Happy New Year! I’m not much for New Year’s Resolutions. But I do try to take stock of what worked and what didn’t regarding my finances around this time of year.

And based on that assessment, here are three things I’m going to do:

#1: Track the amount of money I save using coupons and rewards programs to see whether it’s worth the time to clip and snip and go to more than one store for deals. In particular, I’m curious about how much I’m spending at CVS to receive ExtraBucks that can be spent in the store like cash. Along those lines, I wonder how many free tubes of toothpaste one linen closet can hold?

#2: Start using that gym membership or cancel it. I joined a new gym near my house for $42 per month a few weeks before I found out I was expecting a baby. I have the best intentions to use it and did so two or three times a week until November, when I fell so far off the wagon that I can probably count the number of times I’ve been in there on both hands since then.

If I use it a dozen times per month it would only cost $22, but I’ve yet to make that commitment. And no, I’m not going to go there just to shower so I can get my credit (although with my love of hot water showers, it would save some $$$).

Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I’m going to try to drag myself to the gym more in January.

#3:  Save even more for emergencies. Right now my family has three months of bare minimum living expenses. But I’d like to get that amount to six.

I’d also like to have some cash at the ready so that we can trade up to a bigger house if living in our current home starts driving us nuts with three kids. I also wish I’d had some more money to invest in stocks during this downturn. So I should start saving more cash now so I have no regrets if an opportunity presents itself in the future.

Share your financial to-dos too. Maybe yours are so good I’ll add them to my personal list.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Kara\'s finances. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.