Well, 2015 was certainly a busy year for us. I started to think about my blog properly, it’s something I had vaguely started to do – but I made it official by beginning to share my page with the world. Through blogging I discovered some great Linky’s to add my posts to and my blog gradually started to get noticed. I even did a DIY guest post on Boho Brides!
The first half of the year was spent planning our budget outdoor wedding, literally almost every day I was watching YouTube tutorials and making things. I learnt a lot of new skills, like making flower crowns, button holes, bouquets, signs, invitations and decorations. We also learnt how to put up a tipi – it was an exhausting but fantastic experience.
In the summer and autumn months we went on loads of nature walks, swam in a river, camped in the wild, ran through barley fields and went pumpkin picking. All in all – I can say, it’s been a pretty good year. I want this year to be EPIC!
I have a few goals for this year (not resolutions – I don’t do those). My main goal is to save money – not an easy task when there seems to rarely be any to spare!
I will be taking on the money pot challenge, you’ve probably seen this on social media? On the first day of the year you put a penny in a jar, on the second 2p; third 3p; day 100 £1. You get the gist. Basically by day 365 (if I stick to it) I could have saved up £667.95! This could pay off a debt, or go towards a holiday, we haven’t left the country in over seven years, so boy do we need one!
I tend to waste money during the week, especially on my lunch break or on my way back from the school run, the odd can of coke, sausage roll and chocolate bar – it all adds up. I’m tempted to try and put £1.50 a day away also, in another pot, and get Lee to do the same – if we both did this daily we could have £1095 by the end of the year. My daughter has a school trip later this year which will cost £315 – this could help cover the cost!
Over the Christmas break we have been going to bed late and lying- in every day (even the kids). So, on week days we are going to push ourselves to get out of bed at 6am – Lee will go for a run and I will leisurely get ready (gives me time for a lemon tea in peace) and make sure the kids are all up and ready at 7am instead of a half hour of rushing about in the mornings. I have been known to get us all up and out the door in 15 minutes (we have not been late for school)! I don’t drive and the walk to school is a mile long so we have to get out the door by 8am every morning.
We are also planning on decorating the kid’s room – we live in a small flat and all three of my children share a bedroom, not ideal I know, but property is so expensive here. The bedroom has not been decorated since the girls were tiny, so the walls are lilac and there is a mishmash of furniture, fairy stickers and Russian dolls. I have an almost-10-year-old who loves Anime, Ghibli characters and Japanese things, a princess loving almost-8-year-old and a Star Wars/Marvel mad 4-year-old. So we need to have a fairly neutral background to allow for some cool prints to section off parts of the room. The staircase also needs a lick of paint and I want to add some art prints and photographs to make a long gallery wall, again it was last painted about 11 years ago when we first moved in. Maybe all this money we’ll save can go towards paint?!
Oh… and one small thing, I’d still love to stay in a cabin in the woods and see the Northern Lights!
Do you guys have any ambitions for the year?