I haven’t been doing too well with setting goals and accomplishing anything in terms of 30 day challenges. So in August I’m going to do two things throughout the month. Not necessarily challenges but things that will be fun or informative.
Firstly, I’ve tried using Mint to track my money, and it does a really good job auto-categorizing transactions, but it just doesn’t allow me to really know where my money is going. It’s almost too easy to use and doesn’t require me to put any thought into it. So I don’t. Then my money just disappears and I don’t really know where it went. So I’m going to try and do it the old fashioned way and keep all of my receipts for the entire month and then analyze them at the end. I’ll probably break them down by pay period and see what I can figure out. Aside from utilities there are certain things you can always count on spending money on: groceries, gas, dog food, work lunch, hair cuts etc. I’ll first look to see if my expectations (budget) match reality. I’ll then consider where all the Other money goes. I think a nice side effect from this might just be that my awareness that this is going on might make me reevaluate my spending as it’s happening. I might unintentionally guilt myself into being a little more frugal without even realizing it. Four days in this seems to be going ok. I’ve never been good at purposely getting receipts so that may be the toughest part for me.
Second, I’m doing photo a day. Matt Cutts recently did a 30 day challenge of one second of video a day using the 1 Second EveryDay app . One of his inspirations was that time goes by too quickly and when you look back every thing is a blur. “Even on boring days, there’s probably at least one fun second you can save.” I’m sure this is true. I’m sure there are days that when I look back I think of how boring they were but I don’t think about the things that I don’t remember, or just missed out on. Being on the lookout for something everyday will hopefully make me more aware of these moments and the act of taking a photo will hopefully make each day just a little bit more memorable. Four days in and I’ve already got pictures of two things that I’ve accomplished, two things that help keep my stress level down and a random pig hanging in a tree. Here’s the privacy-controlled Facebook album.
Now on to finish the remainder of my weekend to do list. Won’t get it all done but I think I’ve been pretty productive.
for more profundity or pithy humor follow me on twitter – @bicb
Comments