Well, February absolutely flew by! I’m happy to be entering March — the month where we will finally be back on track.
LIFE
February was a month of catch up. We spent the time working, hanging out at home, and keeping things generally low key. It doesn’t sound overly exciting, but we were definitely recovering from a whirlwind January.
In the name of frugality and health, I started cooking a lot this month. At the beginning of the month, you may have seen multiple tweets about my kitchen failures, but I rocked it towards the end of February. I’m thinking meat dishes may be my blind spot, because I made some kick ass vegetarian meals this month, including black bean quesadillas, spicy bean and tomato soup, and the Italian wonderpot! I’m not even kidding, they were totally amazing.
I am not disciplined enough to separate myself from food. If I’m going to eat healthy it needs to be delicious, or I’ll get bored and binge eat Chipotle. Thankfully, I am a lover of fruits, veggies, and whole grains, so with some great recipes, I’m happy and healthy!
The non-food highlight of our month was the Creationism vs. Evolution debate, which I didn’t realize was still a question. Bill Nye absolutely rocked it and stayed super calm and reasonable, whereas I would have repeatedly yelled, “are you freaking kidding me?!” at Ken Ham. Best/worst part? When an audience member asked what would change their minds and only one side said “proof”. Guess which side?
MONEY
I definitely forgot to tell you guys our debt payments for last month. We made debt payments of $964.03 and $750.08 in January and February, respectively. We are hoarding cash right now to replenish the emergency fund and pay our taxes, so these numbers will continue to be low through March and April.
We made about half our normal income in February (just as we did in January), as the first check of the month covered the end of January (which we weren’t in the country for). March will be the first normal financial month of the year — we hope!
Our introductory rate with Comcast expired, making the monthly rate shoot up to $75 a month. I promptly cancelled our services and switched to Century Link, which is $37 a month. The service is actually way better than Comcast and when we found out our jack was faulty, the guy came out and fixed it free of charge, even though I was originally quoted $85+.
So I’m doing this crazy thing called “budgeting”. To help me out, the fine folks at You Need A Budget sent me a copy of the budgeting software and I’m loving it so far! I’ll do a review after using it for the full month of March. I’ll also probably share my spending in next month’s recap, not as an ongoing thing, but just to show you where our money typically goes.
25 BEFORE 25
12 completed, 6 in progress, 1 early fail, and 6 not yet started. 3 months to go!
PORTLAND
We didn’t eat out much this month, but I do have a couple places to talk about.
We had breakfast one morning at Ken’s Artisan Bakery. Great coffee, great macarons (I had my very first one!), and meh pastries. The reviews are really good, so maybe just my pastry was meh. I’m not sure how authentic the pistachio macaron was, but it was delicious, so who cares?
We also used the rest of our Portland City Grill gift card for happy hour drinks and appetizers. We went for the Kung Pao Calamari (which was AMAZING) and ordered the Creole Shrimp & Grits on a whim. They were so freaking good. Please go eat them. Now.
FEBRUARY GOALS RECAP
Increase net worth by $2,083.33 in order to reach an annual goal of a net worth increase of $25,000. FAIL! OFF TRACK! It went up by $1,139.38 this month.
Read 3 books (at least 1 non-fiction) in order to reach an annual goal of reading 36 books (at least 12 non-fiction). PASS! OFF TRACK! I finished five books this month, two of which were non-fiction:
The Year of the Flood
by Margaret Atwood
Outliers: The Story of Success
by Malcolm Gladwell
Dark Places
by Gillian Flynn
The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories
by Simon Rich
Lemonade Stand Economics
by Geof White — I’ll review this one soon!
Walk an average of 10,000 steps per day in order to reach my goal of not sitting on my ass too much. FAIL! OFF TRACK! Okay, so here’s the thing — walking 10,000 steps is hard/it was cold/I was sick/[insert flimsy excuse here]. This month, I averaged 7,746 steps, with a high day of 14,567 and a low day of 2,261. I hit or exceeded my goal of 10,000 steps 9 days in February.
MARCH GOALS
Increase net worth by $2,083.33 in order to reach an annual goal of a net worth increase of $25,000. Note: Like I said, it will be a few months before I’m able to make progress on this goal. Nevertheless, I’m leaving it on here and tracking my progress.
Read 3 books (at least 1 non-fiction) in order to reach an annual goal of reading 36 books (at least 12 non-fiction). If I read 4 this month, at least one non-fiction, I’ll actually pass AND be on track.
Walk an average of 10,000 steps per day in order to reach my goal of not sitting on my ass too much.
Have a wonderful March, everyone!
[Image from imgur]
