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As I wrote yesterday’s post about starting goals with preparation, it occurred to me that I’ve collected some information, tools, and resources over the years that apply to common goals (or New Year’s resolutions), and some of you might find them helpful. It could be that something linked here will be exactly what you’re looking for, or it could be that seeing them listed this way will jog your memory or get your mental juices flowing and help point you in the direction of something different that’s a better fit. This post may be a bit long, but I’ll try to make it skimmable so you can easily skip to the part(s) you need.
One thought before I get into the actual list, though: don’t forget to consider the resources you already have available! Did you already bookmark (or Pin) something, but then forget about it because you didn’t use it right away? Did you purchase the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle or Ultimate Homemaking Bundle or some other similar bundle, and now have it tucked away in a folder somewhere? Check to see what books might be right in line with what you’re hoping to accomplish this year. And speaking of books, don’t forget to check your physical bookshelf! Surely I’m not the only one who gets excited about something, picks up a resource, then gets busy with other things and lets it fall by the wayside. What have you forgotten you already have?
General Resources
These are resources that aren’t specific to one particular goal or area, but which may have information or tools helpful to multiple goal categories. Most of them are probably fairly obvious, but I’m including them anyway because sometimes we can get so zeroed in on a given area that we overlook the obvious. I’ll get more specific after this, I promise!
Google
This is probably the most obvious of the bunch. Do a search on your goal of choice! You might be able to get some more targeted help, though, by tweaking your search. Try an image search. Or add terms like “chart,” “for beginners,” “easy,” etc. You can also add qualifiers to help hone in on your specific needs. For instance, if you’re looking to get in shape, are low on funds, and don’t have a babysitter, you could try easy at home workout no equipment rather than simply easy workout, and hopefully end up with results that will meet those specific criteria. (I just tried it. There are over 87,000,000 results in Google for that specific combination of search terms!)
Pinterest
This is also probably an obvious one, but play around a little with the search options. Pinterest has become more search-based of late, rather than straight-up feed-based, and they’ve incorporated a variety of options. You can now follow topics in addition to boards and pinners, and all of these are searchable. So you can search for specific pins that lead to content that will support you in your goals, but don’t rule out the possibility of locating boards or topics to follow that may support your efforts throughout the year.
Instagram
I have to admit, I’m not much of an Instagram user. I don’t stay “connected” much of the time, I’m not a huge fan of mobile, and my phone takes terrible pictures, which all add up to Instagram being a less-than-ideal fit. (I am on Instagram. I just don’t use it much.) That means I’m a bit out of the loop, and it’s rarely my first thought. But with all that said, Instagram is an amazing resource for certain goals. Planners and journaling are huge; you can get tons of ideas from seeing others’ Instagram photos. (Try the #BuJo hashtag for “Bullet Journals.”) Related creative pursuits like doodling and photography are well-represented on Instagram, as well, and monthly challenges are common. If you’re just looking for accountability, you can find some great monthly challenges in other areas, as well.
Amazon
There are numerous options here. Obviously, Amazon has books about pretty much every topic under the sun, and sells “tools” of the trade for practically everything, as well. But that isn’t what I’m after. If you have Prime, you may have resources you didn’t know you had: The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL), streaming music, streaming video, Prime Pantry, etc. Kindle books are an immediately-available resource, as well, whether you have Prime or not. Most are reasonably-priced, and they can be read on a free reader app (available for basically every operating system) whether you have a Kindle device or not. Many authors also periodically run promotions where their books are available FREE for a short period of time, so this is worth checking out regularly! (You can drill down by category.)
the Library
I know, some of you are probably there seemingly every other day, and some of you forgot there even is such a thing! Keep in mind that the average library stocks much more than just books: they typically have magazines, music and other CDs, videos, etc. (If you want to learn a language or try a new form of exercise, check the library for relevant audio/video!) Many also increasingly have access to various databases, and many have ebook lending that will enable you to check out books without ever even leaving the house! If they don’t have what you’re look for, and it’s obscure, ask about inter-library loan. (The usefulness of ILL varies, in my experience. In some places it’s very reasonable, while in other locales it’s so expensive it’s rarely worth it.)
