Monday, March 09, 2015

My Life Lately...


The last few weeks have been both stressful and rewarding. Work has been quite hectic and I haven't really gotten a chance to recharge. I took a few days off two weeks ago when my friend came from Hawaii to visit and we headed up to Disneyland. Every time I set foot into that place, I get sucked back into getting an annual pass. This time, I made the jump and got a pass. I'm definitely feeling the itch to go back now that I have a pass but now it's about finding the time to go.

March was going to be the time when I started all my changes. Maybe that was a little too ambitious of me. This year surprised me because usually January is super stressful because there are a lot of changes going on at work. However, this year, it seems like as the year progresses, the stress levels are increasing. One of my favorite YouTubers, Ingrid Nilsen, read my mind and made a video on Relaxing and Letting Go. I found her tips to be really helpful and it was like a little hug to let me know that I'm not alone when it comes being stressed and overwhelmed.



Let's take a look at a few of my goals this year and how they've been coming along.


  • Finances
    • My finances are actually going quite swimmingly. I've been following my budget of 50-25-25 (debt, save, fun, respectively) although I've been trying to put a bit more towards debt than 50%. I still have my goal of being debt free by 33 and I'm really close to being able to reach that goal. 
    • I've been speaking with friends and just gathering information on what I should do in terms of putting money into my 401k or putting money into a Roth IRA. I looked into how much I had actually put into for 401k last year (vs. the total including my company match) and I was NOWHERE near the maximum of $17,500 in 2014 ($18,000 in 2015). In 2014, I put 5% of my pay towards my 401k. This past month, I increased it to 15%. My reasoning for this is that it will drop my taxable income down drastically since these are before-tax contributions. 
  • Food
    • Initially we thought that we'd be able to spend our Saturdays heading out to buy our groceries for the week at the farmer's market. However, looking at how costly some of the stuff is, we've decided against it. The prices at the market were double what we'd pay for at, for example, Sprouts. 
    • We have been exploring the area quite a bit but I haven't posted any of my foodsplorations because I wanted to at least try a place out twice (to a few times) before giving it a review. 
    • I actually cooked a bit more in January than February so I'll hopefully be posting some of those up soon. We've been having out of town guests and exploring the neighborhood so that usually doesn't leave much time for cooking. 
  • Fitness
    • Wow. This has been absolutely non-existent! I made a whole calendar for March and I haven't even done one day of booty exercises. Well, sometimes life throws some curve-balls at you but that doesn't mean the game is over. Step back up to that plate with your game face on. 
  • Travel
    • With all this budgeting and finance talk, a vacation seems less and less likely this year. I'll still probably plan for my annual Hawaii trip sometime in the fall when fares drop to their cheapest but as for right now, a Peru trip seems very far from fruition. I was looking at it and it would cost approximately $4,500 for the two of us to head out to Peru. Ideally, we would want to go in May and it seems very unlikely. I was researching and it seems that the best time to go to Peru is in May. I feel like saving that kind of money for a vacation in the latter part of the year would be much easier than shelling out the money up front. But as of right now, we have no plans to do any sort of traveling this year :/. 


Hope everyone had a great weekend!
I'll talk to ya'lls very soon!




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