little altars: New Year, New Me

Ha! Not really! I hate New Year's resolutions. I think it's because I hate anyone telling me what to do, even if it's me. I have to sneak my resolutions in as "goals" and try not to act like I really want to achieve them THAT much. Just suggestions. This year's suggestions for myself:

For the house

revamp back flower bed and try to wrestle purple coneflowers and daisies into submission
move hydrangeas and use the bed they are now in as a small kitchen garden
make that garden and TAKE CARE OF IT
bring the chickens back! After a series of events, including a chicken murder, I've been without my girls for a year. I'm ready for eggs again.
redo kitchen
redo back bathroom
build a murphy bed

Obviously a majority of the above will not actually be done by me, just envisioned and then supervised by me.

For me

more consistent time with God
start walking again (I used to be pretty good about this, but...)
cook more
less TV
work more in my yard
get a serger so I can sew more efficiently (this will take some help for others (: )

Kenny and I have decided that together, our plan will be to tighten our budget. With retirement now becoming pinpoint light at the end of a loooong tunnel, we want to be sure we can live on what we will be getting. The first thing we've done is to cut out expenses that may be a little frivolous. First to go was hundreds of TV channels.

Nobody loves HGTV, BRAVO and the Food network like I do, but are they necessary? We shall see. Cutting out the bundle that had the channels, internet and a home phone line has saved us $260 (we paid for my parents' Dish, too) We had to get internet service ($43) and bought a Roku box so that we could watch movies and TV series from Netflix and Hulu+ (at a cost of $15), so our total savings was $202/month, substantial. So is my pain. Doing this, though, will also help with my "watch less TV" suggestion to myself.

The next thing to go was the daily newspaper. I love the newspaper and have read it almost everyday since I was a teenager. We've had a newspaper delivered to our house for over 30 years, so this was a tough one. They offered an IPad version though, for $20 a year if you had a subscription. Because we still pay for my brother's subscription and I didn't want to cancel that one, we were able to work it out so that I was able to get the reduced rate and cancel the one delivered to our house. Savings: $220/year (about $18/month).

Coming up later will the be reduction of cell phone costs. I've GOT TO HAVE my data and unlimited texts, so those are out of the question, but in a few months, Meg's contract will be out and she can switch over to a plan with Eddie, so that will reduce it some. We put her on our plan when Eddie was deployed, it just made sense, so I don't want to break the contract.

Since I gave up my channels, Kenny has vowed to give up his memberships to all those wineries' wine of the month clubs. We shall see about that one :)

What do you think? Any more ideas I can use to save some cash and make my golden years more comfortable financially?

It would't be a post without pictures. Here are some from Christmas.

After the Christmas Eve Service with Great Grandparents