Weight Loss
This is a heading because I promised to make the page skimmable! I didn’t want someone looking for “weight loss” to miss the relevant resources. However, there isn’t anything here. That’s because the actions that lead to weight loss are virtually all either dietary changes or exercise/fitness, so you’ll find them in the next two sections.
Dietary Changes
There are multiple reasons people make changes to their diet, and the resources that are relevant will vary depending on the intent. Many will be looking to lose weight. Others will be seeking to increase their fertility, heal various health problems, or just “eat healthier” in general. Consequently, this section may be a little “scattered,” but hopefully you’ll find something to start you in the right direction, whatever your aim. (Special diets are an area where the Ultimate Bundles excel, so if you don’t have any of these bundles from the past, keep your eyes open for them when they come available later in the year.)
If you’re looking for a weight loss diet, there are numerous options, and you may already know what you’re looking for. Some, like the HcG diet, are only meant to be used short-term. Some have “intro” options for weight loss, but segue into “maintenance” phases. Others are healthy long-term options. Be sure you choose based on your needs. The South Beach Diet, Trim Healthy Mama (not just for mamas!), “Clean Eating,” and The Whole 30 are a few options. Of course “everyone” knows about Weight Watchers. Whatever you choose, keep in mind that you can search for recipes + that term on Pinterest to expand your options.
If you’re looking to incorporate more whole foods into your diet, there are a number of options. Many of the diet plans above are also whole foods (or at least mostly so). Most paleo foods are whole foods (‘though whole foods aren’t necessarily paleo). There’s a lot of overlap anymore. Almost every recipe you’ll find on this site is a whole foods recipe (there are a few exceptions for treats), and I wrote a quick guide a while back for those wanting an Introduction to Whole Foods (not recipes, but information about what, exactly, that means and how to identify whole foods). Many more resources have become available since then, though, so there are lots of choices! I really like What the Bible Says About Healthy Living as a balanced approach, but it isn’t comprehensive. Rodale’s Whole Foods Cookbook is very good. When doing searches, you may have success in some venues with the phrase “whole foods” and in others with the phrase “real food.”
If you’re moving toward a paleo diet, I don’t have any particular book recommendations. It’s pretty easy to find good paleo recipes online, and I’ve not found any paleo books that stand out to me as especially comprehensive, family-friendly, etc. I’m sure there are some, but I just stick with Google and Pinterest searches, and that works for me.
If you want to try an autoimmune paleo diet (AIP), it gets a little trickier. Sarah Ballantyne’s website is a great hub, and her book, The Paleo Approach is highly recommended for a better understanding of the diet. [Read my review. What’s the difference between paleo and AIP?] She has a cookbook, too, The Paleo Approach Cookbook, which is good, but not my personal top pick. My favorites are He Won’t Know It’s Paleo (and Bre’anna’s blog), Nourish (particularly for the sauces — the meals are a bit “gourmet” for us), and The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook. (The Healing Kitchen looks good, too, but I haven’t had a chance to see it in person yet.) If you’re just getting started and you’re overwhelmed — especially if you feel bad and not up to cooking, you might appreciate my freezer cooking plan. It’s very easy (as food prep goes) and will give you nine meals you don’t have to work at. (I’m working on a whole book, but the recipe testing is taking longer than I’d hoped!) Searching for recipes that match the search terms paleo AND vegan has been a helpful shortcut for me in finding recipes that either fit the AIP guidelines, or require little tweaking. (Pairing these terms doesn’t rule out all AIP violators, but it does eliminate a lot of unworkable options.)
If you’re going gluten-free, you should first of all be aware that paleo recipes are all gluten-free, and AIP recipes are all gluten-free. I believe some of the weight-loss diets above may be gluten-free, as well. Non-yeast-based breads will be much easier to adapt if you’re looking to tweak your own recipes. My own Whole and Gluten-Free contains some of our tried-and-true recipes that are made with gluten-free whole foods. Breads will, of course, be one of the hardest things to adjust for in your diet, so you might be interested in Gluten-Free Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and/or The Art of Gluten-Free Sourdough Baking.
