I hope everyone is having a great start to the New Year. May you all have many surprises and blessings this year. I have the following goals I'd like to work on this year:
- Lower my monthly grocery bill by $50. My wish is to reduce it by $75/month but $50 will be good. To do this, I will watch my Out-of-Pocket money closely on all my deals. Hopefully I'll spend the majority of that on food at the Asian market, milk, and diapers. I also got a lot of gift cards from Christmas, some rebate checks, and $55 in eBates for all my online purchases last month so they should help me meet my new grocery budget. Accomplished.
- Only buy Free or Money Maker items this year unless it's something I really need. Last year I would buy things that end up free to roll my Extra Bucks or rebates but having to spend some real cash up front doing so. This year I hope to eliminate that. If I can't use gift cards, extra bucks, or Register Reward to pay then I am not getting it unless it's a necessity. I actually turn down Softsoap handsoap that would've cost $.04 after coupon. I remind myself that I still have a big shelf upstairs to use. Accomplished.
- Be more patient with Hieu. I will try my best but no promises there. :P Um...can use more improvement.
- Cook more. I don't want the kids to grow up not knowing their mommy's cooking. I want them to grow up having a favorite dish that *I* cook. As my co-worker puts it "I would love to cook if I have more time." I just get so tired whenever I get home and putting the kids to sleep. One of my friends will cook their dinner the night before after the kids are asleep. I tried that for a week and was about the keel over from exhaustion. After the kids are asleep, I just want to veg out infront of the computer on the TV for an hour or so before I have to get ready for bed. The problem is that with my friend, her husband and her takes turn cooking. I always have to do it by myself because Hieu has no interest in this. It's either I cook or take-outs. Can you say P-R-E-S-S-U-R-E? I think I did pretty well in this.
- Toilet train Ky-An. That's pretty self-explanatory. He'll have to be train this year and that would help our grocery budget greatly. Accomplished.
- Pay attention to what I eat. I still have 15 pounds from both kids that I'd like to shed this year. I've been parking on the far side of the parking lot last year forcing myself to walk further to the building. This year I am going to watch my portions so I don't overeat. I am going to pay attention to the type of food I am eating. Most of the time I am so busy tending to the kids that I just shove food in as quickly as possible. I am going to cut back on all my free candies. Luckily I gave most of them away during Christmas so I am not tempted so much. I am also going to try and use my Wii Fit more to burn some calories. I am not even going to claim to make it to the gym this year. If I can then it's a bonus but I don't want to set myself up to fail. Needs more work.
- Focus more on my career. I've been slacking in my career due to pregnancies, the loss of Lan Vy, taking care of two young children, and taking on my new couponing hobby. I'd like to put a little focus back on my career and master ASP.net before I become a dinosaur in my field. I am going do my best to show up to work on time and work harder. Needs more work.
- Lay wood down on the first floor of our house. Our carpet is pretty grimy after 2 colic kids. It's light color so the stains show up even more, especially at night when the lights cast shadows on these carpets. I usually get embarrass when we have anyone come over. We shampoo the carpet several months ago and it was so nice but it didn't take long for it to be dingy again...ugh. We've planned to have wood floors in our house since we first built it 8 years ago, that's why we just went with the standard carpet and no upgrade. It's really time. Accomplished thanks to wonderful hubby!
- Do more chores around the house. I've really slack on that this past year because I run to the store doing deals on my free time. I've come to depend on our cleaners who comes every other week. They really can only clean so much and I should do the rest. They clean all the major parts of the house but not all the crooks and crannies. I also am suppose to clean the week in between when they don't come so our house is not such a mess. It's so embarrassing when people came and comment "wow..your house is a mess!" Personally I don't think it's that bad but I think it's because they are used to how my house looked before the kids tore it up. It was spotless once upon a time. Needs more work.
- Spend more time with the kids. Don't get me wrong, I do spend a lot of time with my kids. However when Hieu is home during the weekend, I tend to let him entertain the kids so I can get some chores done such as balancing the checkbook, pay bills, clip coupons, wash dishes, or wash clothes. Maybe that's how you are suppose to do it but I feel so guilty. Last weekend I was downstair sorting the kid's clothes and packing them for the next week to go to our babysitter's house. I also lay out 5 outfits for them to change into every morning. Hieu took the kids to the playroom upstair to keep them out of my hair. I hear them laughing and screaming, just having a great ole' time wishing I could be with them. Hieu told me to come up and join them but I had to get the chores done. It can't be all fun and game right? Sometimes you have to do the responsible thing. Needs more work.
