Resolutions

Happy New Year! It's the first day of 2014, which means it's time to start making some changes (most of which will revert back to old habits within the first month). Reading this article on Lifehacker earlier this week got me thinking. There are several changes I would like to make in my life (lose more weight, save more money, eat healthier, get a new teaching job closer to Atlanta, be more productive, get caught up on my reading...well, you get the picture) and the way I usually go about it probably isn't going to stick. So, I only have two things that I'm going to hold myself accountable for this year: eating healthier and saving money.

The first one I've already discussed with Batman. We did the slow carb diet for a while, and it was great for losing weight! Unfortunately, it wasn't so great for my lifestyle. Being a vegetarian, I get a lot of protein from dairy, eggs, and fish. I also really like bananas before a run. Instead of going back on slow carb, I'm making a conscious decision to eat better during the week. I'm also going to try out at least one new recipe a week, probably from Pintrest.

My second resolution is to save more money. I've already got a Smarty Pig account to help me save for a down payment on a new car, but I want to have money in my bank's saving account, too. I decided to try the 52-Week Money Challenge. This first week I'll deposit a dollar, then next week I'll deposit two dollars, then three, etc. until the last week of the year I deposit $52 (which, given my end-of-the-year paycheck situation, might not be ideal). Doing this will ensure I have $1,400 in savings by the end of 2014 - plus whatever I have in there now - and that seems like a doable start.

There are other things I'd like to work on as well - I'm still training for my yearly half-marathon, as well as doing smaller runs throughout the year, and I'd like to finally complete the 100 push-ups and 200 sit-ups challenges - but these are the two I'm going to focus on for right now.