If you’re looking to go vegan, I can’t be much help. I believe that a (long-term) vegan diet is unhealthy, so I don’t have a lot of resources to recommend. However, I do enjoy the Chocolate-Covered Katie blog. She uses more soy than I’m crazy about, but she doesn’t rely on soy for everything like a lot of vegan recipe sources do — and she has some pretty yummy stuff! It’s also worth noting that many of her recipes are also raw and/or gluten-free. If you’re doing a search, Hallelujah Diet and/or Daniel Fast may help you find results, in addition to the more obvious vegan.
For a vegetarian diet, I especially like Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, by Deborah Madison. (Even if you aren’t vegetarian, it’s an excellent treatment of vegetables, and can be really helpful for those of us who aren’t really sure what to do with most of them.) There’s a newer version, but I haven’t personally seen it. I’m sure there are other good veggie cookbooks, but as is probably evident, vegetarian cooking isn’t really my area of expertise!
Raw foods, likewise, are an area I’m not super-familiar with. However, I think it’s to our benefit to incorporate more raw foods into our diets, even if we aren’t going to “eat raw” as an entire dietary system, so I’ve done a little poking around. There aren’t too many books that have really turned my head yet, but I like Everyday Wholesome Eating…in the Raw, by Kim Wilson. Some of the older versions can be found on Amazon. I think the Trim Healthy Mama ladies have a raw “cook”book, too.
Fermented foods are one last area where many of us want to learn/grow/improve. This is one of the areas where I want to grow (I make yogurt, but I haven’t yet been successful with anything else), so these “recommendations” are a little different. The following books are on my wish list; unlike the other areas, I haven’t read most of them. Wild Fermentation, The Art of Fermentation, Real Food Fermentation, and Nutritious Probiotic Drinks. Nourishing Traditions is the classic but, although it does some things well, it isn’t my favorite. If you want to delve into sourdough, the gluten-free sourdough book above is an option. Or there’s Wardeh Harmon’s e-book, Sourdough from A to Z. (Not available through Amazon; sorry.)
If you just want to learn to cook, in general, I have two particular recommendations. Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything is by far my favorite all-purpose cookbook. It’s in a similar vein as the more traditional Joy of Cooking, but where I feel Joy of Cooking leans toward gourmet or weird, How to Cook Everything leans toward natural. Overall, I just find it more practical, but just as thorough. I also recently reviewed Cooking for Geeks, and I found it to be a fun and interesting introduction to some of the science of cooking. (If baking is more up your alley, you might like Ratio.)
The Paleo Approach: Reverse Autoimmune Disease and Heal Your BodyThe Healing Kitchen: 175+ Quick & Easy Paleo Recipes to Help You ThriveThe Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook: An Allergen-Free Approach to Managing Chronic IllnessHe Won’t Know It’s Paleo: 100+ Autoimmune Protocol recipes to create with love and share with prideNourish: The Paleo Healing Cookbook: Easy Yet Flavorful Recipes that Fight Autoimmune IllnessesThe Paleo Approach Cookbook: A Detailed Guide to Heal Your Body and Nourish Your Soul
Exercise/Fitness
The methods or tools you choose for exercise/fitness will vary depending on whether you’re trying to improve your flexibility, strength, and/or stamina, or whether you’re aiming for some specific end — for instance, running a marathon — or just general fitness. (If you’re a woman and have borne children or had abdominal surgery, please watch this before making your final choice, so you’re building your body and not harming it!) Your available resources (equipment, gym, etc.) as well as personal preferences (love to exercise? hate to exercise?) should also be taken into consideration. Here are some options:
gym membership
Probably a “duh” option, this one, but I hate to overlook the obvious. It does have a cost involved, though, and for some of us, getting there is a hardship.
