New Years Resolutions for my Family With the Help of Squirrel

Ever since we gave up our teaching jobs to focus on blogging and freelance work, we knew we would take a significant cut in salary, at least initially. One of the things we didn’t want to compromise on, is our holiday time. It has proved to be a little difficult to sort out a feasible budget since our income is variable. There are good months, and there are not so good ones. Kids don’t care about that though, do they? Kids just want to have fun. We hope though that the lessons we instil in them daily about being frugal and careful with how they spend money will pay off one day.

It’s time to put our thinking caps on and sort out our resolutions, financial and otherwise, for next year, 2018. At the end of last year when we made our plans and projections for this year, we never dreamed that we could exist for a year without the salary from teaching. But look at us now, not lauding it, but definitely happy we did take stock of things. So in this post, we will share our major resolutions for next year.

Be More Productive

Top of our priorities for next year is definitely to be as productive as we possibly can be. It’s quite easy to just go with the flow and let time slip by especially since we work from home. We are resolute though that we will not become too laid back especially when we should be working. So we have made plans that we hope to carry out to maintain our productivity. We developed a detailed productivity plan. The first part of the plan entailed deciding how much we would like to earn each month. Shocking, I know but it is quite empowering to think that you can determine what you are worth! We then factored in how many hours per day we could afford to devote to the job daily. When we calculated both together we determined how much per hour we were prepared to work for, That we call our hourly worth. So when it comes to quoting to clients we know not to undersell ourselves. We work hard and so far things are looking up. So roll on 2018. We’ve got this!

 

Work on our next Book

So in December 2016 to coincide with our 50th birthday, we launched our first book. It is a work of blood, sweat and tears and we are immensely proud of the work that went into it. Living Life While Squeezing Lemons chronicles how to make it through life despite the challenges that often come our way. It’s humorous and inspirational. We did promise that we would write our second book by 2017, however, life happened and the publishing got delayed. So of course, it is one of our priorities for 2018. Keep checking the blog and you will be amongst the first to find out. Hopefully, it will be as good as our first book.

 

Jamaican Holiday Baby!

The secret is out; we love vacationing in Jamaica and we try to go at least every other year. However, like I said, it’s been difficult to budget for properly since our income is variable. We have now downloaded this app called Squirrel and it’s been helpful. It really is simple. Here’s how it works:

• Download the app which is available on Google Play or Apple IOS
• Transfer your income to your Squirrel account or get your employer to pay directly in
• Squirrel then puts your money into the categories you decide, like bills, savings etc.
• The balance of your money is then paid into your current account for you to use as you decide
• Just before a bill is due, Squirrel transfers the money to cover that bill

It’s as simple as that. So come July, as soon as the schools close, we’ll be soaking up some Caribbean sun.

Make Even Wiser Money Decisions

As we blog about frugal living, we believe it is good to live what we preach, and for the most part, we do. For 2018, we intend to continue.

1. We will not make any rash purchases.

2. We will invest wisely.

3. As soon as we learn about any smart money moves, we will continue to share it on the blog with our dedicated readers.

 

 

Attend at Least one Blogging Conference

This is our second year of blogging and although we have forged many links with bloggers the world over, we have never attended a blogging conference. But guess what? We have one booked for May 2018 and we can’t wait. It will be an awesome opportunity to network with like-minded folk in the UK and share and share alike. From this point on we will be more serious bloggers!

To help with our resolutions, we have to have a strict reign on the expenses by way of our budget with Squirrel. We would strongly advise, that, as part of your resolutions for next year that you make use of the app. It can work, no matter where you have your money.