Want to set yourself up for success in 2020? Here are three things you can do this weekend to have a happier, healthier, and more joy-filled new year! Best of all, these are all free!
It’s the first weekend of 2020! And it’s the perfect time to be intentional and strategic to set yourself up for success and peace this year! I’ve got three suggestions of things to do this weekend to help you have a better year…
1. Do a Budget Audit
The new year is a great time to sit down with your budget and really analyze every penny you spend. If you are married and share the budget with someone else, be sure to do this as a joint audit! (Here’s a post on How to Have a Budget Meeting.)
As you go through each budget category, ask yourself:
- Do we need to spend this?
- Is this budget category still serving us well?
- Is there a way we could decrease this expense category?
- Do we need to tweak this category at all?
Jesse and I use the YNAB software to track our personal and business expenses. We love it and highly recommend it. It especially makes it easy to see all your expenses and income at a glance so you can easily do a budget audit together.
Note: If you don’t have a zero-based budget in place, this weekend is the perfect weekend to set one up! I highly recommend reading The Total Money Makeover to help with this (your library should have it!). But for this weekend, you can start with this article on How to Make a Zero-Based Budget.
2. Declutter Your Space
What areas of your home are particularly cluttered or disorganized right now? This weekend would be a great time to spend some clearing out the clutter and making more breathing room in your home. (Need some motivation on what you should declutter? Check out my post on 5 Questions to Ask Yourself About Clutter.)
We’ve been working hard at decluttering our home from top to bottom this past week. We’ve been amazed at how much happier and simpler our life feels now that our closet and storage room and library are pared down and much more organized (pictures coming tomorrow to share the progress we’ve made this week!
By the way, I highly recommend that you go ahead and get rid of what you declutter. Go drop it off at a donation center this weekend. No need to lug it around in the back of your car for weeks. Or worse, to have it sit by your back door for the next two months!
While you’re decluttering your home, think of other areas you might need to declutter:
- Can you delete some emails from your inbox?
- Should you unsubscribe from email lists that are no longer serving you?
- What about Instagram accounts or Facebook Groups that aren’t bringing joy and life to your life?
3. Downsize Your Commitments
Don’t just do a budget audit or declutter your home, if you want to have a great year, it’s time to take a hard look at your calendar and commitments and see if any of them need to be pared down, too.
Look at your calendar for January. Does it feel overwhelming or doable? Does it feel life-giving or life-draining?
Now take a hard look at the rest of the year and see how it feels. Are there weekly commitments you have that are sucking the life out of you? Are you doing anything just because you feel you have to or because you feel obligated to do so?
Could you cut back, tweak, delegate, ask for some help, lower some expectations, or just say no to something (or many somethings) for 2020? There’s no point in running yourself ragged and not having any time to breathe and love the life and people right in front of you!
There you have it. Three FREE things you can do this weekend to set yourself up for success this year!
I challenge you to pick one (or ALL!) of these things and commit to making it happen this weekend. If you plan to do so, leave a comment below and let me know.
Not only will it provide a little extra accountability for you, but I’d love to cheer you on in your endeavors!
Right now I’m reading Marie Kondo book, and some of her thoughts are so freeing to me – the perspective of home filled only with things that I absolutely love, or that purpose of some things might be only to show me, that I don’t like their specific style. So I am free to let them go, even if they are not all used up or damaged. It’s so eye-opening to me. I was even able to get rid of a big bag of books (!!!) So, I am on my mission to declutter our home. And I also realized that we really need a budget. I’ve tried YNAB in the past, but it wasn’t the best fit for me, maybe because we live in Europe. Do you happen to know about some ideas about how to set up a budget? I am thinking about something really simple, just an Excel spreadsheet maybe… thanks!
I love the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up!
As far as a budget, I’d read The Total Money Makeover and you can totally start with a simple spreadsheet. That’s what we did in the early days — back before we were tracking business + personal and it became a lot easier to use a program!
Yes yes yes! These are so great! My husband and I audit our budget and finances every January, and it is so helpful! We set new financial goals, plan our year’s expenses, and adjust lines as needed. This has been so valuable to us — I’m a big believer! Such practical advice!
Thanks so much for your encouragement! And way to go on regularly doing a budget audit! It has saved us SO much money over the years!
We just started YNAB this year and are in our free trial. So far I love it! Do you happen to have a referral code, I haven’t paid for anything yet but I’d love to give you a little kick back if I can! 😉
Aw, you are so kind! If you sign up through my link in the post I linked, I think they credit our account?
I have already started to declutter our house. For me it is an ongoing process. It didn’t get this way overnight. 😊
YAY! Let me know the progress you make this weekend!
I will be doing all 3 of these things in the new year, and yesterday’s Money Saving Mom, which had a link to a decluttering with love 30 day challenge got me started on the decluttering today! Realizing that I don’t even have to dislike the items is going to be a life changer for me. I am praying through the decluttering and getting rid of even more. Thank you!
Carey
Woohoo!!! Let me know when you’ve finished doing them! I’m cheering for you!
Made it my goal, will give it my best effort to achieve.
YAY! I believe in you!
I am going to inventory my pantry, fridge and freezer. Clean as I go. Plan meals for next week based on shopping at home first.
On the budget front, my husband doesn’t believe in a budget. I really want one. We’re at an impass. Any ideas?
YAY! Let me know when you get it done so I can celebrate with you.
And as far as your husband: Why doesn’t he believe in a budget? It sounds like there are some underlying fears or other things from the past that might be contributing to that? I’d dig into that gently with him and see where it leads. I’m guessing he does want to be in a secure financial place, but possibly he’s had some really bad experiences or negative emotions regarding the whole concept of budgeting? Or maybe it’s that he feels like it would be controlling or stressful?