Wii Fit
I actually really like the Wii as an alternative option. It costs a bit up-front, but then it has a number of options for keeping in shape, and I don’t have to leave the house, worry about weather, or hire a babysitter. Wii Fit Plus is an obvious choice, but there are other game options now, too, like Zumba.
Videos
While I’m on the topic of Zumba, videos are a good option. I personally don’t much care for most “exercise,” but I love to dance, so dance-based options like Zumba, bellydancing, and Shazzy Fitness are some of my favorites. But there are other options: kickboxing, Pilates, step aerobics, etc. (Some of these videos stream free with an Amazon Prime account!)
Simple Exercise Plans
Simple exercises we’re all familiar with — push-ups, jumping jacks, etc. — can be surprisingly effective when used systematically. I’m not sure how I originally found it, but I really like this “ladder” system because of the way it uses “baby steps.” There’s an introductory ladder for those starting out, and you work your way into the lifetime ladder. It requires no equipment, it isn’t complicated (two sheets of paper contain the whole plan), and you can do it anywhere, even if you travel. Another program along similar lines (but less comprehensive) is the hundred pushups challenge. If you do have equipment at your disposal, you can try doing a search for a plan that uses your equipment. Or try just “working up” — for instance, on a treadmill, try for a longer time or a longer distance each week.
“Team” Fitness
BeachBody and CrossFit have groups all over the country. If you need the accountability, something like this might be a good fit. (Or you might try an actual team sport, like basketball through the local parks & rec department.)
Other Health Improvements
Sometimes our health goals aren’t specifically related to fitness or diet. Maybe one of the following is on your list.
Improve your posture.
Posture is largely a matter of habit, so the most useful tools will, for the most part, be those that help you remember to do posture checks periodically. However, many of us are prone to poor posture in part due to poorly-arranged work spaces, so tools for understanding how best to rearrange your workspaces may be helpful. This tool uses a questionnaire to help you determine the proper arrangement. The Mayo Clinic provides some general guidelines for an ergonomic setup. If tablet usage is an issue, consider a multi-angle stand like the TStand. (If you’re really bad about remembering, you could try a posture corrector/brace.)
Laugh more.
YouTube. Need I say more? Seriously, though, YouTube is great for funny videos and Pinterest is great for funny images, both searchable. Create your own playlist and/or Pinterest board of your favorites for those times you need a laugh. Laughter is good medicine.
Drink more water.
There are a few different ways you can help yourself drink more. You can purchase a water bottle that holds all the water you need to drink for the day so you don’t have to try to count. (If you’re on the large side and need to drink a lot of water, you might prefer something that needs to be filled twice per day, so you don’t have to carry something too large around, but still don’t have to do much counting.) You can buy or make a tracker to attach to your water bottle or wear on your wrist. Or you can use an app or old-fashioned paper and pen to track your consumption. (There are stickers available for your planner, too, like these weekly ones, these daily ones, and these water bottle-style ones.)
Organization
This one is a little tricky because it depends on what you’re trying to organize: stuff/spaces, systems, or your time/self?
Organize Yourself
By which I mean your time and the like. This would be your planner, to-do list, etc. — those things that keep you functioning through your day. I learned some very valuable things from David Allen’s Getting Things Done, and it’s worth the read, but it isn’t very well-written for just “getting” the system and diving in. It’s good, but you might have to mull over certain sections a time or two to really “get” what he’s saying you’re supposed to do — but then it isn’t very complicated. (I also like that the methods work with whatever setup you prefer.) Finding a planner you like might take some trial and error, and it can be helpful to search visual repositories like Instagram and Pinterest to get ideas of what you like or dislike (and just of what’s out there). Etsy has a lot of options, too. If you’re more of a DIY-er, you might like diyplanner.com. You’ll also want to address routine in some way.
Organize Your Systems
This can be a bit of a process. I have a series here on the blog that helps step you through many of the areas most people need to organize. It’s worth checking out (if I do say so myself), if only for the overview of areas you can use as a checklist to see what’s going smoothly and what needs work.
