by Marisue Alsobrook 

New Year’s Resolutions are great to make and most frequently broken.  Still, we begin the new year with great intentions.  Every new year offers hope, inspiration, and refreshing change.  A chance to put into practice something we’ve learned.  Starting “over” is a gift, but do we?  Here are some ways to keep those resolutions and make them count!

1. Better Budgeting.  Make it “doable.”  Get a box for your receipts and put a sign on your sun visor in your car to collect them where ever you go.  Nightly, take 5 minutes to assemble your receipts by day.  Post them if you have time, if not plan to do it at least once a week.  When you know where you’re money is going, it’s easier to control it. 
2. Cook More at Home Meals.  Dig out the crockpot.  Almost anything can be cooked in one pot and it’s a budget saver!  Buy groceries with ”one pot does it” in mind.  Eating out eats up money.  Planning ahead saves energy and coins, too.  Pre-chop veggies on the weekend, as you’re doing your kitchen cleaning, and it will put you in the cooking mood during the week.  For us, years and years of  parenting dozens and dozens of kids created a large table and demanding, hungry teens.  Planning ahead helped eliminate mealtime stress.  We learned the value of keeping the refrigerator clean, and main dish casseroles in the oven or crockpot. 
3. Eliminate simple annoyances.  It’s amazing how many simple repairs and to-do’s we put off for “when we have time” which we never find.  Do it now!  Make a list of things that are annoying you around the house and decide to eliminate them within 2 weeks.  You’ll love the relaxation these completed tasks will gives you!
4. Decide to take 1 hour a day for you.   Forget the 5 minute “get-a-ways” they talk about in magazines.  I find that anything under an hour hardly counts for relaxation.  (I’m so busy trying to hurry through the “me time” that it doesn’t do anything but frustrate me.) Take an hour or more.  Every day you should be able to do something that makes you feel good about yourself.  You work hard, you are important.  When you are good to you, others will be, too.
5. Serve Others regularly. Frankly, the old fashioned saying of doing a good deed everyday turns out to be true.  When you plan for yourself and others, the day is never a waste.  It can be simple things; taking time to listen to a friend or acquaintance; letting someone go in front of you in a check out line; or even letting someone merge into traffic in front of you.  These things shape our personality and teach our kids how to be good citizens.  Good deeds really count. 

There are hundreds of resolutions, but these 5 are sure to bring you a happier new year, no matter what unfolds.  Hears to success, safety, and peace, wishes from all of our hearts, I’m sure.

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