At Least I Tried

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #10: 

Effort

I used to be really good at setting goals and actually achieving them. Sometime in the past 5-10 years, that skill left me. I still try to set goals, though, because even if I only achieve a small percentage of them, that's better than nothing... I think...

While Nicky is gone on his mission, I've decided to work on one personal goal each month. 

My goal for July was to quit soda. I had a hard time deciding the parameters of this goal. Did I want to quit for just July? Or should I try for Nicky's entire mission? I stayed off soda for about a month and a half. During that time, I gained 8 lbs, so I decided I might as well drink soda. For the last couple of weeks, I've been back on the sauce. I'm not sure where I'll go from here. Honestly, I think I’m more likable when I’m drinking soda. I want to have friends, therefore, I must have soda. It makes sense, right?

Just me having friends 

My goal for August was to read the Book of Mormon every day (you can read more about that in this post). I haven't been in a pattern of daily scripture study for a really long time, and at the end of July, I had a very strong prompting that I needed to study the Book of Mormon, so that's why I chose this goal for August. I missed six days, which I'm not very happy about, but there's nothing I can do about it. I just simply forgot on those days. 

My goal for September is to spend as little money as possible on food and use up what we have. I made a list of meals that we can make from our current supply, and I wrote down all the times throughout the month where there are exceptions (such as a birthday and a road trip). Basically, I'm trying to not eat out in September and not grocery shop unless we run out of something serious. I'm hoping I can stash away a bit of my grocery budget while clearing out some space in our freezer and storage room. 

So far, the part where I use up what we have at home is going well, but the part where I refrain from grocery shopping and going out to eat is not going as well. On Tuesday we took Daisy and some friends to the lake, and we took some snacks, and I started to worry we were going to run out (those girls were much hungrier than I expected! Normally when I offer food to teenagers, it's like pulling teeth to get them to eat anything, but on Tuesday, they plowed through half the snacks in the first 20 minutes). I sent Scotty to the store for some snacks, and he spent $100! 

The snackers

That same day I ended up having to go to the store last minute due to a roll mishap. I've also purchased a large amount of cheese this week. The month is still young, though, so I still have time to save money... or go rogue and spent it all.