MrsJanuary.com

At the beginning of January, I shared our goals for 2012 and promised you all a monthly update so you could check in on the progress we are making.

I’m not 100% satisfied with how January went, but I would still say it was a successful month.

Family Goals

1. Go to the cottage at least twice. This is obviously not going to happen until summer time.

2. Enroll Elliott in at least one social activity. Swimming will start in the summer and we are waiting until the end of this year to enroll him in skating.

3. Take more family photos. I took more than I did in December of last year, but I still haven’t been taking enough. Richard hasn’t taken any at all, except for my pregnancy photos. We need to step it up in February!

4. Do more crafts and cooking with Elliott. We have been doing more crafts, but I still get really impatient in the kitchen, so I haven’t let him help me as much. Time to relax a bit and let him get his hands dirty.

5. Do more active family activities. Um…. no. Didn’t happen. Unless you count our weekly Walmart shopping trip where we walk around for an hour. Ha!

6. Include Buddy (our dog) in more family activities. This didn’t happen either, but mostly because we ourselves didn’t do much.

7. Plan first Christmas at home. We won’t be worrying about this goal until mid-late 2012.

Marriage Goals

1. Have “date night” at least once every month. We had our January date night and it was fabulous!

2. Go away for Valentines Day (last outing before new baby arrives). We are planning that right now.

3. Schedule alone time once every month, where the other spouse takes care of cooking, cleaning, kids, etc. We did this in January and it worked out really well.

4. Plan anniversary event. I don’t think that we will be worrying about this one for at least a few more months (our anniversary is late August).

Financial Goals

1. Put all extra income into house fund. We managed to put away a very hefty amount in January. Yay!

2. Create & stick to a budget for Valentine’s Day & anniversary celebrations. Working on it…

3. Create & stick to a yearly expenses budget for 2012. So far, so good!

4. Put maximum amount allowed into both of our TFSAs (this will be part of our house fund). We haven’t done this yet.

5. Investigate and understand the Home Buyer’s Plan (HBP). I’m pretty sure we understand this now!

6. Create a will. Not done yet. I’m thinking it might be best to wait until after the baby is born to tackle this one.

7. Set up RESP for new baby. We will do this after she is born.

8. Rebalance RESP asset allocation for Elliott. Working on it. This is taking longer than expected (the bank likes to take their time, apparently!).

9. Allocate money to charities. We didn’t do any donating in January. Oops. Since we love animals so much, I’m going to look into donating to the local animal shelter in February.

Personal Goals

1. Drink at least 6 glasses of water every day. I’m not sure I hit the 6-glass mark, but I would say I averaged at least 4 glasses daily.

2. Make healthy meals at least 5 days per week. We didn’t eat as healthfully as I would have liked in January. I’m going to go ahead and blame the pregnancy on this one!

3. Read at least 1 book every month. I actually read 3 books in January.. and it was awesome!

4. Stay active. Booo – nope to this one. The third trimester has hit me hard and I am constantly exhausted. I know exercise will only help me, though, so I need to work on that in February.

Did you set any goals for 2012? I’d love it if you shared your progress in the comments.