Category: Goals

Creating lives we love

Posted on by jplatt27

Yesterday I hosted my first vision board party.

While planning this party and waiting for RSVPs to come in, I hoped I would get a good turnout and maybe worried I wouldn’t. But then I reminded myself that the women that everyone that was meant to be here would show up.  And I truly believe that’s what happened.

I had a wonderful group of 7 amazing, beautiful, creative women: two friends from work, my Girls on the Run partner, a friend from high school, a friend that’s dating one of my friends from high school, my little from my sorority, and another friend from college.

We spent the afternoon flipping through magazines and gathering images, words, and phrases that inspired us. Then we each organized our clippings onto poster boards to create a vision for our lives.

This is the first step in creating lives we love.

Each board was different: some were vertical, some horizontal; some all words, some all photos. But each board was beautiful and inspiring, and hopeful in its own way.

As we went around sharing key pieces of our boards, I was so touched by what each woman had to share. I’ve known most of the girls for at least a few years at this point and I was still surprised and inspired by what they included on their boards. It was awesome–as in I was literally in awe of the the women, my friends, that came out. The best version of each woman and what the lives the aspire to have.

My heart was. so. happy. Even recalling this now, my heart is swelling with joy.

Thank you again to the girls that came out to support me. You each have a special place in my heart.

I can’t wait to host my next party. Probably late August or early September!

But who knows…it could be sooner!

I’d love to know:

Have you ever made a vision board?

Where I've been

Posted on by jplatt27

I’ve been away from the blog for the past few weeks.

Though nothing major has really happened, I feel like a lot is going on and I’m on the cusp of something big.

Here’s what I’ve been up to…

I’ve been soaking up as much information as I can about life coaching and starting a business. Literally all I want to do is read more. Though I’m technically “working” or “studying” when I do these things, it feels like I’m just reading for fun on a Sunday afternoon. This is how I’ve been spending most of my free time. I’m hooked and I just want more.

My best friends from college came to visit DC last weekend with significant others in tow. This is how I feel when I see these girls.

We had a full day Saturday–breakfast at The Diner in Adam’s Morgan; a walk through the Zoo; a picnic in Rock Creek Park with pizza, frisbee, and a round of stickball; delicious dinner and dessert at Kramerbooks and Afterwards; drinks at James Hoban’s. I loved playing stickball.  I was so impressed with myself during my time at bat and I think Mike was too. Sunday we had brunch at Founding Farmers (highly recommend) and some headed back to NYC while the rest of us went down for a walk on the National Mall. It was so fun for all of us to spend time together.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about ABC’s new show Scandal. I’m absolutely obsessed.

source

Kerry Washington is a rockstar as Olivia Pope, a crisis manager for high profile/high scandal situations in Washington, DC. Created by the same woman behind Grey’s Anatomy and inspired by the life of a real Washingtonian, this show is a combination of drama and mystery that leaves me wanting more every. single. week. This is our new go-to show. Check it out.  It’s free On Demand on Comcast.

We’re home for the weekend for early Mother’s Day. We’ll have dinner with Mike’s family tonight and I’ll spend the day with my mom tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to seeing my mom.  I just want to give her a big hug.  And drag her to the mall.  Hope you have a great weekend!

I’d love to know:

What have you been up to?

Have you seen Scandal? I literally talk about this show all the time. I actually had a dream that I was telling someone about it last night.

Extra money: make it then make it work for you

Posted on by jplatt27

I had some pretty exciting financial accomplishments in the month of March. I paid off my credit card, paid off my smallest student loan to accelerate my debt snowball, and signed up for a business workshop that’s coming to DC next month (and paid in full!). While I paid off the student loan and half of the business workshop with my salary and regular budget, I paid off my credit card solely with money I earned outside my 9-5.

