| | | | | | | | |

MSAHA: 2015 Yearly Goals Plus January Goals

This post may contain affiliate links which might earn us money. Please read my Disclosure and Privacy policies here

We wrote our 2015 goals, and as we went over our 2014 goals recap, we were still uncertain or undecided where we wanted to head in 2015. To keep our goal driven intensity throughout the year, we decided to do monthly goals instead. For this reason, there you have MSAHA (My Stay At Home Adventures) January Goals.

Before we go over our monthly goals, I wanted to share with your our 2015 yearly goals we set out for this year. Last year, 2014, was an amazing year for us and we surpassed what we set out to do (except investing our money); but we also were exhausted by October, and in November and December, simply didn't care much about saving money, but about spending it.

By December 31st, we didn't even have our 2015 goals set to be honest. December started great, but we all got sick with the flu by Christmas, and the last thing I wanted to do was sit and discuss money or goals for 2015.

As I was writing my year in review blogs (read about them here and here), I realized that we were freaking good during the majority of the year, but got burned out the last months of the year. I also realized that my focus switched after our wedding to increase my blog views, then saving money or investing.

Don't get me wrong, we did save money. We didn't go into debt or anything, we just stop looking into our budget to find ways to save. We decided to spend money on things we wanted because we felt like we worked hard the entire year, that we needed to reward ourselves.

To some that might not be so bad, to others it could be a bad thing. We always have these fears that we are going to fall back into our old ways, and back into the mindset that got us into debt. That's when I kind of panic, then call a family meeting that seems to get us back on track of our goals.

For 2015, we decided to save money and increase our income without compromising our family. Meaning, I would find ways to make extra money, but our children should not come last. This is what happened when I was working, I was so involved with my job, that I kind of put my family second for fear of losing my job.

In order to increase our income, my husband and I decided that we needed to work on this blog, and see where it takes us. We also decided on ways to make extra money in 2015 that we will put toward our savings. So here are our 2015 goals.

MSAHA 2015 Goals

Monthly Family Entertainment– We decided that we need to invest in more family time. Now mind you, this doesn't mean going out to eat at a restaurant, or going to the movies every month. Doing something together as a family, like movie night at home. Doing arts and crafts with the boys. Just a day, or evening, dedicated to being together. We have been doing this, but somehow there's always 1 member of the family missing.

Date night – We took off November and December doing date nights. Heck, we spent an entire week in Puerto Rico on our honeymoon. 🙂 We are going back to having our monthly date night. We leave the kids at home, and go out and spend quality time together, discussing important things without any disturbance.

Spending 20% less than we did in 2014 – We did great in 2014, but slacked towards the end. We love challenges in our family, and my husband decided that he was going to cut down his spending about 20%. He is the main spender in the family, so this is a huge thing for him to say. Since I laughed and said “yeah OK,” this is now a major challenge and a bet!

Shut down the cable – Yes, we have cable. We've had cable for about 4 years. Due to fact that this year we want to save money, my husband decided that he was going to cut the cable, and leave the internet. He said to give him a few weeks (he has to mourn I'm assuming), and by February it will be gone.

5 ways to save on groceries
We will be implementing these tips to maintain our grocery budget.

Feed our family of 5 with a budget of $300 a month. This can be done to be honest with you. I have done it before, but it became such a PITA for us with going to different stores, using coupons, etc; that when the wedding was approaching, I just gave up. What motivated me to get back on track was this post from my friend Laurie, who fed her family of 6 with only $200 in the month of December! Her intensity motivated me again to get back on track.

Save for a house – This might be shocking to some, but we are thinking of downsizing and moving. This major goal is not going to happen this year, but is something we are both looking forward in doing in a few years. We decided that we need to save for this major event, our goal is to save $30K. Since this is something that is not going to happen this year, we decided to start slow.

Continue to be more active and lose 15lbs this year. I know I can do this. I did great during last year, and the best part is that I loved every minute. My goal is to run 5K by the end of year. My motivation is my cousin, who is kicking butt doing this.

Get rid of my cell phone plan – This year, I will be looking for another cell phone carrier. Looking at Republican Wireless as my next provider.

Start investing our money – You will be happy to know that we have been looking around and will be starting to invest our extra money this year. We won't fail or come up with excuses this year.

Harvest from our garden
We learned so much from our garden and did really well for being our first time gardening our own vegetables!

Increase our garden size – We did awesome with our garden. It was our first time, and we truly enjoyed it and saved money by simply growing our own food.

