Yay! Christmas month is finally here! Usually I’m a pretty big Christmas person, I love the decorating, all the sorting of presents and gifts, all the little outings and trips, but obviously this year is feeling very different and I hate to say I do feel a little deflated by it all. Pretty much every where we usually go and all the fun stuff I usually book are all cancelled, which sucks, especially as it is Effie’s first Christmas. But I will try put on a happy smile and still try my best to make it a lovely Christmas for the family.
The photography business always gets super crazy at this time of year too as Jon does a tonne of Christmas sessions and usually we attend playgroups, sadly they aren’t running, but we have found a way to instead pop up at our local Moo Music Christmas Parties, and I think its safe to say we are going to be just as crazy and busy thanks to them, and that will be a whole lot of fun!
So how did my monthly aims go this month…umm I’ll let you decide. I turned out to be a lot more time strapped than planned thanks to Elian being home after covid issues in school but I still tried in most areas, as you can see.
Heres my most popular insta post from November
View this post on Instagram
(This post may contain affiliate links, which means we make a tiny commission should you buy through some of the links on the page, but this does not affect cost to you. See more info here)
Heres my original November Aims post if you want to read that first
Family Life/Personal Aims
- Meal plan every week. Completed! My system of food shopping every saturday evening online for collection Sunday morning (as long as I can get a slot) is working really well and I have managed it every week. Again we have the odd day off plan if we don’t want a big evening meal but I just rejig and almost nothing goes to waste any more
- Screen Free Sunday. Failed. Honestly it was a complete fail this month, i think we managed 1 half a day, but it has mainly been because I have had the kids on my own for the whole day as Jon has been photographing christmas minis every weekend. I just find it hard to entertain both all day on my own. But we have had lots of cwtched up christmas movie Sundays instead which I don’t mind too much
- Finish Christmas Shopping. Completed! Ok I have 1 secret santa gift outstanding but it hasn’t been drawn as its between a rep group on insta (being done this weekend) but I have finished all the gifts I need to purchase. I know Jon hasn’t done the 4 he needs to do and it is likely I will end up sorting them also, but as far as I am concerned all the ones I am in charge of are done! Just have to wrap it all now.
- Finish 1 book this month. Failed. Yeah that didn’t happen, in fact I think I barely ready 20 pages of either of my 2 books this month, so that was totally rubbish but I have had zero me time and once I get to bed I am usually too tired to read and just want to show something on the TV and switch off (currently binging Suits!)
Blogging Aims
- Publish Christmas Gift Guide. Completed. I did decide to compile everything into my 2020 Ultimate Christmas Gift Guide instead of separating into smaller ones as a number of promised items didn’t arrive, so that made it a little easier, but it was still a number of hours work over a few days. I am really happy with how it turned out though so please go check it out
- Finish Product Review. Failed. As I said I have had zero extra time this month because of Jon’s increased work load and thanks to covid in his school I had Elian home for a week also meaning no spare time to write extra posts! Luckily they aren’t being waited on by PR’s, more so I wanted to write the reviews. I hope I will still be able to do them in the future but December is a crazy month for us so can’t see it happening this month.
- Create new pins to update old christmas posts. Failed. See comment above regarding spare time! lol!
Finance Aims
- Continue to track all outgoings. Completed I am suing the I Save Money app to track my daily expenses and income and find it really quick and easy. I track everything I have coming in and out and have it separated into different sections to see where money is going
- Stick to our £400 a month food budget. Failed I did go over by £45.39 this month, but in my defence I shop Sundays and November had 5 instead of 4, so the last shop was actually for the first week of December. And I managed to go to Tesco just as they were reducing meat and stocked ups with quite a bit for the next few weeks, so I know I will be saving and not needing to buy that for little while this month
- Hit my £200 side hustle target to pay of personal debt. Completed. I made £359.94 from my side incomes. This is mostly selling on ebay/FB Market place, sponsored blog work and online surveys this month.
Business Aims
Well me and Jon had a discussion this week and decided to side line the Forever Loved business for the time being as we simply don’t have the time to focus on it until probably a month or 2 into the new year. But we aren’t stopping all together, we still hope to get the store up and running properly next year, we have products and designs ready to roll just too many other commitments at this point with the photography, the kids and covid constantly chucking issues in our way…plus xmas so you know! So I won’t be counting business in my goals for a little while.
So how do you think I did? I had 10 aims and I completed 5. So it’s not too bad I suppose. Now to finish writing my December aims list.
What are your aims for this month. Anything you really want to achieve?
If you have enjoyed this post and found it useful, here are some ways you can say thanks and support Two Hearts One Roof
- Pin this post to Pinterest using the Pinterest image above
- Leave me a comment
- Share this post with friends on Facebook or Twitter
- Buy me a cuppa
- Follow us on Facebook or Instagram (interact with our posts if you see them, a simple like or comment is a huge help with algorithms)
- Buy one of our Forever Loved Star Pin badges to help support our Stars For Ebben Fund
One comment