Here are some ways I’ve made extra money this year:

  • tutoring–I’ve been tutoring for the last three years.  I currently have two students that I see on a weekly basis for an hour.  I stack the appointments so they’re one right after the other so it only takes up one week night.
  • house/pet-sitting–Mike and I are house-sitting for the week for one of the families I tutor for.  Not only is this a mini-vacation in a beautiful house, it’s also great opportunity for us to make some extra $$. I also cat-sat for a week in February, visiting the cat during my lunch hour.
  • baby-sitting
  • sold an old text book on Amazon

Here are some other ways to make some extra money:

  •  sell clothes on e-Bay
  • start an etsy shop
  • monetize a skill.  For example, my friend Amanda has great organizing skills (remember when she organized us after the bed bugs?).  I keep telling her that she should start organizing on the side while she finishes up law school.

But simply making extra money isn’t all you have to do to truly make the most of it. I’ve been tutoring for the last three years.  I’m sure I’ve made a couple thousand dollars or more in that time but it wasn’t until recently that I started capitalizing on this side income.

To make your side income really work for you, you have to do two things: capture  and earmark.

Until last fall I would put the cash in my wallet and deposit the checks in my checking account but not really use it for anything in particular.  I’m pretty sure I spent most of that money on food–lunches, coffee, random snacks, breakfast, etc.  What a waste!

But in the fall I set a goal to pay off my credit card. I decided to use my tutoring money to do this.  I earmarked the weekly income from tutoring for my credit card–allocating it before it even came in to one specific goal.

I’d capture this income by knowing the exact total of what I earned and making sure it didn’t get used.  Every Tuesday, I’d walk to the bank and deposit the cash and the check into my checking account. Then I’d get back to my desk and make a payment on my credit card. To capture money for a goal that you have to buy outright (like the registration for the workshop, or a new bag), I still deposit in my checking account and just make sure that I subtract that money mentally when figuring out my balance.

I was amazed at how quickly this income added up when I began to capture  and earmark.

I try not to think about how much progress I could’ve made in the past 3 years if I would’ve done this the whole time.  What’s done is done.  Can only look forward.

I encourage you to try the capture  and earmark method for a few months and see how many goals you reach. Maybe you have some debt you want to pay down or maybe you want to build up a small amount in savings. With spring here and summer on the way, maybe you have weddings coming up, plans to travel to see friends, or have your eye on a cute spring dress. Working this method will make you feel empowered and relieve some of the stress that goes along with big money goals. Go for it! Work it girl!

Let’s chat:

What are some ways you’ve made extra money?

What money goals do you have right now? What would you earmark money for?

I love a good brainstorm–share your ideas for earning and capturing extra money in the comments.

My new favorite "toy"

Posted on by jplatt27

Since we’re not saving for a house and focusing on paying down my student loans using Dave Ramsey’s debt snowball method, I’ve been playing around with CNNmoney’s student loan calculator. This thing is seriously like magic!  Before our money conversation, I was doing my own number crunching at Modern Times Coffeehouse at Politics and Prose, my favorite Saturday morning spot. I was so shocked and excited when I clicked calculate that I just had to interrupt the woman sitting across from me and share my findings with her.  Since then, I’ve gone a little farther in my calculations and I wanted to share my new calculations with you!

First, let me explain the debt snowball.  The debt snowball is a pretty easy concept.  Make a list of all of your debts (minus the mortgage) from lowest amount to highest amount.  While still making minimum payments on all accounts, attack the lowest amount by paying as much above the minimum as you can.  Once the smallest loan is paid off, put all the money you were putting to the lowest one, to the next lowest.  Continue until the highest loan is paid off.

My lowest loan amount at the beginning of the year was $1,710.  The minimum payment is $50/month and the interest rate is 6.8%. Put that info into the loan calculator:

At this rate, it will take 3 years and 3 months to pay off this loan.

In our budget conversation we decided to allocate $130 to the loan in addition to the $50 minimum. Then, I realized that we actually had money in our student loan budget line that wasn’t actually being spent each month.  (My interest rates are variable and my monthly payments have gone down over the last few years but I haven’t changed the budget line). So we decided to put that money toward this loan too.  So now, each month we can put $299 towards the loan.  Put that in the calculator:

and we can have this loan paid off by the 4th of July! We’ll also save 83% in interest. Pretty great, huh?

