I don’t know about you, but for me the new year always brings about all sorts of new ambitions in me. I want to dress better, keep my house cleaner, eat healthier, and just be a better person in general. I always have all sorts of grand plans for the year and, while they don’t always pan out, it’s nice to feel so motivated at least for a short time.

But this year? There’s one thing on my list of resolutions that I am determined will get accomplished.

That’s right – this is the year of the budget.

Mr.  Garland and I have struggled on and off with our budget for several years now, as I’m sure most people do. We spend a few months doing great, then we get sick of it and go a bit crazy with our spending. But honestly, I’m getting tired of that and ready to get on track once and for all. We have a bit of debt collected over the years from various things (career changes, bad decisions, and a couple major home renovations to name a few), and we are oh so ready to be rid of it.

I don’t know that we’ll accomplish it all this year, but I have a feeling that if we put our minds to it we will be able to knock out the vast majority of the debt in 2015. And I’m using this blog to keep me accountable! If I talk about it on here I have to stick to it, right?

We have a few different measures we’ve taken in the past that have really helped, and I want to continue to do those things. Here’s what’s worked for us so far:

– We cut cable. I know this is a pretty popular thing to do right now – we did it a couple of years ago and haven’t looked back. We use Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime to watch all of our favorite television shows, and we haven’t missed cable one bit. It saves us quite a bit of money every month, and the amount we spend on our subscription services is negligible compared to what cable costs! With this method, we’re even able to purchase the few shows that we can’t get through Hulu or Netflix (like Doctor Who!) each week and still save a ton of money!

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– We have designated personal money. This may seem counter-intuitive, but for us we are able to stay on track so much easier if we have a (small) amount of money each month designated to spending on whatever we want to. I usually spend my money on clothes, and Mr. G spends his on new games or eating lunch out during the week. It’s a great way for us to feel like we have a bit of indulgence and prevent us from getting annoyed at the other person spending money on themselves.

– We are on a monthly budgeted plan for our utilities. I don’t know if all companies will do this, but our electric company allows us to take the average of our bill throughout the entire year and pay that each month rather than our actual usage. Before we did this we struggled to stay on budget because our electric bill was so much higher in the summer due to air conditioning, and it dropped drastically in the winter. Now we are able to pay the exact same amount each month, and it’s still significantly lower than what our highest bill used to be in the summer.

– We meal-plan like crazy. Groceries are a pretty big part of our monthly budget, and we both like to eat so it’s easy for us to go over in this category. The months that we tend to go over the most are the months where we get lazy and don’t plan ahead. When we make a meal plan each week and don’t stray from it while we are grocery shopping, we almost never go over the budget. One thing we have found that has helped us the most with this is to try to plan at least one meal per week that would work for having guests over. We like to have people over frequently, and we’ve found that it really puts a kink in our budget when we don’t plan ahead and have to run out to buy food that can serve more than just our family. Now, we try to make sure each week has a meal that we would be able to serve to guests – since we’ve started doing this, we stay on budget in this category much easier!

– We allow ourselves some indulgences. Aside from our personal discretionary spending, we also make room in our budget for eating out and “joint discretionary” money. Much of the time the joint money ends up going to unexpected expenses around the house or gifts for birthdays, etc. but when nothing pops up that month we are able to use it on fun things that we both agree to. It helps us from feeling too chained to the budget to have a category that isn’t really designated for anything, and since we both love to go out to eat, we also love having a small portion of the budget set aside just for that. The key is not to go over in these categories!

While we do have several things we are doing right, we have a lot of room to improve. Towards the end of last year we got very bad about keeping up with the budget, and our debt repayment suffered as a result. So, here’s what’s on our to-do list to make sure that doesn’t happen again:

– Do a budget check-in weekly. We have a hard time keeping up with this, so I’m going to set a reminder on my phone to make sure that we don’t forget. We are so much better about sticking to the budget if we both sit down every week and look over everything, enter in numbers, and chat about how we are doing. We keep our budget in an Excel spreadsheet and pull up all of the information from our bank account each week. If we stick to doing this at least once a week, we almost never go over budget. If we don’t? It’s not so pretty.

– De-clutter! We are pretty good about this already, but there is a lot we could do. We have some baby paraphernalia that Jackson has outgrown and some furniture and various things around the house that we don’t use anymore. Rather than letting them take up valuable space in the house, I am going to list them on Craigslist and see what we can snag for them. If I can get myself in the habit of doing this regularly when we have stuff that can be sold, I think we could actually make some money this year!

– Utilize money-saving services. I’m pretty good about Googling around for coupons before purchasing something online, but one thing I want to get much better about is using eBates. I much prefer to shop online than in person when possible, so there is absolutely no excuse for me not to be using eBates to get some cash back for what I buy. I used to stay on top of this and actually saved quite a bit of money, so I have no idea why I let myself stop. It’s time to get back on it! I’d also like to look into some of the subscribe-and-save services through places like Amazon and Target to see if I could save a bit of money on our regular purchases like diapers, cleaning supplies, and toiletries.

– Look for ways to cut back on groceries. As I mentioned above, this is one category where we frequently tend to overspend. We often get to the end of month and ask each other “how did we run out so fast?!” I don’t think that the problem is the amount we have budgeted – there’s plenty there – but we don’t always utilize our groceries to the maximum extent possible, and we need to look for ways to continue to eat the quality of foods we love but still save some money. I want to start clipping a few coupons (I’m not going to get crazy about it, but I could definitely spend a few minutes each week tracking some down!), paying more attention to how much we are spending and where we can save, and just generally being more conscious of where our grocery money goes so that we can figure out how to do better in that area. I also want to start looking into what items we might be able to start buying in bulk to save money. Cutting the grocery budget is so intimidating to me, but I think it’s going to be the most effective way for us to get back on track!

– Be content. This is my motto for 2015. So often I get caught up in wanting more things, wanting to finish projects around the house, wanting to go out and do things we can’t afford, and just generally being discontent with what we have. If we’re ever going to get back on track and really knock our debt out as quickly as possible, we are both going to have to learn to be more content with what we have and where we are. Every time I want something I can’t afford, I am going to remind myself to be content.

I’m hoping that with this plan in place, and probably a few other things along the way, we’ll be able to stay on track throughout this year and make a lot of progress financially.

What are you doing this year to organize your life? Any other tips on sticking to the budget?