Organize Your Stuff
Hands-down my favorite organizing book ever is Organizing from the Inside Out. It’s practical and broadly-applicable, and addresses all the typical roadblocks. (Morgenstern also has a teen version, which is good, and a time management book, which is decent but, in my opinion, not as amazingly outstanding as the organization one.) If you’re less of a traditionally-organized thinker, you might also appreciate something like ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life (which you don’t necessarily have to have ADD to benefit from; folks with different personality styles can benefit, too — crosses over to self-organization/time management). (Before someone asks, I am personally not a fan of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, which I found highly impractical and more fluff than substance. It’s worth checking out from the library, but not worth owning, in my estimation.)
Bible Reading/Quiet Time/Spiritual Growth
“Spiritual growth” is not really a measurable goal. However, those disciplines that tend to produce growth are measurable: Bible reading, Bible study, time in prayer, etc. If you’re looking for a study/devotional book, The Discipline of Grace and Calm My Anxious Heart are a couple of my personal favorites. (The former is appropriate for men or women; the latter is more of a women’s book.)
If you’re looking to simply be more consistently in Scripture, you’ll probably want a Bible reading plan. There are many out there, and you can choose one based on your needs. How quickly are you hoping to move through Scripture? Do you want “wiggle room” built in? Do you want a dated or undated system? Do you want to read from one section of Scripture at a time or several selections a day (for example, one from the Old Testament and one from the New)? Do you want a chronological plan, a sequential plan, or something else? Here are some options:
Professor Horner’s plan (PDF at challies.com)
I love the theory behind this (which you can read at the link), but it’s too intense for me, personally, in this season of life. It equates to ten chapters per day, from ten different sections of Scripture, so there’s not only the reading time for ten chapters, but also the flipping back and forth to find them. That may not sound like much, but when you’re struggling to get two interrupted minutes, that’s a lot. If you’re in a less interruption-prone season of life, this could be a great fit. (I wish I’d found it as a teen!)
my adaptation of Prof. Horner’s plan
Because I did love the theory behind Professor Horner’s plan, I adapted it to be more doable for me right now. I’ve been using this system for years now, and I love it. It’s as intense or as easygoing as I need it to be, I’m never “behind,” and it’s building my familiarity with Scripture as intended.
chronological reading plan
one-year Bible reading plan
two-year Bible reading plan (PDF from Gospel Coalition)
three-year Bible reading plan (PDF from Moody)
Other quiet time tools:
Scripture reading checklist
Regardless of what plan you use, something like this can be helpful. I have a checklist similar to this, and it’s how I know what I have or haven’t read. Each of my children old enough to read independently has one. My husband also uses one to keep track of what we’ve read together as a family. It’s a pretty simple tool with a lot of flexibility. The color-coded version here has some handy added information (number of chapters, genre, etc.).
Quiet Time Basics
This is one of my books. If you’re totally new to the idea of quiet times, you might find some helpful tips here. It isn’t for everyone. I intentionally wrote it in a conversational style, as though I were chatting with you in my living room, and some readers have interpreted that as “unprofessional.” But if it happens to be what you’re looking for, take a peek.
Prayer Practice
Likewise, I have a couple of prayer books. There’s a “grown up” version and a kids’ version. The content is essentially the same but the layout is different. (In other words, the kids’ version isn’t “dumbed down”; it’s just presented differently, so an adult could use it, too.) Prayer Practice is 90 daily prayer challenges, designed to get you out of your prayer “rut” and praying more broadly and thoughtfully. The challenges are accompanied by Scriptures and prayer-related quotes. The kids’ version contains the same challenges but, rather than being presented in a 90-day format, they’re simply broken down by category and presented as “chapters.”
Scripture memory box
This is one of the best systems I’ve seen for memorizing Scripture and retaining it. It uses index cards and dividers, and has review built right in.
miscellaneous Bible study and prayer methods
There are various Bible-marking methods, inductive study acronyms/reminders, etc. Too many to list here. If you want to poke around on my Bible study Pinterest board, you’ll find various examples there.
