My Goals For 2013

For my 2012 goals, I made way too many goals and only did well in two areas. I did great with my financial goals, good with my blogging goals and massively sucked with my personal goals. Why is it so hard to put myself first? I’m sure I’m not the only one who has this problem.

This year, I’m going to take a different approach to my goals. Instead of making a ton of lofty goals, I’m going to make less and include a plan to achieve them.

Goal #1 Save up the cash for a Second Car

I had been debating which financial goal to tackle first and it came down to saving for a second car and saving for a bathroom makeover. They were both driving me nuts, but my husband’s mention of having no way to get to work if something happened to our other car made it the winner.

While I would still like to get the bathtub swapped out this year, it’s a secondary priority. We can still save a little toward it, but the second car comes first.

My honey’s mom sent us $500 worth of Home Depot gift cards for Christmas this year (woohoo!). We’re going to use those to buy a lawnmower and grab a few small things we need from Home Depot, then the rest will be saved for the bathroom makeover.

The other Christmas money we got will be put toward the second car instead of more presents like we used to do.

My parents are going to be giving me their extra car, sometime this summer I believe. It has a ton of miles and seems to eat up a lot of their money, so I’ll use this as a trade-in (if they don’t mind) toward a newer car with less miles.

Goal #2 Minimize, Digitize, Organize and Go Paperless

I’ve been trying to be more minimalist forever now, but never seem to get there. We were pretty bad off (had tons of stuff) before I started, so I guess I’ve made a lot of progress. I’m just really bad at finishing things; I start new things all the time, but that’s usually all I do.

This year, I would like to at least tackle half of this stuff. I think that itself would make a dramatic change and motivate me to continue the process.

Books: I’m hoping to sell off most of our books and use the money to purchase ebooks of the ones we read over and over again. My husband has a nook and I have an iPad, so it just makes more sense. I love holding a physical book and getting swept away, but it gets easier reading ebooks the more you do it.

Movies: I’m looking into Apple TV, but I’m not sure how to get our movies into Itunes from my PC. Then, what happens if I have to reformat my computer? Does Itunes keep a back-up of stuff we add on there or do I have to back it up myself? That would be a lot of gigabites if I had to back them up. Anybody done this with a PC?

Photos: We rarely look at any of our photos, they just sit in a box in the closet. I would like to scan them and then just make a photo book with mini pictures. They would still be on the computer for when we want to browse through them and I would like to scan them at a high enough quality that they could be reprinted if we ever wanted them. We have probably around 1,500+ photos, so it will take a long time. Anybody know what to scan them as to get the quality high enough to print?

Papers: I save everything! It’s crazy. All the stuff our daughter makes, cards from people, paperwork and pretty much anything that invokes a memory. I need to get all this stuff scanned and organized so that I can find it when I want to. I really suck with digital information, I can’t seem to come up with a system and go through all the older stuff from previous attempts.

Goal #3 Take Time For Myself

I’m pretty sure this one is going to mean that I don’t turn on my computers/iPad until I’ve gotten personal priorities out of the way. This will be the hardest of all my goals for 2013. I’m always online, even if I don’t actually get anything done. I always get so busy with other stuff that I keep putting off things I need to do for myself and fun time. Whats fun time? It’s that bad; I don’t even remember what I used to do for fun.

Not that I don’t enjoy blogging, but there’s so much to it that I’m always behind. Then I put off doing other stuff because I can’t help trying to at least catch up. Forget getting ahead.

Things I would like to do for myself include:

  • Getting back into exercising. I feel so awesome when I get regular exercise. Plus, I need to lose a little weight.
  • Taking the time to get cleaned up even if I won’t be leaving the house that day. The great thing about blogging is that you can work in your pajamas (or even naked) if you wanted to…but I’m taking it to extremes.
  • Reading for fun. There are so many books I want to read, but I never seem to have the time. I love reading and getting lost in a book, it’s like being in a whole other world.
  • Give painting another go. I have everything I need to paint, including like 200+ acrylic paints. But I never take the time to do it anymore, I used to and it felt great and was a lot of fun.

 

What are your goals for 2013?

About Jen Perkins

Likes: saving money, being debt free (aside from our house), zombies, travel, getting money, blogging and dogs. Dislikes: debt, being broke, bunnies, wasting money, not having enough money to travel the world and paying interest. Facebook  ♥  Twitter  ♥  Google+  ♥  RSS

Comments

My Goals For 2013 — 24 Comments

  1. I like your simplified goal list and I hope you are able to achieve everything on it.

    I personally think you should reconsider adding this goal (Figure out what I want to do with my life. So far, I just go through the daily stuff and have no clue what I really want) back on your list. I feel it is really important to have life direction and without it you are just biding time.
    Glen @ Monster Piggy Bank recently posted..Using Coupons to Save MoneyMy Profile

  2. When you figure out Apple TV and the best way to scan all your photos please make blog posts about them!

  3. My understanding of iTunes is that it only sees video files in the mp4 format. So if you have avi movies (like pretty much all of mine are), you are out of look with iTunes.

    I have a hacked Wii that lets me stream files from my PC, although it seems to choke on higher frame-rates. The other option would be an Xbox 360. Used ones are about $150 and have a built-in media center that I believe works with Vista and later (or XP MCE).
    Edward Antrobus recently posted..December 2012 Net Worth UpdateMy Profile

  4. I have an ambitious plan for this year, so I’m a bit afraid that I’ll fall into the same trap you did last year. I do like to aim high though!

    I like the idea of digitizing paperwork. I’m thinking of doing it for my few remaining paper bills so that I don’t need to file them anymore.

    Good luck on your goals!
    Alex recently posted..My favourite experiments so farMy Profile

  5. #2 is a great goal! You should make sure you upload your most important scans somewhere online, like a private folder on your website, or have a backup hard drive, just in case. I am aiming for an empty inbox this year, with all the emails tagged and organized. It takes time but feels great!
    Pauline recently posted..It happens to the best!My Profile

    • I’m too paranoid not to back stuff up now. I lost most of our family pictures a few years ago and never, ever want that to happen again.

      I was planning to back everything up on both of my computers, external hard drive, jump drive (I think I’m the only one that calls them that anymore), and DVD-ROM—just to be safe.

      It sounds excessive, but after losing 6 years worth of photos and other information…I’m okay with sounding crazy. :-)

      Good luck with the inbox, I’m still working on mine. I suck with getting to emails and organizing them. :-)
      Jen Perkins recently posted..My 2012 Goals—Failure or Success?My Profile

  6. Good luck with your goals! I’m interested in what you end up doing with your picture goal…I have one that’s similar.

    As for the rest of mine, they’re probably of the mainstream variety: career and health at the top of the list! Health first of course..
    Digital Personal Finance recently posted..Using RedLaser to Save MoneyMy Profile