A Few Resolutions

This year, our first in a long time, my husband and I made a few resolutions.  We are a little late since our resolutions didn't occur to us until after the new year but hey, it's the thought that counts.  Some of our resolutions were precipitated by looking at our annual budget and realizing just. how. much. money we spent in 2009.  Shocking really.  I mean tens of thousands of dollars shocking.  I went to bed with a stomach ache last night just thinking about it.  Eight thousand dollars seems to be the magic number since that is about how much we spent on our food, childcare, and home repairs.  (That's 8K each!)  Our good old health insurance and related health expenses were a little over $10,000.  God Bless America.

Anyway, not to go all Republican on you, but I'm feeling a bit peevish about the $10,000 dollars we also spent on taxes for our fuel-efficient cars and our little house and my husband's office "inventory."  For what, some spotty curbside recycling and a few crappy schools?

In terms of our resolutions, we decided that there isn't a whole lot we can cut in terms of big expenses (although I think the house will go another year with an increasingly awful chipped paint facade) so we are going to try and make some changes that will improve our own health and the health of our environment.  These things just might save us some cash too.

In no particular order, we are going to try to:

-Give up juice and papertowels.*

-Bake bread instead of buying it.

-Limit our baby wipe usage to major poop disasters.

-Get out of the house every day for a walk.

-Make our own cards and presents, as much as possible.

-Utilize more of our museum memberships, public libraries, and parks.

-Purge our home of PVC (cling wrap, ziplock bags, plastic straws, etc.)

-Spend less time on the computer (ha! ha!)

-Take shorter showers

So, fair readers, what are you trying to do or not to do this year?

*Since we were spending about $80 a month on juice alone, this should save us a pretty big chunk of change.  My husband, who rehydrates with diluted juice after a workout, was by far the biggest juice drinker in the house but since his idol Michael Pollan recommended that people eat fruit instead of juice, he is now on board with this resolution.