Learning Languages, Hobbies, or Other New Skills
Obviously, the first information or tools you’ll need for learning a new skill is material about the actual skill, and the essential tools for doing it. So if, for instance, you’re learning quilling, you’ll need quilling paper strips, quilling tools, and instructions. Also obviously (at least, I assume it’s obvious), I can’t possibly cover all the information for every hobby anyone might want to learn here. So we’re going to talk about a few language tools everyone might not know about, and some things that are general helps for this sort of thing, and leave it at that.
DuoLingo
This app is new to me, but my friends have been talking about it this week. There are something like fifteen languages available. (They aren’t all showing up on the screen at once, so I’m struggling to count them.) It makes learning a game. DuoLingo is a mobile app, but it seems to be available for iPhone, Android, and Windows phones. (I also found it on Amazon, so you can download it to your Kindle Fire.)
Freerice
I’m only familiar with Freerice for building English vocabulary, but if you look for “subjects” at the top of the page, you can actually choose from a variety of subjects, including foreign languages. (There are also a few things that may be helpful for test preparation. There’s an SAT test-prep option, a humanities section that might be helpful for the CLEP, and a chemistry option that I may have to look into when I start essential oil chemistry next term!)
foreign movies, music, and books
Movies, music, and books in another language can make the process less “dry.”
library & Amazon
Remember these resources! If you have Amazon Prime, there are some language learning audios included with your subscription, but I didn’t have any success finding them through generic terms like “language learning.” You’ll need to go to Prime Audio (or Video) and search for the specific language.
Udemy
If you’re more of a visual learner, check out Udemy. It’s a video-based course platform. There are courses on a wide variety of subjects, and the prices vary, as well.
YouTube
Don’t discount YouTube as a learning platform. You’d be surprised at the things you can learn just from YouTube videos!
Developing a Sense of Style
I probably should write about this, because I haven’t found any one resource that really tackles this the way I’d like.
Dressing Your Truth comes closest, but they’re overly simplistic (in my opinion) in their categorizations. That simplicity makes the system very easy to follow — a definite benefit — but can make things awkward for people who don’t fit so neatly into the “boxes.” Still, it’s a good place to start, but for two things. 1) It isn’t cheap. 2) It’s run by some people who also teach some rather weird stuff, so you have to be willing to take what you hear around there with a grain of salt.
Color Your Style
(This is the same thing as The Color of Style. For some reason the paperback and hardcover just have slightly different titles.) The color portion of this book is brilliant! It takes some doing — training your eyes takes work — but once you get the “feel” for it, the colors you choose will feel like “you.” The archetype portion of the book I find less helpful. The theory of it works well enough, but there just isn’t enough information to go on in the book, in my opinion, to be able to figure out most people’s archetypes without help.
Metamorphosis
This book is out of print, so it’s only intermittently available, and when it is available, it’s sometimes a crazy price. It’s also somewhat dated. But the concepts are good. Where David Zyla nails color and doesn’t give enough information for archetypes, David Kibbe makes archetypes approachable, but misses the boat in terms of color. One thing you have to realize when reading this one, though, is that Kibbe is an artist — don’t take what he says too literally; rather, go with the general idea or “vibe” or feel of the thing he’s describing. The “big picture” is what he’s going for, not the nitty-gritty details.
Style Statement
I love this one! It’s a little bit different from the others. This one won’t tell you so much about your appearance as it will help you take a good, long look at you and what makes you tick and what reflects you to to the outside world. It’s not a Christian book, so expect some conflicting worldview. (There are personal testimonials and their lifestyles are all different.) And give yourself some time to journal or think through this stuff. It’s a lot of fun to work through, though, and helped me better define what it is I like.
