Monthly Goals – January 2018

Monthly Goals – January 2018

January 2018

Monthly Goals - January 2018 - This year instead of making New Years Resolutions, I am making monthly goals. New Year’s Resolutions seem too final. How often do you make a resolution only for you to give up completely or your priorities change. That’s why I am going to have monthly goals. These seem far more achievable and can be dynamic throughout the year.

2017 Recap

I can’t believe 2017 is over. Last year was GCSE year. It was the first time we had to go through GCSEs and I found it all very stressful. I could feel his stress and that manifested itself in me. We spent hours helping him revise some subjects, particularly maths which he has always found difficult. Then he went and passed all of them and completely exceeded his expectations.

We are so proud of him. He is now at College and excelling in a way he never did at school. All because he has an interest in the subject he is now studying – Sport.

Starting my Blog

Looking back, I am wondering why I decided to start my blog when I did. I blog part-time, having a day job. I always say this is part-time, which it is, but it is 6 hours per day so not much less than a full-time role. This means I have a limited amount of time to spend on the blog and then when we were deep in to GCSE revision, this time became even more limited. I hope 2018 will allow me more time to delve deeper into building and improving my blog.

Monthly Goals

These ‘Monthly Goals’ posts are to become a regular feature. They will allow me to share my goals which will include family goals, money saving goals, money making goals, travel goals, blogging goals etc. It will also help to keep me accountable. Let’s make start:

Family and Home Targets for January 2018

Decluttering

Decluttering is something that I have written about before. We had a major declutter a few years ago. Even now, we come across things that we no longer need or use. Decluttering has to become a regular task. However, over the last 6 months this, along with many things, has taken a back seat.

First on my target is the kitchen. This also links in to a money saving goal below. The kitchen is the heart of our home. Along with our dining room, they are is the most used rooms in the house. The kitchen is also the place where we keep our coats, bags and shoes and has many ‘hotspot’ areas where things get dumped. It will be added to my monthly goals and I will take it one step at a time.

Goal: Declutter the kitchen worksurfaces

Meal Planning

Meal planning is one of the best ways you can start to save money on your grocery shopping. I have meal planned for years but we have got stuck in a bit of a rut, so I will be trying to include some different meals.

Goal: Introduce one new meal into the weekly meal plan

Travel Goals

We love to travel and we have just enjoyed a fantastic trip to Belgium. I will be writing a blog post all about this soon.

Goal: I'm keeping it simple this month. I want to find somewhere local we can visit, which is either free entry or reasonably cheap. Due to the weather this will need to be somewhere inside

Money Saving Goals for January 2018

I have lots of money saving goals but the ones listed here are the ones I have chosen to focus on this year.

Goal: Reduce grocery spend

We currently spend around £100 per week for a family of four. This includes all meals (including packed lunches for 4) and all cleaning materials and toiletries. I hope to be able to reduce this and will aim for a reduction of £10 for January – baby steps! To keep track of my spending I have created a spreadsheet showing how I'm doing.

Savings Targets

Goal: Project Kitchen (more info below) – I hope to save £10 this month

Goal: Spending money for our summer holiday – I need to save £100 this month

Money Making Goals for January 2018

Money Saving Journeys

In 2017 I was ecstatic to publish my very first sponsored post.

Goal: My goal is to try and successfully negotiate another

Side Hustle 1 - Together in One Place

This is a website that myself and eldest son started. It has taken a back seat recently and he has lost interest a bit. I think he enjoys the design part better than the writing of content. I don’t want to let this drop as we did manage to earn a small amount of affiliate income from this site.

Goal: One piece of content to be published in January

Side Hustle 2 - Creatives and Media

Another one of my money making ideas which was started pre-GCSEs and had to be completely ignored. This year the focus is on creating products for sale.

Goal: The target for January is to create and complete one product that I can post for sale

Side Hustle 3 - Surveys

I absolutely love Prolific Academic. They tend to have really interesting surveys and you never get screened out. The surveys showing in your dashboard are all available for you to complete. You can sign up using my referral link here.

To make the most of the money that is on offer you need to check in every day to see what is available. I started doing this in 2017 and within 3 weeks I had earned £27.03. However, like many things last year, this too took a back seat to the point where I haven’t checked in for around two months.

Goal: January – check in everyday

Other Side Hustles

I tried out a few side hustles last year. I published two e-books, both of which have earned me around £7 in total – not a lot but better than nothing.

I have a Debt Busting ebook in progress at the moment. I originally wanted to publish this by 1 January but that didn’t happen.

Goal: Get this finished in January ready to publish at the beginning of February

Blogging Goals for January 2018

Social Media Goals

You can find Money Saving Journeys on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Google +. This year I am going to focus on building engagement across the three platforms where I have the most followers – Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Current Followers	Target Increase
Twitter	308	350
Instagram	348	400
Pinterest	748	800

Let’s see if these targets are achieveable.

Content posting goals

Posting regularly is one of the most important things for a blogger. I currently post twice a week (one of these is my regular ‘Share Your Meal Plan’ post). In between these posts I do sometimes have other ad hoc content – like my Real Life Debt Stories series.

Goal: To get all February’s regular content scheduled in advance

Project Kitchen

This ties in to a number of my goals (see decluttering and saving). I have a series of posts planned which will document the transformation of my kitchen.

Goal: Publish the first post explaining the whole project

SEO Goals

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is something I knew absolutely nothing about when I started my blog. I still have a very long way to go but it is something that has been on the back burner.

When you start a blog there is so much to learn and the SEO aspect just overloaded my brain.

I have begun to look into it more and I started with Google Analytics and Google's Page Speed Insights.

Goal: To connect Creatives and Media up to Google Analytics and to look further into image optimisation for all three websites

Personal Goals for January 2018

I thought I would include a section for personal goals. At the time of writing I can’t think of any. I am sure this will change as we go through the year though.

January Goals Recap

1. Declutter the kitchen work surfaces

2. Introduce one new meal to our weekly meal plan

3. Have a family day out somewhere local

4. Reduce my grocery spend my £10 this month

5. Save £10 for Project Kitchen

6. Save £100 for our summer holiday

7. Publish at least one sponsored post

8. Publish one post for Together In One Place

9. Create and post a product for Creatives and Media

10. Check in daily to Prolific Academic

11. Finish EBook

12. Grow my social media followers

13. Get all February’s blog content scheduled

14. Publish first Project Kitchen blog post

15. Connect Creatives and Media up to Google Analytics

16. Research image optimisation

Wow, when you write it like that there's loads! I'd better get on. I’ll be back in February with details on which goals I've managed to achieve and the goals I am setting for February.

Are you making New Year's Resolutions or planning your goals?

Happy New Year

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Original article and pictures take moneysavingjourneys.com site