Summer Goals!

So! Just like my friend Keri, I had goals in May! I'm going to totally copy how she posted, and put the red ones as "fails" and the green ones as "successes." :) (Sorry, Keri! My creativity is pretty much depleted.)

Vacuum on Mondays & Thursdays - Honestly, the only reason this failed is because of our trip to Hawaii. I didn't do it right before we left, and then we got home at 3am on a Thursday morning, so it threw off my whole day.

Laundry on Sundays and Thursdays - Big success! This has made life sooo much easier for me! Awana uniforms are always clean, because I have two opportunities before the next Wednesday club night to do it, and softball uniforms are always clean - regardless of whether we played on a Tuesday or a Thursday - before the next game! (And it ensures that Robert always has clean pants for work, too).

Keep track of laundry soap cost & usage/ fabric softener cost & usage - Well, as you can see by the picture, this is a "new" thing. Basically, I made my own laundry soap (it can be found here) in April. The Duggars say it gives them enough laundry soap for their family for a few months, so I was trying to figure out how long it takes us to go through it. It took about a month to two months to go through our original laundry soap, so again, this comparison can't be done until after my homemade soap is used up (and it's only about 1/4 gone!) The fabric softener will remain the same, but the kind we get from Costco claims to be 167 loads. I'm pretty sure if you use the recommended amount, that's not true, and I'm also certain that I only use about a teaspoon now, since the homemade laundry soap isn't very sudsy. I want to see how far I can stretch a brand new container of it.

Clean bathrooms once per week - epic failure. My least favorite chore.

Cut grocery budget to $30/ week - It was previously $35-40, after I started couponing and sale-hunting, as well as planning our weekly meals from the sale fliers and combining coupons with sales to get the biggest bang for our buck. I was really praying that I could cut just a little bit more, and I was able to do that!

Make our bed every day - Not a total failure, but it's only red because it wasn't done every day. The problem is Robert's work schedule and my nannying schedule. We wake up at weird hours and come home late enough in the day that, if it wasn't done when we left, I'm not going to do it when I come home. Working on this.

Never do more than 4 loads of laundry on a laundry day - success! We came home from our trip, and that was the most I'd done - 4 loads in one day. The hold up was that it wasn't all done before we left (not a laundry day, duh!), and then we came home with everything dirty (let's just say the condo was less than we'd expected to get, and there was no washer or dryer).

Only use dishwasher once per week - Sigh. This one bugs me the most. It's because the kitchen is generally Robert's jurisdiction, but I've been trying to help out more, since I'm home a lot more. The problem is that May is such a busy month for us, and dishes tended to pile up. It takes a long time to wash them all by hand.

Keep sheets ironed as soon as they're washed - sounds stupid, but I will never again ruin another set of perfectly good sheets by not ironing them. I have been ironing them right out of the dryer, and it's great. We now have 4 sets of sheets, which I rotate every week when I wash whatever set was on our bed, and then we have 4 extra sets of 2 pillow cases to rotate as well, which is perfect!

Goals for June:

Keep exact track of grocery expenditures
Bathrooms cleaned every week
Clean out fridge every 2 weeks
Make bed every day
Make 2 3-course meals at home every week
1 Cheap date night per month
List 30 items on eBay
Read a book every week