Day 177 and 52 Things Saturday

This was an interesting Saturday. Not only is it the first Saturday of 2014, it was also the first Saturday in a LONG time that I only had one errand to complete for the day. Therefore, I enjoyed most of the day at home. The weather is weird...cold...I mean really cold at night, but it was almost 70 degrees during the day; a really lovely day!

The Saturday update of the 52 Things list is...

20.  Spend a week reviewing finances and budget and make adjustments for the coming year.

What this involved was mostly looking at savings, health savings and then making adjustments to increase these by a designated amount. What I do is Zero Based Budgeting. How this works is I set up categories (i.e. Utilities, Entertainment, Health Care, etc.) and then instead of designating a certain amount as a spending 'limit' I set the category at zero and I work to make the category as close to zero as I can each month. I compare the month's spending in a category to the previous month and the same month last year. If I spend less then I celebrate, if I spend zero, I WIN!!! To win just means I have more funds in the bank. After evaluating what I spent in 2013 on lunches out Monday-Friday and looking deeply at what I want to accomplish in 2014, I had to make a commitment to stop eating out so much. This means that my budget for eating out at lunch as been cut...officially cut! This just means that I have to come up with great, easy ways to get lunch together. I'll blog about how my ideas work out at the end of the month. Also, each week that I don't eat lunch out, I get to put $25 in my 'Mad Money' fund. That fund is where I get to dip in for fun times with my sister!

Today I completed a 30 minute interval walk/jog with my Son and it kind of kicked me in the a**!! I loved exercising with him, but I was huffing and puffing and he was barely breaking a sweat! Youth is a wonderful thing and I really miss it. 

Above is a great video from YouTube from the GREAT folks at FitnessBlender.com This video is titled appropriately: Fit is Better Than Skinny. The video focuses on building upper body strength and also cardio.  The workout is not a short one, but at about 37 minutes, the workout is fully challenging. I love the FitnessBlender workouts and other great content. Be sure to check them out on the web!

That's it for today! I had a great Saturday and hope you had the same. Tomorrow will be full of cooking, housework and laundry. So until tomorrow when I will share more of life with The HumbleVoyager, Godspeed, Voyagers!!