The need to know

It has been a little bit since my last post.  I struggle with the idea that I shouldn't really blog and share my life until after I reach my goals.  But isn't that the very thought that keeps so many of us from ever accomplishing what we want.  It is that idea in our heads that says we have to be perfect, we have to achieve 100% or it doesn't matter, and all of the other thoughts that fall into that all or nothing thinking. 

I worry about my grammar, the way I say things, and so many other things about what people will think or will not think about me.  But as I am getting closer to 35, I realize that life is not standing still.  10 years from now will I look back and think about all of the things that I could have tried, could have said, and could have done or will I be able to be proud of everything including the not so perfect moments.

I really do enjoy sharing my story through this blog, and so I have recommited myself to atleast blogging twice a week.  Since my last post I am continuing to work on my goals.  I have been losing weight, and am very proud to say I have signed up for my first 5k walk.  Josh and I working with a loan officer about getting a house and we are looking at buying in October.  We are also working on ideas for our business, and making plans for to be able to have our dream of starting a family and being able to both stay at home with our kids and run an at home business.

This week despite all of my successes, has been mentally challenging.  I look at all of the things we want to get accomplished and I start to freak out.  I wonder if we will succeed and will I be able to reach my goals.  But I guess the feeling that is stronger than the fear, is the feeling that I need to know.  I need to know what would happen if I gave my all, if I pushed myself to walk a 5k, if I attempted to buy a house, and if I pushed myself to take some chances regarding a business. 

So here is to the feeling of needing to know what my life could be like....while I am enjoying the life I love with my husband, friends, and family....It really is a great place to be.  And I am glad that I am getting to share my life with others. 


To be continued......

My big 5 goals to reach before I'm 35!

10 months from today I turn 35!  I don't really mind getting older. I know it is all part of the plan, but what I do mind is that feeling that I haven't accomplished some of the goals I have always wanted to accomplish.  Most people that know me, know that I have struggled my entire life with my weight.  They have watched me lose and gain.  They have seen the excitement as I dropped pants size, bought new cute outfits, and then slowly gained the weight back. For awhile now I have tried not to talk too much about my weight. I have tried not to share the pound by pound loss because of fear of gaining it back.

This week has been a touch week for me. After losing about 35 pounds last year, I have found myself slipping.  Work has been extremely frustrating, and I don't feel any closer to having the career that I want.  We have had some financial setbacks that have caused us to have to use our emergency money, and our living space seems chaotic and unorganized.  By the middle of last week, I felt totally deflated and uncertain of everything. But the one thing I will say is that I always seem to be surrounded by the most encouraging and loving people. My husband is amazing, and I have some other really special friendships with people that believe in me and all the possibilities.

People say that when you are trying to figure out what you want to do in your career, you should ask yourself what would you do if money was no object.  I would spend my days talking to people about there goals.  I love trying to help people reach their dreams.  I enjoy trying to figure out ways to fund people's dreams, find time to work on their dreams, and keep motivated.  I have wanted to be a life coach/motivational speaker since I was in college, but I think deep in my heart I knew that I wouldn't be successful at that if I couldn't motivate myself.  How could push others to go beyond their comfort levels and push themselves, if I couldn't do that for myself.

At work I keep hearing at our team meetings to keep our feet on the accelerator.  I am ready to do that in my own life.  I have set five very big goals for myself to reach in the next 10 months, and I plan on celebrating my accomplishments at the end of all this with the biggest 35th birthday celebration a girl can have :) I plan on using this blog as a way to document and share my experiences, obstacles, and accomplishments along the way. My five goals are as follows:

I will lose 100 pounds before my 35th birthday.  I plan on focusing on making one change a week.  I weighed this morning and I will not weigh again until the morning of my 35th birthday. I know that it is going to be hard not to weight, but i tend to celebrate my losses too much and start getting comfortable in the weigh loss before i reach my goal.  This week my first change is that I am giving up sweets. I have decided not to eat any sweets for the next 10 months.  I don't plan on giving up sweets forever, but I lose weight easier and have less cravings when I get rid of the sugar.  So the Girl Scout cookies I just purchased will have to find a home in the freezer for a little while :)

My husband and I will be celebrating my 35th birthday in our new home.  We both have wanted a house for awhile, but have continually pushed purchasing a home back because we weren't quite ready to get ourselves in the financial position to purchase a house. So goal number two is that we will purchase a house by my 35th birthday.