Jane Segerstrom
My very favorite books for an overall approach to personal style that is thorough and balanced are Jane Segerstrom’s. (In fact, I think Dressing Your Truth took their underlying principles from here and simplified them.) Unfortunately, the books are out of print and often hard to find. (They’re also a bit dated.) If you can find them, the first one, Look Like Yourself and Love It, is the more basic one, while the second, Style Strategy, delves more deeply into combination types. (If you can’t find them for sale, they’d be worth looking for at the library or through inter-library loan.) I still recommend Color Your Style, though, as an adjunct for working with color because Zyla tackles that so well.
Financial Goals
Financial goals typically fit into three basic categories: make more money, better use the money you have (i.e. budget more effectively), or pay down debt (which usually requires some combination of the first and second).
You Need A Budget (YNAB)
This is budgeting software. I personally don’t care for budgeting software (nothing wrong with it; I’m just a paper-and-pen kind of girl), but everyone I know who likes software swears by one of two things, and this is the first. The method they teach is very simple and straightforward, and I like that it works regardless of whether there’s a lot of wiggle room in the budget.
Mint
This is the other budgeting software/app I hear people rave over. Personally, I prefer YNAB, but every software and every person is different, so it’s possible this could be a better fit for you.
Dave Ramsey
I know people who swear by Dave Ramsey’s materials. My own opinion is mixed. There are some excellent principles here, especially for those looking to get out of debt, most notably the “debt snowball” method and the “envelope system” of budgeting. However, we’ve been a bit frustrated with some of the materials because they’re written in absolutes but really only work if you have a certain degree of “space” in your budget. If you have plenty of income but currently do a lousy job budgeting your money you can make huge headway with these methods. If you budget fairly well but money is just tight, you may just find yourself frustrated. (Most of his “success stories” paid down more debt in a year than our annual income. That doesn’t make his methods feel approachable, for us.) If your situation is somewhere in between, your results probably will be, too. (If you want a pretty envelope booklet for your envelope budgeting, I have a tutorial for that.)
The Money Jars
This system is kind of different from other budgeting methods I’ve seen, and I like it. It may be tough to put into place if your budget is tight, but even if that’s the case, you can probably take away some ideas/principles that you can implement, even if you can’t use it perfectly as written. It’s also an excellent system to teach to kids/teens. The Kindle book is only a few dollars and it’s worth it, in my opinion, to be stretched in our thinking about how budgets are “supposed” to work. (You can pick up the basics from some online sources, like 6jars and in this article at Get Rich Slowly.)
Side Hustles
A “side hustle” is a side job you do to bring in a little extra money. Most of the lists I’ve found for these are pretty useless. Either they tell you the obvious (“Sell off stuff you don’t need”), they give you useless ideas (“Start a business based on something you’re good at.” “Um…if I had something I knew I was good at, I would probably not need you to tell me that!”), or they offer useless resources (“Sign up at these two hundred survey sites to make money — what we’re not going to tell you is that you’re going to spend twenty hours a year taking screeners so you can qualify for a total of two surveys worth $1.50 each.”). I’m not going to be that person. I did, however, stumble across a list on Pinterest the other day that had some legitimately useful ideas and resources. Here’s that list. (Obviously, they still won’t all be for everyone, but it’s not the same old tired list.)
Swap.com
Selling is not my strong point. People can tell me ’til they’re blue in the face that I should sell my stuff, but it doesn’t sell, so I end up wasting time — and sometimes losing money on fees, to boot! But with that said, I’ve found Swap.com to be a good option (for buying and selling). They can be a little slow processing the things I send in, but it’s so easy it’s totally worth it! I make sure my clothes (kids’ or women’s) are freshly laundered, then pack them up and ship them off. Swap.com’s staff photograph them and create the listings; all I have to do is add the prices and wait for my items to sell. And they actually do. Swap.com isn’t overly picky about what they’ll accept, either — reasonable (they don’t take junk), but not ridiculous. (I like buying at ThredUP as a means of saving money, but haven’t found it to be an effective way to make money.)
What Did I Miss?
There are probably common goals I’ve overlooked. Share yours in the comments! If you have a super-awesome resource, share that, too!
Information, Resources, & Tools for Common Goals and New Year’s Resolutions is a post from: Titus 2 Homemaker
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