The exception to the rule: Vacation/Family trips, birthdays, being invited out to dinner (and they are paying), meal provided by a friend or family member.

6. Save 3 months worth of my husband's monthly pay

Unfortunately, moving and having a baby has tapped our savings account and it is in need of love and care, for real. Saving 3 months worth of my husband's monthly pay a great way to provide us a cushion if something were to happen to his employment and make the worrier in me feel better.

7. Organize and purge unnecessary items

We live in a 1,000 square foot home and it feels smaller when our stuff doesn't have any place to go or doesn't belong here in the first place. So I am going to purge 10 items a week, that's 520 items for the entire year! The rest of the things that we do keep will be in their proper place, organized.

8. Only buy necessary items, everything else spend less than $100.00 a month

What are necessary items? Obviously things that keep our family running like food, gas, clothes, shoes, and the like. But no unnecessary purchases at the Goodwill or random items in my cart at Target or else it comes out of the $100.00 we've set aside.

The exception to the rule: I want to purchase a TV stand for living room and the older two kids need their room re-done in the summer.

9. Keep grocery bill under $500 a month

I've played with this number for years now. Sometimes trying to get us as low as $300 a month for groceries and it just does.not.work. Right now we're at about $600 a month for groceries but that includes some processed things. I think when we cut those things out I'll be able to save $100 easily. Im also only taking cash with me at the grocery store.

10. Follow a morning and evening cleaning routine

I've been doing this successfully for a few weeks now but it's definitely something that takes committment! It works though and I love how our house looks.

11. Reduce our waste

Our trash and recycling has gotten out of hand. We purchase too many things that require plastic packaging and we don't compost. My goal is to only use one trash bag and recycle only one can of plastics a week.