Time for a fresh start!
I've updated my goals in my sidebar for 2023.
Here are results for 2022 and thoughts for 2023:
Health: I lost weight during the first 3 quarters of the year but regained 8 pounds during the last quarter, so need to lose that again. I was pretty consistent with activity and came just shy of my goal of 4 miles on average per day (based on total step count), for an average of 3.89 miles daily and 1,422 miles for the year. I'm aiming for 1,500 miles in 2023, just a slight increase. However, one of 2022's gains was that I started jogging, so I'm focusing more on intensity rather than just distance. I want to continue the jogging and might try a 5k this fall. I also started working out twice a week with a personal trainer back in September and that has also helped improve my fitness. I'll continue the one on one sessions for at least another quarter and might try moving to a group class later in the year to save $. But for now, the fact that I'm working myself harder than I would EVER work out on my own WITHOUT injury is enough to keep me with the one on one sessions.
Wealth: Overall net worth is down about 18k due to the markets. Debt down about 4k for the year. I changed my retirement savings strategy slightly: instead of saving 22% of my salary, with all of the savings going to the regular 401(k), I reduced my savings to 20% of my salary, with 10% going to the traditional 401(k) and 10% going to the Roth option. Since I expect to be in the 25% tax bracket in retirement, the after-tax effect is a net increase to after-tax retirement savings. I will look at this again once we get our annual salary adjustments, which are announced in February and take effect in March.
Systems, Habits, & Routines I didn't make much progress here OTHER than in the regular exercise habit, so I'm stepping up the priority for 2023. I'm spending my break doing some decluttering, which I want to be a bigger focus for 2023. The goal is to spend 2 hours each weekend day tackling a task--that's over 100 hours during the year.
Over the holiday, I completely emptied out my freezer, refrigerator, top of the refrigerator, and microwave cart and steam cleaned the refrigerator and microwave before restocking the refrigertor and freezer. Then tonight I'll be cleaning out my 2021 annual files to make room for 2023. I bought an accordian file for any 2021 paperwork that I want to keep in archives, such as correspondence received (tax information is stored separately). (I use the Freedom Filer system (https://www.freedomfiler.com/pages/filing-system-demos) with a 24-month purging cycle.)
I'm starting by tackling the low-hanging fruit, but I'm also planning to allocate some money and time over the summer to hire help to make some more rapid progress. Each year, I have a friend who visits over the summer and I take a couple of days off and get the most-used rooms of my house presentable for my guest, but each year, the clutter resurfaces because I'm doing more moving things around rather than moving them OUT. I have two major storage areas in my house, the spare bedroom and the basement, and I end up just moving more stuff in there rather than moving it out of the house altogether. This year, I'd like to move stuff OUT of the spare bedroom to make it an actual usable room rather than a storage area. I have a friend who's living on disability and what she can make from selling things at flea markets when she feels well enough. In the spring, I will see if she can sell some stuff for me (and she can keep the proceeds for her trouble). For anything she doesn't think she can sell, it'll be worth it to me to hire one of those services like Dr. Clutter to move stuff out. For the moment, I'm piling stuff in the basement and then when the weather warms up, I'll actually move it out of the house.
January 2nd, 2023 at 02:12 am 1672625566
January 2nd, 2023 at 02:19 am 1672625946
January 2nd, 2023 at 04:36 pm 1672677410
I used 1-800-GOT JUNK in 2021 and they were awesome.
I live in a small space and needed to make room for some things I wanted to keep from a property I was selling - there was no way to do it without getting rid of other things.
What I liked about them was that they resold/recycled what they could so it didn’t just go to landfill.
I find that having cleaned out, I no longer want to buy stuff…
Best wishes on your plans!
January 2nd, 2023 at 06:23 pm 1672683817
Wink, I know what you mean. It is indeed much easier to put it on than to take it off. I always fall off my plans in the fall, when the weather starts to get cold. It makes me crave carbs. Trying now to drink lots of warming herbal teas and I've substituted hemp hearts for oatmeal for fewer carbs.
VS_ozgirl, thank you. So far I only see a wee bit of progress but each little cleared space makes my heart happier. I'm hoping that by the end of January, I'll have gone through the whole kitchen at least.
Lots of Ideas, glad to hear about your experience with 1-800-Got-Junk and that you no longer want to buy stuff now that you've cleaned out. I'm hoping for the same here. I would like to move out of here in around 2030-2031 and I really want to pare down by then. Not that my space is so big (1,166 sf), but it's big for ME. I agree, best to find a service that will resell/recycle first.
January 2nd, 2023 at 09:30 pm 1672695058
I think hiring a pro or making yourself accountable will help get rid of stuff.
January 3rd, 2023 at 05:43 am 1672724636
January 9th, 2023 at 12:06 am 1673222810
January 11th, 2023 at 12:19 am 1673396367
I continue to do a single, weekly, 24-hour fast each Sunday into Monday. Since I start right after dinner on Sunday, I go to bed with a full stomach and by the time I wake up Monday morning, I'm already more than halfway through the fast.
I'm pretty sure it's my fasting, along with daily use of cronometer.com, a digital food diary, that I'm able to keep off the 23 lbs i lost a few years back now. Well, yeah, there's all the exercise I do that surely plays a role.
Good luck with the decluttering!