I came up with a resolution!

I never do resolutions at New Year’s time. It is too much work to think up things that I’m just going to forget about anyway. This plan only came into my head coincidentally around this time of year. I wasn’t sitting around thinking up resolutions.

I am going to save 10% of my money.

Since I’m self employed I don’t have a 401K or anything like that where money is automatically deducted. So far I’ve been putting money into my IRA when I think of it or when I have a bit extra. It has been haphazard. I’m behind on my savings anyway since when I was married to a financial mess I had to use all money to keep our utility bills paid and food on the table.

I got paid for the first time this year yesterday. Today I set up my IRA to automatically deduct 5% of my paycheck every two weeks. The other 5% is going into my savings account. There is a possibility that we may move and I will be out of a job until I find another so I want to make sure that I have money set aside for bill paying at that point. My bank website doesn’t let you do transfers automatically every two weeks. So I set up my calendar function on my BlackBerry to make an appointment for me on the day after each paycheck. It says Pay Yourself.

When I look at the amounts being taken out it seems very small. Because I have been contributing less often I have been putting in larger amounts. Doing it this way though will automatically put the same amount in my IRA that I have been contributing without me having to think about it. Then if I have a bit extra I can add it to boost my savings more.
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This morning I had a plan. I was going to go to the combined Tim Horton/Cold Stone Creamery and get ice cream cupcakes for sewing day. That was a good plan until I was reading blogs this morning. I got to the running and weight loss blogs on my RSS feeder and I just couldn’t do it. That was the purpose of adding those blogs – to keep me motivated to eat healthy and exercise. But, if you have one of those blogs and you felt something strange this morning, that was me cussing you out heartily!

I had oatmeal with raisins, honey, soymilk, and peanut butter. I’m feeling all self righteous now even though I’m being a bad hostess by not having treats.

Then in my fit of self improvement I took the dog for a walk instead of just to the dog park. I told her that it was good for her brain to get out and see the sights. That is until she was suddenly holding up her right hind leg. We headed back home and she got distracted by another dog and was no longer lame. So we headed off in another direction again and after a bit she was holding up her left hind leg. Both times we were on sidewalks that had been scraped clean and she was shivering. I think the bare cement was too cold for her feet! What a wimp! We were very close to home so I picked her up and carried her home while muttering about how the 17 year old infirm 5 lb Pomeranian never needed carried on a walk around the block and planning on telling anyone who saw us that I was working on my weight lifting instead of carrying my wimpy dog.