January Update

This is the first of what's planned as monthly updates for my 2014 Resolutions.   The hope is that having a monthly checkpoint will keep me accountable to myself and help me from slipping off the desired track.

 the Year of Use It or (and) Lose It
and my goals are:

• Lose 14 pounds - I am down 1 pound.  I think that is a good start.  January was a stressful month and could have lead to a lot of stress eating.  Also I was trying to clear out the pantry and freezer to prepare for my month away, so that was not as healthy as fresh fruits and veggies.  Overall this is a good start.  
• Keep bank fees under $50 for the year - I'm under but I'm already over half way through this budget ($26.08) in the first month alone!  Yikes!  I knew I was letting my quicken and bill paying slip.  I have enough automatic transactions in place to no longer get the dreaded late payment fee - but since the automatic payment does not necessarily cover the full balance sometimes (as it happened here) I get the finance charges.   I need to keep a better eye on this one.  Still good, but I've burned a lot of the workload already.
• Average $30 or less per week on Groceries - I'm well under this for January ($82.72) - mainly because of trying to eat from the pantry and freezer to clean out those areas before my trip so that nothing goes bad.  I expect the February number to be much higher because of the lack of a pantry for the rental - plus eating more prepared foods.  So I'm expecting this to even more out by the end of February.
• Average $400 or less per month on Household - This one is also well under (only $95.63), and again I think it's an impact from the Texas trip.  I was doing less shopping and trying to use up more from home as I prepared for the house to be empty for a month.   But since then I spent around $360 for lawn services for the year (prepaid to get a small 3% discount, but every dollar counts) so I can see how this category will have big swings in it from month to month.   
• Do not purchase soap before Nov 11 - I did purchase the planned exception for the after Christmas Bath and Body Works sale.  Other than that, nothing!  and I'm making use of some good soap I had been 'saving'.  Saving for what, I'm not sure.  But I'm glad I'm using it now.  It smells good and brightens my day.  

Overall a very good start to the year.  My world is thrown off by living and renting in Austin, TX for a month - I can see it affected, mainly in a good way, my January numbers.   I can only guess what it will do for my February numbers.