To do list

I have such exciting social life that I am sitting home making my to-do list on a Friday night! After I got off work, I went for an hour long walk with my dog. Came home, ate dinner, talked to a friend from sometime which kind of made me depressed for no specific reason. And now I am making my list. This weekend is going to be pretty dull as I am not doing anything specific. It's okay by me. Last weekend I traveled out of town to go see BF, so a quiet weekend is fine by me. I have some stuff to catch up on, most of which I hope to get to.

• Burn copies of pilates dvd
• Transfer windows itunes music to mac
• Get comfortable with mac
• Look into taking out keyboard on my old laptop, clean (it gets stuck due to spilling coke ) and put it back
• Look into installing Ubuntu on my old laptop (perhaps I will partition it)
• Spend sometime updating resume
• Spend sometime on looking for "fields of interest" career wise
• Spend sometime reviewing materials just in case
• Laundry
• Clean apartment
• Menu plan
  
• Dog park
• Run
• Wash Dog
• Give myself a manicure
• Give myself a pedicure
• Pick out clothes to wear for the week

I know a big list. But I hope to get cracking on at least a few important ones.

Sticking to blogging

The objective of this blog was to see how much money I can save in 6 months at a time.  However, I already seem to have fallen behind.  I guess I should start by saying that I have around 2K to pay off on my credit card this month. No, this is not a balance that I have been carrying.  If I pay it off this month, I will not have to pay any interest on it.  I just have been buying a lot of plane tickets for traveling and a few treats for myself here and there (Okay, I might have gone a little out of control) because I graduated uni and now I have a master's degree as of this summer. I had been working so hard on my degree for almost 3 years now.  When I was done, I felt that I had to treat myself to a couple of nice things.  Read: a lot of nice things.  That person has left now and my real self is back with her sanity. The damage is done and I have to pay the price by dipping into my savings for a few extra hundreds.

However, I have a plan. I was reading Shtinkykat's plan to replenish the money she spent on her birthday trip and I thought, why I could come up with something as well! I have a lot of books and cds lying around that I do not use anymore.  I am going to try and sell them. Of course, I know I won't make all of the 2K back, but I will perhaps get something, however puny the amount is? I have also been diligently packing my own lunch to bring to work. Eating lunch out can easily cost me anywhere from $8 to $12.  If I also buy coffee and breakfast, this amount goes north of $15.  So, I have been drinking my own coffee at home, eating oatmeal for breakfast and bringing my own lunch.  

Estimating that I would spend around $10 a day on eating out lunch/breakfast everyday, I would only have to pack breakfast  and lunch on weekdays and eat in on the weekends for a total of 200 days!   A real long time!  One thing that has also helped me in not eating out a lot is that I have been running a lot. I do not necessarily want to undo all that exercise by eating out everyday! However uninteresting my lunch could be at times, I have to say I tend to eat very healthy left to my own devices. For example, this evening I had a simple dinner of sauteed tofu and veggies.

Perhaps now is also the time to start thinking about supplementing my income if at all possible? Hmm I need to look into it.

In the beggining

I am setting up a goal to save a certain figured amount in 6 months. I choose 6 months, because I feel that if there was a time frame of when I would like to achieve something by, then perhaps I will be more likely to strive towards my goals. Once that 6 month perios is over, I will reevalaute, and set up a set of goals for 6 months from that time. Yes, I am setting up myself for a never ending cycle. Isn't that exciting? Is it doable? Probably. Will it be hard? Undoubtedly. What kind of obstacles will I face? I am sure numerous, first and foremost being my will power to buy that shiny new item that I must have. What else can I achieve in these 6 months? How else can I be productive and creative for a better future? Please stay with me while I start this journey of saving for a decent EF, saving for a house, eating healthy, exercising, and motivating myself to be productive.

So, let's get right down to business shall we?
In 6 months time from now, I would like to have a certain amount saved up. I am somewhere along the mid mark now. So by December 17th, 2009, I would like to have my goal amount in my savings account. (Apart from 401K, which is another story for another time, which will entail remembering my 401K password first.) Let's test myself and see if I am able to do this. Are you ready?