A Look Back at my 2009 New Year’s Resolutions

I must admit… I was one of those people. I made resolutions, and then didn’t give them a whole lot of thought until the end of the year was approaching.

I still believe that New Year’s Resolutions are worth making. It’s good to set personal goals for yourself. It’s good to reflect on your accomplishments and on the things you need to work on.

So, how did I do? Well, great on some items, awful on others, and just okay on the rest.

Here’s a rundown of my 2009 resolutions. Tomorrow I’ll be listing my resolutions for 2010.

Lose 20 pounds through diet and exercise.
This resolution was a MAJOR fail. I actually gained 16 pounds. I definitely know what I’ll be working on next year!

Simplify my life. This resolution was vague, but you know what? I feel like I did okay on this one. I was able to let things go a little easier than I have in the past. I made a conscious effort to not let any one thing in my life become all-consuming, and that was very freeing.

Plan a weekly menu. Hmmm… This was one of those not-so-great areas for me. I am still not good about writing down a weekly menu. I have gotten better at resisting the call of fast food and been more willing to see what kind of quick meal I can whip up at home rather than resorting to take-out.

Limit my soda consumption to one can a day or less. This is a resolution I ROCKED! After doing my 30-Day No Soda Challenge last September, I can now say that I do not drink any soda at all at home (unless we’re having pizza) and I occassionally drink a diet soda if I’m at a restaurant. But other than that, I’ve pretty much kicked my soda habit!

Create a home inventory. This is a project that I’ve only partially completed. I’ve gone through our home with a video camera to highlight what we have (approximate values, etc.). But unfortunately, I have yet to copy this on a disk and store it somewhere other than my house. So… it’s not very useful yet. I will definitely finish this project in January.

Investigate re-financing our mortgage. Not only did we investigate refinancing our mortgage – we actually did it! We were able to lower our interest rate from 6.25 percent to 4.875 percent in February, which gave us a bit more flexibility in our budget.

So that’s the report on my 2009 New Year’s Resolutions! How did you do on your resolutions?