Lifestyle Fast

So 2010 was not a great year.  Shortly after my last post I went to the doctor and discovered that I needed to have major surgery.  So all my time was either spent thinking about the surgery, getting ready for the surgery, or recovering from the surgery.  It seemed as if it consumed my life.  Happily now I am healthy and healed.

But that wasn’t the only difficult moment in the last year.  Two family deaths in less than five months took its toll too.

And then there is my car.  My cute, sporty, two-door sports car that I loved at 23 started to fall apart.  Now that I’m 33, I realize that it is time to replace it.

In short,  last year things went a little nuts.  So in 2011, I embarked on a “lifestyle fast.”

The lifestyle fast involves a few goals:

1. Get back on track losing weight and eating healthy. (I gained some after the surgery and the holidays.)
2. Save for a new car
3. Apply and Save for grad school
4. Boost emergency savings to eight months salary.
5. Make an active choice to consume less and buy green products.
6. Get more serious about saving for retirement.

So far January was a bust.  I didn’t lose any weight (didn’t gain any though…) and I didn’t save any money (paid off the credit card instead).  But so far in February, I am on track.  We’ll see.  I’ll write back with my results.

One good thing I did was start a new long story.  Hopefully sometime this year, I will finish a first draft. (Usually, it takes me 18 months to finish my short novels.)  But to just be starting something is good.