Blessings

Today is my darling granddaughter’s first birthday.  I had always heard what a joy grandchildren are for their grandparents.  I now blessed to know this feeling.  Having a grandchild makes you really think about the important things in life and what kind of legacy and world are we leaving to the children. Part of the legacy in my mind is spending time with family and teaching the ways of the world prior to millennials.  Teach the values of learning to read (and real a lot), good English, working hard and having a positive attitude as much as possible.  Unfortunately, my son and his beautiful family live about five hours away and I do not get to see them as often as I would like.  Because of this, I have a determination to set new goals for myself to afford me the ability to spend time with them whenever I want.

To accomplish this goal, I need to refocus my energy on saving and frugal living.  When you are blessed, you sometimes forget what it took to get you to a financially secure position.  My Dear Hubby and I have been discussing this a great deal over the last few months and have begun setting our goals for 2017.  The first goal is to finish our savings plan to set aside the money for a  new (to us) car in two years. This goal has been on our radar for a couple of years and we have been saving when we could.  However, it  is now the time to become more focused.  I have set a goal for us to have this fund completed by the first of June 2017.  In an effort to kick-start our savings plan in January, we have decided to go on a spending freeze.  We will have our normal budget for bills and work related travel expenses.  We will also have a small budget for perishable groceries.  My hope is if we can plan well, I will be able to add an additional $300 to the car fund, getting us a little closer to our goal. Over the next several weeks, I am going to document how we did on these savings and share.

We are also taking a serious look at our cable and entertainment options.  We have started looking for better deals and will likely make a big change in January.   As I set my goals for 2017, one goal will be to visit this site more often.  I do love to write, I really want to share, but I am really neglectful.