Think that’s cool? Watch this.

Here are the terms for my next smallest loan:

If I continue to pay the minimum each month, I’ll make my final payment summer 2019.

If I use the debt snowball and roll the $299 from loan 1 onto this loan plus its minimum:

we can pay off this second loan by Easter next year!

And it will just get more powerful as the snowball continues to grow through five more loans. I haven’t crunched those numbers yet as I’m sure we’ll have some big expenses/adjustments to our budget in the next few years but this is all very exciting to me.  When I graduated college my goal was to pay off my student loans before my kids go to college. Now, I see it’s possible to pay off them well before that.

So go ahead, I dare you, play around with my new favorite toy. It should work with credit cards and car payments too.

February focus

Posted on by jplatt27

January went out with a bang!

The last few days of January I…

–chose 100 items to get rid of in support of my January focus, made a box to go to Goodwill, the DC Library, a piles to trash, and to freecycle,

–sent packages to two of my sisters including some things I wanted to get rid of that I thought they could use,

–successfully made cake balls (after a failed first attempt),

–did our taxes (including doing our DC taxes BY HAND to figure out a discrepancy and get us money back–oh yeah!),

–made some extra money babysitting and put the money toward my credit card, and

–started making some moves towards my business–reading/researching/brainstorming with others.

I’m feeling that our household is organized and while I work to keep it that way (and continue to stick to my resolutions) through February, I have a new focus for this month.

My focus for February is…my blog!  I’m excited to put some serious energy into Things After the Rings this month.

I’m working with Julie of Savvy Eats to give Things After the Rings a fresh look. So stay tuned for that!

I’ll be doing my first giveaways–yay for free stuff!

And I hope to post a little bit more often.  I have a huge list of post ideas and I’m going to make a concerted effort to stop thinking about them and start writing/posting them!

I’m looking forward to a good month!

I’d love to know:

How did your January end? What’s your focus for February?

 

go at your own pace

Posted on by jplatt27

While waiting in line at Starbucks yesterday morning, I overheard a conversation between a teenager and a middle aged woman. I imagine this was a college admissions interview and the woman was an alumna and the young man a high school senior. While the senior was talking about his experience running cross country, I was struck by two things he said and how they apply to so much more than running.

Keep your own pace

He said that in cross country it’s important to find your own pace and keep your own pace.  That when someone passes you it’s very tempting, almost innate, to want to run faster to catch up with him and then pass him, but you have to know your own pace and not use up all of your energy in one burst sprinting to beat the person in front of you. That you need to figure out a pace that you can maintain and just keep it at that.

You don’t have to be first to win

The teen also said that in cross country, you don’t have to be the first to win.  That simply hitting a personal best is an accomplishment in itself.

I think I may have gotten tears in my eyes as I heard this, thinking “wow, this is a great reminder for life.” It can be so easy to compare yourself to friends, coworkers, people from high school or college that you’re not friends with in real life but are friends on Facebook. If they’re getting married, buying a house, having kids, getting promoted, getting a Master’s degree, traveling, buying x, y, or z. And when we see people “passing” us it’s easy to want to sprint to catch up, and to put pressure on ourselves to find a boyfriend or buy a home or whatever. But doing so only expends unnecessary energy. It feels so much better if you’re doing it at your own pace, not sprinting to get to catch up to the person in front of you. And remember that just because you’re not the first doesn’t make crossing the finish line any less significant.

Household organization

Posted on by jplatt27

My focus for January is household organization because I’ve been feeling unorganized and not on top of things for the past few months (thanks bed bugs!). We had our last bed-bug treatment on January 3, so this focus is fitting and timely. And what a great way to start a new year.