Goal number 3 is to organize our lives better.  We will find a cleaning routine and organization style that works for us.  In preparation for buying a house, we plan on going through everything we own and selling what we don't need, donating what we can't sell, and finding an organization system to help keep us less stressed.

I am a little scare to type this goal for some reason, but by my 35th Birthday I want to  no longer be working for somebody else.  I understand now that when I quit my last job, I quit too soon.  I didn't have our financial situation in the position to handle the highs and lows of starting a business. I hadn't built the business up enough either.  I know 10 months is a short time period, but I am determined to make it happen.

I will keep my project life scrapbook on a weekly basis for the next 10 months. I want to document this journey through pictures, and other special things to remember this time by.  As part of this goal, I agree to blog atleast twice a week :)

So there it is, my five big goals I plan on reaching before I turn 35.  Wish me luck!!!

Quick way to earn $50 bucks and save more!

I was a little skeptical in opening an online banking account, but my husband opened an account with ING Direct (now Capital 360) about four years ago and we have loved having the account.  It is easy to open multiple savings account for different saving goals, and transfer money in between accounts. Now we both have checking accounts and savings accounts. 

The best part about opening an account is that you can earn an easy $50 bonus.  I have included a link below if you are interested in checking it out. 

 

https://www.capitalone360.com/referafriend/index.asp?save=uKKTwuqRJk

I am the turtle!

I have like a million and one ideas running through my head at any given point in time. Finding a way to take those ideas and turn them into reality is a struggle for me.  The problem for me is I want what I want right now. I know what steps it will take to accomplish what I want, and I somehow want to complete those sets immediately.  In reality, however, it is going to take time.  I realized this week that I have been setting too many goals for myself and being very unrealistic about the process. 

The reason that I named my blog Turtle in a hares world is because the entire point of everything I am doing is to be able to live the life my husband and I want, have the things we want, but not have to constantly be running and missing out on the special things that make life so wonderful.  I have a bad habit of setting too many unrealistic goals and then I end up getting so tired and frustrated that I quit the entire race totally.  I end up not wanting to do anything.  I have found this to be true with losing weight, saving money, cleaning, and working on starting a business.  The past year and 1/2 I have made progress in that area, however.  Especially, I would have to say, when it comes to my weight.  I have not dropped out of the race at all.  I have had times when I slowed down and periods when I didn't lose, but for the first time in my life I have over the past few years slowly been going down on the scales and inching closer to my overall goal. I had to remind myself of that again this week because I found myself frustrated with my progress.

The reality for me is that doing extremes has never been successful for me.  I have lost and gained 100's of pounds in my life, but I would also get frustrated and quit.  So today I don't want to say that I start fresh again, but I allow myself to slow down pick a few steps to work on and move forward.  So last week I didn't write all the blog posts I wanted. I could just stop the blog, which is how I would have responded in the past, or I can start with today. I can share where I am mentally today, and move forward. 

I sometimes think where would I be today if I had simply taken a break when I needed to and focused on maintaining progress instead of just going off the deep end when I got tired of working towards something.  All I know for certain is that I am enjoying where I am in my life now. I am especially enjoying writing this blog...and so the race continues...

Would love to hear from others about how they are finding their passion, reaching their dreams, and living the life they want to live at the pace they want to do it. 

Making money online: Post 1

I have had several people ask me about the some of the opportunties that I have found online to make money.  I decided to focus this week on some of the opportunties I have found and some new opportunities that I am trying.  I wanted to start tonight by writing a few things that I have learned from trying different online opportunities.

1) Lots of opportunities exist- I was really amazed at all the opportunities available online to make money.  I just started searching for work at home opportunities, ways to make money online, and ways to make money from home.  There are tons of sites out there that the entire purpose is to present opportunities to help you make a few bucks or totally replace your income. I will list out some of the sites I have found most hopeful later this week. 

2) Research, Research, Research- There are tons of opportunities out there, but there are also tons of scams.  It is very important to research every opportunitiy before you try it. I personally have never paid any money to try any of the opportunties, but there are some opportunities that require you to pay for background checks and things like that. I did find what seemed to be some legitimate opportunities that charged background check fees. I decided not to do it, but you might decide it is worth it. I wouldn't pay any money you couldn't afford to lose.  Some things that I always check before signing up for something;
          1) What do reviews say- I always check to make sure there are recent reviews out there and
          see whether or not the reviews are positive or negative. There are usually always going to be
          some negative reviews out there but you want to check and see if overall the reviews are  
          positive.
          2) Read all the fine print-Make sure you read all the requirements, expectations, payout
          schedules.  With mystery shopping for example, a lot of them pay two months behind.  I
          didn't mind that because after the two months the checks started rolling in.
          3) Accept that everything may not turn out as planned-I honestly had really good luck with
          all the opportunities I pursued, but there were a few opportunities that I ended up just
          losing my time on. 