- Re-Decorate my sister's room for the kids. Okay I didn't say that the kids will MOVE in there this year, just that I'll have it ready. ^_^ Because the room is pretty big, I plan for them to share a room for a couple of years. One so we can buy some time until Hieu's little brother move out of the other room; and two, so maybe it'll make the transition from our room to theirs a little less scary. This is going on the 2010 list :(
- Introduce more cultures to my kids. Hieu and I've lived in the US pretty much all our life so English has become more our first language. I have to be more conscious of talking more Vietnamese to the kids and introduce them to more Vietnamese cultures. I will watch more Vietnamese shows at home; I'll let them watch more Vietnamese children's shows; and I'll take them to temple or church to interact with others on our holidays.
When they are older, culture here will expand to events such as visiting museums, art shows, and plays. Hieu and I have always love musicals and we've always wanted to introduce our kids to it. I can't wait until we can. Needs more work. It's so easy to just speak to them in English but I know whe have to try harder.
6 comments:
I love your 2009 goals... I myself have none, and I wish I was more like you.
Lowering my monthly grocery bill was something I tried to work on end of last year when the recession started. I'm happy to say that I lowered it $100 already by watching what I buy at the market! No more junk foods, unless if it's super cheap (I got pringles on sale + coupon for .25 a can last week). We started incorporating beans into our diet once a week, so we save a little from not eating meat everyday.
I'm starting to potty train my 16 month old now, hopefully he will be done by 24 months and no more diapers in the house! :-)
As for spending more time with the kids, I think that is the one thing working full-time moms always feel guilty about. The one thing I tried to do was one load of laundry a night after work instead of 7 loads on a weekend... but that only helps so much!
Hope you have a happy 2009!
Good ones! I agree that I take advantage of my husband being around to entertain the kids while I run around like a chicken with her head cut off scrubbing everything in sight! I have learned to sneak things in, like vaccuuming their rooms while they are still winding down for bed once a week. And cooking is so much fun. Get Ky-An involved in setting the table, getting bowls out for mixing, even give him something soft to cut up for the dinner. Or have him rip lettuce. Sylvie has her own kitchen stool and she is so much less crazy if I let her help. It's actually enjoyable to cook with them if you have the patience to teach them how to be good helpers:)
Milk or Juice - If you can share some tips on how you are training your 16 months, I would love to hear it. Ky-An has no interest and no matter what we do (bribe, take off his diaper), it doesn't seem to work. If we take off his diaper, he'll just hold it.
Special K - Thanks for the tips about having them help while I cook. That's a great idea and I am going to definitely try that out.
Re: potty training. Both my boys went through infant potty training. http://babyparenting.about.com/cs/pottytraining/f/infantpt.htm
Both boys poop in the toilet since they were months old, and once they were able to sit up, they pooped sitting in the toilet ring 90% of the time. That already eliminates some diapers.
Another thing we always do since the kids were 1 or 2 months old -- every single morning when they wake up, first thing we do is have them pee in the old diaper before we change them. Take off the diaper and do a shhh shhh noise... and when they go, make sure it goes straight into the diaper (not sure if this will work for girls) Babies always have to go first thing in the morning (even adults do). That way, you save a diaper.
Around 15 month old is a good time to start training them to pee. I have no experience with girls, but we had the boys stand up and pee in a bucket every 2 hours or so. It's easier if you have pull-ups on them so you can pull the diaper up and down when finished.
Once my older son hit 18 months we started him on underwear. Of course there were accidents in the begining, but it only took a week or two for him to realize being in wet underwear was uncomfortable, so he started telling us when he needed to pee/poop.
Of course it's easier said than done. You say Ky-An holds it in if you remove his diaper? Him holding it PROVES he is more than ready. Put his underwear/pants on him... a child can only hold it for so long. When he has an accident, don't change him right away. I know it's torture for a child, but he has to learn that wetting his pants is uncomfortable. Teach him the words to tell you when he needs to go. Good luck!
That's great that you're going to focus on speaking Vietnamese to the kids. It's not easy, but it'll be worth it in the end.
Wow! I'm impressed. I am ashamed to say that I didn't even think of coming up with any goals at all. How pitiful. I hope you are able to achieve what you're setting your sights on.
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