Organized Space

My best friend Amanda came down the weekend after the treatment and helped us put all of our belongings back in their homes. Without her, it would’ve taken Mike and I days to put everything back and it would’ve remained unorganized even after things were in their places. It can be so paralyzing to make decisions about your own things and I can get totally lost in the weeds over-analyzing where things should go.  But as I combed through all of our belongings making decisions on what should stay and what should go, Amanda found homes for them in our closets, on our desk, and in our bookshelf. I honestly couldn’t believe how organized things were when she was done.  She just has an eye for this sort of thing. (I told her she should start a side business to make some extra money while she’s in law school.)

Our space is organized (minus our bedroom, we decided to let the treatment sit for an additional week), and I’d like to keep it that way so I’ve paid special attention to putting things back where they belong.  I’d also like to keep our apartment clean.

Clean Space

To be honest, I’ve never been great about keeping our place clean.  Aside from dishes and laundry, cleaning has never been super high on our priority list. We’d both clean the apartment but not on a regular basis. It was just something we never thought about, until things got so gross that one of us got fed up and decided to do something about it.

To get us organized I made a Cleaning Checklist and taped it to the wall in our kitchen.  This way we’ll both remember what needs to be done and if we have some time we can tackle one of the items on the list.  Honestly, each of the tasks on the list takes 20 minutes tops and I’d rather spend 20 minutes here and there than an entire afternoon on a weekend cleaning. I proposed we adapt the Williams’ 10-minute rule but it hasn’t caught on just yet.  Next week is the first week this month that our schedules aren’t crazy so maybe we’ll pick it up then. But even 10 minutes a few times a week is better than what we were doing before.

Money in order

The other aspect of our household that we wanted to get organized was our finances.  We had a nice conversation about our money and then on January 1 we sat down and worked out a new budget. Then I posted a tracker on the wall in our kitchen to track variable expenses throughout the month.  And so far, we’ve stuck to our budget! I think just having the awareness helped.  I’m not sure we’re necessarily spending differently than we did in the past but we’re more on the same page about where we are with our budget, what’s been spent, etc.

Still to do

In the last week and a half of the month, we’ll get our bedroom cleaned and organized, I’ll look through our apartment for things to purge, add them to the pile above, (inspired by Jess’ challenge, I’m hoping to get rid of 100 items), and then get them out of our home either by freecycling, donating, giving to friends, or trashing.

I’d love to know:

How’s your January? 

Do you ever feel not-on-top-of-it when it comes to household/personal tasks?

Resolutions: set yourself up for success

Posted on by jplatt27

On Friday, I shared my 2012 resolutions and my 2012 resolutions spreadsheet. When deciding on my resolutions, I thought about my intentions for this year and what I wanted to achieve and then thought about what steps I could do to make them be my reality this time next year.

Have you made any New Year’s resolutions or goals yet? It’s not too late, you know. But I’m sure you don’t want them to be like this:

If you haven’t made your 2012 resolutions yet (or if even if you have), here’s some tips to help you set them (or revise them) to set yourself up for success.

When writing resolutions or setting any type of goal you want it to be SMART:

Specific–make the goal something very specific

Measurable–make the action item something you can quantify

Attainable–you want a goal that is actually within your reach

Realistic–set goals that you know you can meet or are just a bit of a stretch

Time-bound–set a time frame for your goal

For example: If your intention for 2012 is to lose weight, you’ll want to set SMART resolutions that support that intention coming true. So instead of saying “go to the gym” a SMART goal would be go to the gym 3 times per week for 45 minutes. This is

Specific–saying what you will do for how long and how often

Measurable–you can say whether or not you achieved this

Attainable–if you have a gym membership or means to get one this would be attainable

Realistic–3 times a week is do-able whereas every day may not be

Time-bound–there’s a time period in which to measure this.

And that’s that. Then you go on working toward it.

I’d love to know:

What are your SMART resolutions or goals for 2012, this month, or this week?

If you want help setting smart goals, leave a comment below or shoot me an email at thingsafterrings@gmail.com. I’m happy to help.

Resolutions 2012

Posted on by jplatt27

I’m sure my friends will find it hard to believe that I’ve never made a New Year’s resolution before.  I’m a pretty goal oriented person and I’m all about making myself better so you’d think New Year’s resolutions would be right up my alley. But it’s true, I don’t think I’ve ever made a New Year’s resolution before.

