BALANCE is my word for 2019. I want to find a balance between my family, work, and school. This year we will have a lot of change with Thomas starting his new role as a Warrant Officer, possibly moving again this Summer, and both of us wanting to begin Graduate school. Balance is going to be important this year more than ever!
1. Health is important to achieve balance in your life, physically and mentally. I want to make regular exercise part of my everyday routine. I have signed up for the SWEAT with Kayla Itsines app and I am ready to make exercise fun and something I look forward too. My family has a history of heart problems and I am already starting to have issues at my young age. Making my health a priority is something I have to do and is a huge part of creating balance in my life. I made huge changes in my nutrition last year by swapping out soda and sweet tea for water, and I want to continue to build on improving it further this year.
2. Family means everything. It is easy to get caught up in everyday life and not spend quality time with the ones you love. In today's world of technology, everyone is always on their phones. That is something I want to change, not only for myself but for my family. For example, at the dinner table, I want us to talk about our day or exciting things we have coming up and not be on our phones. I also think setting aside a date night for my husband is something that can help create balance, taking the time to do something fun together and spend quality time together. To go along with the first point I made, my husband and I are planning to go to the gym together a couple days a week, this is going to be so great in creating balance I will be able to better my health while spending time with my husband. Smokey, our fur son, means the world to us and I want to make sure we are cherishing our time with him. We need to be taking him to the park more, cuddling him every chance we get, and talking to him instead of being on our phones all the time when we are home.
3. School has always been important to me, learning is never over! I want to be accepted and start Graduate school this Fall. I love learning and pursuing my Master's degree will help me long term to grow and develop skills to achieve my career goals. Finding a balance with school and the other areas of my life is going to be my biggest challenge. I tend to put all of my focus and effort into one thing so learning how to balance it all will be so beneficial to my stress levels and overall happiness. Time management is going to be my best friend, I just ordered my new Erin Condren planner to help keep me organized!
4. Work is an area most people struggle with, being a military wife I find it even more challenging. We recently moved again and here I am looking for a job again. It is extremely hard moving every 2 years or less to have a career that you feel you are working towards. Majority of the time you have to take whatever job is available where you are located, even if it doesn't interest you or help towards your career goals. I really want to focus on trying my best to find jobs that help me build my skills and knowledge in the career field I am getting my degree and want to build a career in. Working on post as a civilian with my last job got me into the Federal system and allows me the opportunity to transfer jobs when we move and my retirement savings moves with me! I am currently on the list for opening here at our new duty station and hope to hear back soon about a position. I think focusing on working as a civilian on post will help achieve that balance in my life, allowing me to have a job that I feel is beneficial to my career while being portable with our military lifestyle.
5. Finance- spend less, pay off debt, and save more money are the goals I want to strive for. I want to declutter our lives, not only with household items but unnecessary things that we spend money on. Food is a huge part of the spending less for us (we love to eat), we are going to meal plan and only buying items needs for what we have planned to make, no junk food, and limiting our eating out. Thomas and I are very conscious of our debt and it drives us crazy having any debt (but it is inevitable), this year we want to really work together to knock out our student loan debt. We were fortunate to have below the nation's average amount of student loan debt and we have a plan for our Graduate degrees to be paid for without student loans. We are working to combine our student loans at a lower interest rate and get them paid off in half of the time. This is a long-term goal but we hope to have our student loans paid off in the next 5 years! Saving money is something we both really strive to do. We want to build a house one day on a couple acres (20 acres if it was up to my husband) so we are saving towards our dream home. Retirement and investments are other areas we save for and started in our early 20s, it's never too early to start saving for these the earlier the better! Lastly, we have certain things we save for such as a trip, or something we want such as I've been saving for a purse and he's been saving for a new gun. This year Thomas is planning on doing the weekly saving challenge that you see all over Pinterest in hopes we can finally go on a vacation next Christmas. Being able to have our finances in check is so important for creating balance in our health and relationship.
Heres to a new year and making long-lasting positive changes to our lives!
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