Increase our emergency fund – We had to use some of our emergency fund money for, well, emergencies. Car needed some fixing, microwave died, and other things that if it wasn't for our EF, we would have been in trouble. So we decided to work on our EF and ramp it up to $10,000. No more, no less. My husband doesn't understand why it should be more than that, and I kind of agree.

Save money for Christmas – We did the 52 Week Saving Challenge in 2014, we loved having extra money during the holiday season. The problem was that we saved way too much of what we normally spend during Christmas, and we sure spent money! Our goal is to transfer $20 from our checking account into our CapitalOne360 checking account every Friday.

Save $500 for Summer outings – We did this last year. We enjoyed having extra money around to go on day-long outings with the family.

My Stay At Home Adventures 2015 Goals

Blog Improvements
Behind the scenes is a lot of work to make a blog work. I am continuing to get out of my comfort zone and start making this blog successful as well as helping my other blogging friends.

These are the goals I am setting for this blog for 2015. We have been kicking butt with this blog during the end of 2014, and I want to continue the progress in 2015. I will blog more about this later, but for now, here are my goals for 2015 for my blog.

Make more income online – The past few weeks my blog has taken off to the point where I am seeing some money increase. I would love to increase my blog income to $500 a month by the end of the year. Honestly, this is going to be hard, as my blog doesn't make much money (about $35 a month in recent months).

Increase my goal views to 50,000 – I know the majority of my blogging friends' views exceeds this number, but since I know me and my insecurities, I say baby steps all the way. I would love to increase my views to 50,000 within 6 months. At the rate I am going, I think this is do-able.

MSAHA January Goals

OK, now back to my monthly goals. These are the goals I set for myself this month in January.

Save $200 towards our emergency fund – Any money we save, plus any money we receive from anything online, will be going towards our emergency fund.

Celebrate my birthday with family and friends – I want my family and friends to celebrate my birthday with me! I miss them!

Exercise 20 minutes every day – I need to stay active, and starting with 20 minutes every day is not hard. I think.

Get rid of cable – Do I think my husband will do this…. only time will tell. 🙂

Increase blog views to 20,000 this month – I think I can do this. It's hard work, but I think I can do this.

Start getting ready for my garden – need to start looking back at what was a success, or a failure, in our garden and start planning.

There you have our yearly and monthly goals. Hope you all pay attention, and call me out on things I don't get done or come up with excuses. 🙂 What are your monthly and/or 2015 goals. Leave your link of your 2015 goals so I can check them out.

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Similar Posts

13 Comments

  1. You know what? I just love hearing you say “My husband” when you talk about your family’s goals. 🙂 You guys did such a good job with your wedding and honeymoon, paying in cash, etc., and I know you’ll kick it on your 2015 goals too. And thanks for the mention, my friend. You are such a great support for us!

    1. Thank you Laurie! We think you are so awesome and such a motivation. I am having so much fun saying my husband and um remembering my new last name. 🙂

  2. I just love your goal of saving $500 for summer outings. In fact, I may add it to my goals this year! We love being able to do stuff during the summer, especially with the kiddo getting older. Besides that, you’ve set some awesome goals for 2015 – I look forward to seeing if you meeting them! (oh, and I’m in awe of Laurie as well 🙂

    1. Thanks! We saved last year for summer outings and it worked for us. Trips to the museum or even to eat ice cream because it was too hot, came out of that budget. Laurie is my motivations when I’m down! LOL

  3. These are great goals! I’m so mad at myself for waiting so long to switch to Republic. They’re so great and so cheap. And the cable is painful at first, but once it’s gone you adjust. It took us a while, too, initially! I’m trying to build views, too… If you have any tips I’m in need of them!

    1. Thanks Femme! I will email you with what is working for me on views. See if that helps you!

  4. Pingback: Blogging Book That Changed My Blog For The Better * My Stay At Home Adventures
  5. Pingback: Best Posts To Help You Start Saving For Christmas * My Stay At Home Adventures
  6. Pingback: January Goals Updates, February Goals + Online Income Report * My Stay At Home Adventures
  7. Pingback: 7 Wonderful Tips For Not Spending Money * My Stay At Home Adventures
  8. Pingback: Tips To Help Save Money When Money Is The Last Thing On Our Minds
  9. Pingback: July Income Report & August Goals
  10. Pingback: Life After Paying Debt * My Stay At Home Adventures

Leave a Reply