3)  Don't put your eggs all in one basket- I started out by trying opportunities in different areas such
as filling out surveys, mystery shopping, and doing some pay per task options.  Then I just figured out what I liked the best.




   

Are you interested in earning some extra money?

I am really enjoying doing this blog.  I enjoy it because it keeps me focused on my goals, and I get to share what I am learning along the way.  I have had several friends ask me about some of the opportunities i have found to make some extra money online.  I decided to focus the next seven days of blogs on that topic.  Here is the list of upcoming topics for the next seven days:

Tuesday-Tips to finding online opportunities and avoiding scams
Wednesday-Mystery Shopping
Thursday-Online surveys
Friday-Couponing, Rebates, and Trial period offers
Saturday-Task based money makers
Sunday-Work from home jobs

I would love to hear if anybody else has tried any online money making opportunties.  I look forward to posting in the next week.  I plan on only discussing opportunities that I have personally tried and received checks or payments from.  Thanks for everybody that has been reading my blog :) Hopefully together we can all reach our financial goals and have more of the life that we want. 

Saving money while vacationing

My husband and I just got back from vacation.  We went to Branson for Valentine’s Day.  I have to say that we had the best trip.  We would love to be able to take more small mini vacations, but we also have goals of getting out of debt and wanting to buy a house.  Here are some steps we took to save a little bit of money on our vacation. 

1)      Pick a hotel that offers extras for a good price- My husband and I love to go swimming, and a lot of times we would rather spend a day just strictly soaking in the hot tub and swimming in the pool. We always stay at hotels that have that option.  We stayed at the Welk resort in Branson.  They have a waterpark and game room.  At different times of the year they also offer breakfast package options. 

2)      Bring your own drinks and snacks-The Welk resort has small refrigerators in the room.  We always bring drinks with us.  This can save lots of money.  Bringing our own snacks also helps.  A lot of times if breakfast is included in the hotel rate, we will snack for one meal and eat out for the other meal.  This vacation we splurged a little more and ate out twice a day.

3)      Plan ahead on what you can- I think life can get boring if you over plan.  Part of going on vacation is not having to have a set schedule, and to be able to do something just because it looks like fun.  Most people, however, usually have some idea of a few things they want to do on vacation.  We always want to eat at certain places when we got to Branson.  We love to eat at the Outback in Branson and Fuddruckers.  I checked out the Outback in Branson site and found a coupon I could purchase for 1.50 for our favorite appetizer (saved us $5.00) plus they had discount certificates to purchase that were sent by email.  I was able to get a $50 gift certificate for $40.00. 

    We also love Fuddruckers.  I signed up for their email club, and they send out coupons for your Birthday.  I got my coupon, but it expired before our trip. I emailed them and let them know that we do not have a Fuddruckers close by but would be traveling to Branson.  They emailed me back and told me to email them closer to the trip.  I did, and received a coupon that day for a free burger.  We both ate at Fuddruckers for under $12.00. 

4)       Look for fun free items to mix in with more costly adventures- I am sure there are some people that could spend a lot less on vacation.  I have read blogs where people only do free things on vacation.  I am all about saving money, but also want to feel like I’m not missing out on things I want to do.  I think a good mix can be found.  Some of the things that made Branson so special this trip was that we ventured out more.  We love to go to Branson Landing.  They have the water show and it is totally free.  We also went to Outback on a night that they had live entertainment.  We didn’t plan for that, but in the future I will be looking more to find places that offer life entertainment.  We also visited Eddie Biggs Dueling Piano Bar.  They had great food and only charged $5.00 per person to get in.  The show starts at 8:00pm.  They played great music and we had so much fun singing along. 

5)      Keep an open eye for opportunities to save a little-I am learning to look totally different at money.  I still have a long way to go.  I look back on our trip and I still see ways we could have spent a little less, but I think that is the point to keep trying.  Even on vacation I am constantly keeping my eye open to find coupons and ways to save.  I think it is important to write down ideas or things you discover even if it is too late to use those ideas on your current trip.  There is lots of information on the internet about saving money on trips. 

Would love to hear any of your tips for saving money on vacations.  We are excited to now be planning a trip to Tennessee in the fall.  Hoping to find lots of ways to save money along the way.