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I am so excited to share my goals for 2017 with everyone but first, we need to finish out this year. Are you ready? Here we go:

1. Pay Down the Mortgage

We were able to knock off an EXTRA 5 years and 9 months off our mortage this past year. And you know what? I think that’s pretty darn skippy. I would have liked to have whittled it down a little further, but hey, this girl likes to travel. 😉 Even though we won’t be staying in this house forever, it was a nice way to have a forced savings plan so we weren’t tempted to spend the money on something else. Out of sight, out of mind, right? We plan to continue to make extra payments until it’s time to hit the road.

2. Buy Only Essential Items in 2016 

I pretty much wanted a new pair of slippers, a bottle of Clinique lotion and a bottle of my favorite bubble bath all year long. But I waited until Christmas and well, Santa was good to me. 🙂 I thought this goal of only buying essential items, was going to be really hard. But it wasn’t. Not at all. Once I made the decision to go on a spending freeze, it was actually pretty easy after the first month or so to keep on going. Yes it totally annoyed my husband, and I missed checking out the thrift stores on a regular basis and stopping at garage sales last year, but you know what? I LOVE the fact that I used our “spending money” on paying down our mortage instead.

3. Track Spending and Figure Out New Ways to Cut Spending Even More.

We did a ton of “little” things this year to reduce our overall household budget. Things like carpooling, cutting each others hair {or in The Girl’s’ case, not cutting her hair}, lowering the thermostat, getting rid of cable tv, cancelling our garbage service, changing our phone plans, not buying new clothes {although I did buy a bra for $0.22} getting preventative checkups, refusing to buy wrapping paper, borrowing a shredder, making meals at home, packing lunches and so on. It didn’t feel like we were depriving ourselves and towards the end of the year my husband actually stopped rolling his eyes at me when I came up with yet another crazy idea. Change. It’s fun.

4. Try 52 New Recipes.

Although I know I tried more than 52 new recipes this year, I know I didn’t always do such a great job about posting them on the blog.

5. Keep My Grocery Budget Under $100 a Month.

I haven’t been able to keep our grocery budget under $100 a month since 2012 when I was totally into extreme couponing and we were eating crappity crap. I wanted to think I still had it in me. But I didn’t. And you know what? I’m totally okay with it. I think know we eat better now than we ever have before and if that comes at a higher price… I’m totally okay with it.

6. Go on 52 Dates with the Handsome Husband 

This was one of the goals I was most excited about tackling at the beginning of 2016 and even though the HH and I only went on 32 dates, it was time and money well spent. Seeing how 32 dates was a HUGE improvement over previous years {when the only dates we went on were work related} I want to make sure we continue to get out and have a little fun… just the two of us. A date day every two weeks or so seems more realistic for our {his} schedule.

7. Turn My Wool Stash into $5,000.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well I did with my hooked rugs this year. Especially since I ended up buying a few supplies {wool, linen} when I spotted them on sale.

I ended up selling $6912.41 worth of hooked rugs with a profit of around $5,500. Not too shabby if you ask me. When you think about it, my little hobby pretty much paid for all our groceries and utilities on 2016. That’s not bad!

8. Get Rid of 1,000 Things. 

This year we purged 1188+ things and you know what? I don’t miss any of them. Get rid of your junk people. It feels GOOD.

9. Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

So far in 2016 I have rented 219 books from the library and paid a whopping $3.30 in fines. So ya. I’m pretty happy with that. 😉

10. Track Hours Spent Working on My Vegetable Garden and do a Cost Analysis at the End of the Year. 

Ahhhh the garden. 🙁

What started off as a good year digging in the dirt came to an abrupt halt in early September. I had high hopes of getting the most out of my little backyard plots and then family life took over and I really haven’t been outside much since. But there is always next year….

This past year I harvested 143 pounds 8 ounces of fresh veggies from our backyards. I spent $19.40 at the greenhouse, $10.40 at Wilco and about $16 on mulch.

Time spent working on Vegetable Garden in 2016: 21 hours 40 minutes.

11. 52 House Projects in 52 Weeks.

Whether it was painting furniture, painting signs or painting walls…. I had my brushes out more this past year than any year I can remember. And that’s a good thing, because I LOVE painting. There really isn’t too much more to do around here {well, except the normal maintenance stuff} so I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself now. 🙂

12. Make all Birthday and Christmas Gifts This Year or Acquire Them for Free.

Ahhh Christmas. This isn’t going to be some wowie zowie I gifted everyone on my list the best thing ever type of story. Because really, everyone on my list already has more than they could ever need.

The entire contents of my parents gift basket. {I used a combination of Fred Meyer freebies, my Costco rebate check and re-gifts {like the bottle of vodka} to fill it up. THEY LOVED IT!!!

I was also able to gift my mom a pair of flannel pj’s from Target thanks to a gift card the HH earned from a hotel stay and something else for my Dad thanks to a gift card as well.

We were able to send the HH’s parents some tea,coffee, chocolates and shortbread thanks to an Amazon gift card I earned earlier in the year.

I was also able to snag the Stonewall Kitchen Farmer’s Market Collection Gift Basket when it went on sale for $29.99 {shipped} back in November and had it mailed to them the week before Christmas. Because really? Who doesn’t like food?

I snagged The Girl a pair of her favorite running shoes on Amazon thanks to some Swagbucks I traded in for gift cards, a candle I bought from our 4 year old neighbor girl who was raising money for her preschool, a $25 Amazon gift card {I cashed in some hotel points} and a set of handmade potholders I made with Zoë last January.

Monkey Boy. He’s such a hard one to get gifts for. Mostly because like The Girl, he already has everything he needs and his wants are pretty limited {newer car, a years supply of junk food, a girlfriend}. So a few weeks ago when I saw that Cabela’s had their sweatshirts on sale {he already owns 1} I went ahead and ordered him 2 new ones. I didn’t realize they were on backorder until it was too late but he didn’t seem to mind. I also gifted him 2 $25 gift cards as well as some of his favorite snacks from Costco. My kids. They’re totally easy.

I gifted the HH a new monogrammed wallet from Holtz Leather company. A few months back he was telling me about the company and since we {usually} are not big on giving gifts to each other, I made sure to make a note about it {The wallet looks better with age, for a picture click here}.

Acquiring Birthday and Christmas gifts this year on a budget was really a lot of fun. Had I not challenged myself I’m sure I would have easily spent a few hundred dollars out of pocket… when really, it wasn’t necessary at all.

Life. It’s full of surprises. Challenge yourself and see what you can do in 2017 to help reduce your budget and ramp up the happiness factor in your life.

Dream Big. You. Can. Do. It.

~Mavis

Read About My 2016 Goals HERE.