For some reason I’m really excited for 2012.  I think it’s going to be a really good year and I’m excited to see what opportunities it brings, and what I can accomplish this year.  But I want to play a part in what the year holds and what my life will look like on January 1, 2013.  Last weekend I used my Saturday morning to draft a letter to myself in which I described exactly what I want my life to be this time next year. I used the intentions I described in my letter to form my 2012 resolutions.

My 2012 Resolutions

  • Contact each member of my family once per week
  • Entertain once per month
  • Two HH/lunch with girlfriends per month
  • Contact two out of town friends per week
  • Go shopping twice per month
  • One item off blog to-do list per month
  • Do something toward my future business once per month
  • Stick to weekly/monthly cleaning schedule (more on that later)
  • Put extra money to my lowest student loan each month
  • One date night per month
  • One item of love-to/mean-to list (a list of things that I’d love to do or have been meaning to do and just haven’t done yet)

There they are!  I’m excited for these.

None of my resolutions are earth shattering, at least I don’t think so.  But in meeting each of these resolutions I will be a little bit happier. And isn’t that what resolutions are all about?

I’d love to know:

Do you make New Year’s resolutions?  What are your resolutions for 2012?

 

PS–I’ve created a spreadsheet to track my resolutions throughout the year:

Resolutions Spreadsheet

Thanks to my friend Jen for that idea. I modeled my resolutions spreadsheet after hers.

These days

Posted on by jplatt27

Today’s post is a list of random things I’m doing/thinking about/loving right now.  Thanks to Heather and Clare for the inspiration!

1. I can be found mouthing the lyrics to these songs at the gym.  Though they make me want to sing out loud, I reign in my excitement at the gym.

      It’s My Turn Now, Keke Palmer

Favorite lines: “I’m strong, yeah I’m steady” and “In my heart I’m believing that I can see how I can live what I’m dreaming” Perfect mantras for the gym, and for life.

      Somebody to Love, Glee Cast

(I love the Justin Beiber version too.)

Favorite lines: “Step to the beat of my heart” and “Smile for me.” Make my heart melt. And great for the gym.

2. I’m loving smoothies right now.  In November one of my goals was to eat one fruit and one veggie per day. Check off that fruit!

Favorite recipes:

  • Mixed berry–1 cup low fat plain yogurt, 1 cup frozen mixed berries, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/4 cup milk, and 1/2 tbsp sugar (though add to your taste) in the blender.
  • Strawberry Peach–1 cup low fat plain yogurt, 1/2 cup frozen strawberries, 1/2 cup frozen peaches, 1/4 cup milk, and honey to taste (my taste is 1 tbsp) in the blender. Each of these makes one.

3. Inspired by Jess‘ post about writing a letter to herself, I’m working on my intentions for 2012, thinking about where I want to be come January 1, 2013, and what I want my life to look like.  I’m really enjoying this exercise; it makes me hopeful for what 2012 will bring.

4. I’m looking forward to driving home with Mike today and belting singing Christmas songs.

5. I really want to make this pomegranate vanilla sangria.  I’m brainstorming events I could make this for. Any ideas?

6. One of your intentions for 2012 should be to make some of Jessica’s recipes.  I’m not kidding.

7. I’m about halfway through The Hunger Games and I’m really enjoying it so far. I just got to the part where the games begin.

8. This tea is my go-to when I feel like I’m getting sick.  It’s like a miracle worker. Knocks a cold right out.

9. I’m loving all of my readers.  Thank you for reading and commenting!

10. Speaking of my readers: Before we knew that our bites were coming from bed bugs, I wanted to post a picture of the bites and see if any of you knew what they might be. Mike said that was gross and unless I could prove there were some doctors in my readership, he wouldn’t let me post pictures of his bites. So, who are you? What do you do? Any doctors out there?

I’d love to know:

What are you up to? What are you excited about these days?