Money Saving Mom®

In 2025, I’m changing up the way I set goals. Instead of setting yearly goals, I’m going to set monthly goals. Every month, I’ll be sharing a list of my new goals for the coming month and an update on how I did on the goals from the month before.

I felt like this approach would allow more flexibility for the unexpected and the unknown that this coming year might hold. It also gives a fresh start at the beginning of every month. And it will allow me to tailor goals to the month and what I might know it might already hold (meaning some months I know I’ll have more time and space than other months).

To categorize my goals, I’m using alliteration and five areas that I feel are where I want to prioritize and be intentional with my time and energy: Myself, Marriage, Motherhood, MoneySavingMom.com, and Money.

My Update for January

If you’ve been following along with my personal email newsletter or on Instagram, you know that January was rough and full of a lot of unexpected (I feel like it was that case for a lot of people!).

So I didn’t make the progress I would have liked to on a lot of my January goals, but I did:

• Have almost 60 unplugged hours.
• Finish six books (look for a post later this month on what I read along with the reviews!).
• Spend almost 20 hours outside.
• Complete 11 workouts.
• Go to bed by 10:30 17 nights.
• Declutter well over 500 items (we had a small flooding issue in our storage room so lots of forced decluttering happened!)
• Walk 7k+ steps 18 days.
• Make homemade granola bars and homemade crackers.
• Have a triple date with Jesse (we went to this fun dinner and magic show in downtown Nashville to celebrate our 22nd anniversaries!)
• Have three at-home dates with Jesse.
• Finish the season of the show we are watching together and start the next season.
• Have a joint date with Jesse and the three older kids for Kathrynne’s birthday.
• Read 100+ pages of Little House on the Prairie to Kierstyn, David, and Micah.
• Read 25 devotionals from How Great is Our God to Kierstyn, David, and Micah.
• Made a lot of progress on organizing our walk-in closet.
• Revamp my entire outline for my next book and start over again (and make some great progress on the intro).
• Launch a brand-new product: The One-Hour Budget.
• Launch two new budgeting freebies.
• Work on my next product on budgeting for teens.
• Tithe 10% of our income.
• Close on a new rental home and save 10% more towards our next rental investment goal.

Whew! So even though very few of my goals I actually fully completed, by setting the goals in the first place, it served as a sort of focal point to keep me on track and moving forward, even on the days where there was a lot of upheaval in our lives — especially when Kathrynne was so sick!

My Goals for February 2025

Myself

• 100 hours unplugged.
• Finish SheReadsTruth Genesis study and start Promises of God study.
• Finish reading Lift Your Eyes devotional.
• Finish 6 books.
• 30 hours outside.
• 20 workouts. (See more about the fitness challenge I’m doing right now.)
• To bed by 10:30 p.m. 20 nights.
• 500 items decluttered.
• Walk 10,000 steps at least 25 days.
• Make homemade vanilla.
• Make homemade focaccia (using my sourdough starter).

Marriage

• 2 date nights. (We didn’t finish the ABC date nights in 2024 so our hope is to finish them in 2025!)
• 2 at-home dates.
• Finish second season of the show we’re watching.

Motherhood

• Date with each of the older three kids.
• Finish Little House on the Prairie.
• Finish organizing our walk-in closet.
• Read 20 devotionals out of How Great is Our God with the younger kids.

MoneySavingMom.com

• Write the introduction and first chapter of my new book.
• Create new product on budgeting for teens.

Money

• Continue to tithe 10% of our gross income.
• Save 10% more toward our rental house savings goal for the year.

I’m creating a tracker to track my progress on these goals every day. I used the Strides app last year and it worked well for me, but since I’m doing monthly goals, I’m thinking of trying a physical tracker and will see how that works.

What I Hope to Read in February

(I doubt I will get through all of these books, but my goal is to at least finish 6 books. But I always like to aim high just in case I end up with more reading time than expected!).

• In Peril on the Sea – My mom gave me this and highly recommended it!
• A Higher Call – One of you all said I had to read this book.
• Breaking the Patterns That Break You – I get to interview the author of this one soon!
• Habits of the Household – SO many people have said this book is a must-read.
• Co-Intelligence – This was a gift from Megan Hyatt Miller who leads my mastermind.
• Here Be Dragons – I love Melanie Shankle and am looking forward to this one!
• Lift Your Eyes: Daily Invitations to Behold Christ in Motherhood — I love Whitney and I am loving this devotional! We are doing a podcast episode together soon!
• Unreasonable Hospitality — This book came highly recommended by my mastermind!
• The Fix — I get to have Ian Cron the podcast soon and this book has been fantastic so far!
• Being Fully Known — I am so excited to read this as I loved Sacred Rest and recommend it often.
• Out of My Mind — I read this once and just watched the movie and found out there’s a trilogy so I’m re-reading it before I read the other two in the series!

For those who ask when I read: I always have a few books going at once and I read a few pages to a chapter of a Christian inspiration book + a business book every morning. Then, my goal is to read at least 30 pages of a some type of more fun reading in the evenings before bed — memoir, fiction, etc. I’m still working on making that happen consistently, but I’ve also been doing some fun reading on the weekends!

Have you set any goals for 2025? If so, how are they going for you! What are your goals for February? Tell us in the comments.

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