Resolutions 2014 - #2 and #3

I am trying something different this year – rather than make a whole bunch of resolutions on the 1^st of January and have them all fall in a heap in a few days (and let’s be real, sometimes a few hours) later, I am going to do a new resolution each week, and snowball them all on top of one another. Some will be ongoing, some will have finite periods of time, some will just be a thing to do, like cleaning out a particular cupboard that week or whatever. So last week was fitting back into the clothes I have within 6 months or then getting rid of anything that doesn’t fit, and then I’ve got two new ones going on at once, so let’s pretend there’s been two weeks passed since then.

Number 2 is a small one – well, smallish. Stop complaining – or even talking about – work. I used to like my job, now I hate it. And most of the reason I hate it is because I work with a lot of people who drive me up the wall for one reason or another. But I can’t change those people, and although I could probably change my job, the money and flexibility it offers me makes it a better option for me to just learn to tune out the annoyances. So my goal for this is to just go to work, do my job, smile and grit my teeth, and then forget about it the moment I walk out the door. These people are not important to me, I am not wasting any more time stressing  or getting annoyed about them.

Number 3 is about money. I recently read a book called 30 Day Spending Detox. It’s essentially a blog post dragged out to the size of a book, and didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know, but I like the central premise, which is basically spending nothing whatsoever for a 30 day period with the exception of necessities (rent, groceries, bills, etc.). See – that doesn’t need a whole book, does it? It does go into a bunch of detail about reducing travel costs, grocery costs and so on, but as it’s American it’s all about couponing and whatever and not really relevant to me. I pay nowt for travel – I walk – so that’s not an issue for me. I do spend way too much on groceries. Lily and I like a bit of nice food, and although I've been out on my own for many many years, I still have never gotten over the novelty of being able to buy whatever I want at the supermarket, so I’m a shocking impulse buyer and highly suggestible. I can live without eating, say, Tim Tams for months but then someone will mention them or I’ll see an ad for them and suddenly I’ll be all, “Oooh, I really fancy some Tim Tams!”. So I guess my goals for this resolution are two fold:

• don’t buy anything that isn’t necessary, e.g. takeaway coffee, takeaway lunches, (sob) alcohol, lottery tickets, books, clothes, makeup, perfume, random eBay flotsam, songs on iTunes, and so on and so forth 
• look at ways to reduce the grocery bill – what is that big chunk of gruyere actually for?

I shall report back on my success – or failure.