2011 Begins Like This

I floated by the idea of a month long spending freeze to Jeremy before the holidays, and it starts tomorrow. It is going to be much harder for me than for him. It entails no eating out, no buying clearance items at Target, and trying to come up with things to do that are free. You may ask "are you crazy" but I've been gearing myself up for it all through the holidays. We are only going to spend what we need to live our lives, groceries, gas, household items, etc. But not starting any new projects that would require trips to Home Depot. I'm hoping it helps determine how much money just flows out of the checkbook without our acute awareness. We do have an exception related to a good friend leaving Charlotte before the month's end. I can't justify not attending a going away lunch or dinner just due to the spending freeze, I would regret it.

Also, I have decided to publicly announce my 2011 goals (not resolutions). This way I can check back on how well I'm coming along. And the few readers I have can make suggestions for helping me accomplish them if they would like.

Amanda's 2011 Goals

• Will - Yes yell at me know, Jeremy and I have been meaning to do a Will since we got married 4 years ago. Its time we did it.
  
• Gardianship - Same story, we need to have something written out for Holden, this is a hard one for us mainly because we can't settle on who to put down.
• 500 Miles in 2011 - Laura put me on to this goal as she completed it in 2010. We also got a Wii for Christmas and I think this will help during the winter months. I haven't run since October and my excuse has been the lack of daylight.
• Healthiness - I'm not going to put a number down because I have disappointed myself for 2 years in a row. But I really want to get rid of the baby weight I've been carrying around at a minimum. I also hope the spending freeze helps get me back on track with the lack of eating out. I want to be more diligent with our meatless Mondays and we try to follow a real food diet (no preservatives, no artificial ingredients, etc.) but it has allowed maybe a bit too much butter into the diet and I need to find a balance between healthy/low - fat and real food so I don't fall into buying "diet" food. Weight watchers has been a huge help for my girlfriend Stacey, so I have rejoined as a tracking tool and recipe source.
  
• Family Dinners - This might not happen until the 2nd half of 2011 but we want to push Holden's dinner time back an hour so that we can all eat together the same meal. I'm not sure if he is still too little to do this as he wants to eat at 5:30 now and its impractical to think we will all be home at 5:30 let alone have dinner made.
  
• Church - We think its time we start putting some consistency in our church attendance for Holden.
• Date Night - Once a Month (after the spending freeze)
• Pay off 2 unsecured loans - This is part of a larger 5 year goal of ours to buy a home in a different school district by the time Holden enrolls in 1st grade.
  
• 5K and Warrior Dash - I'm still on the fence with the warrior dash because I don't want to do it alone, but definitely going to run another 5 K once it warms up.

That's it ladies and gentleman. Hope your 2011 is a great year

10 Days of Real Food Challenge

Read a great article in the Charlotte Observer this week that had me think about regrouping on our Real Food healthy lifestyle. We have kind of fell of the wagon a bit so I have decided that taking the 10 day Real Food Challenge will be enough to kick start us back on to the right track. 10 Days isn't that long but might be enough to kick my Diet Coke habit that reformed. To give us a little while to get my pantry back up to speed from being away on vacation, I started our pledge on August 8th. This gives me 2 weekends to get to the farmers market and Earth Fare to stock back up on items. I'll let you know how it goes, I think the hardest is going to be eating out.

Here are the Rules from the Challenge:

What you CAN eat:

1. Whole foods that are more a product of nature than a product of industry
2. Lots of fruits and vegetables
3. Dairy products like milk, unsweetened yogurt, eggs and cheese
4. 100% whole-wheat and whole-grains
   
5. Seafood
   
6. Snacks like dried fruit, seeds, nuts and popcorn
7. All natural sweeteners including honey, 100% maple syrup, and fruit juice concentrates are acceptable in moderation

What you CANNOT eat:

1. No refined grains such as white flour or white rice (items containing wheat must say WHOLE wheat…not just “wheat”)
2. No refined sweeteners such as sugar, any form of corn syrup, cane juice, or the artificial stuff like Splenda
3. Nothing out of a box, can, bag, bottle or package that has more than 5 ingredients listed on the label
4. No deep fried foods
5. No “fast foods”
6. Only locally raised meats such as pork, beef, and chicken
7. Beverages will be limited to water, milk, all natural juices, naturally sweetened coffee & tea, and, to help the adults keep their sanity, wine and beer!