September Goals

This month I set two goals for myself. They are both difficult, but if I can pull them off, I think it will really help out our home.

1. No Sugar and 2. No spending.

The no spending one has a few really basic rules. 

1) Food, gas, and bills are fine.

2) Everything else can wait.

Unfortunately, I lost my memory card in Utah and I didn't buy a new one, so blog posts aren't going to have any photos. :( Oh well. On the upside, this should be the easier goal of the two. Actually the no spend is a small incentive for me not to buy any junk food. It will save me more money at the end of the month. (I'm aiming for $500ish of spending? I'm really just trying to save as much as possible, so I can reevaluate my half of the budget.)  

The no sugar goal I think is going to kill me. Yesterday was the longest day of my life. My energy levels were all over the place. As a mom, I guess I reach for the giant costco bag of chocolate chips a few too many times, because I'm definitely feeling the withdraws. I actually tried going off sugar last month and I didn't even make it to 48 hours. Oops. This time though I'm doing a lot better. It's a really weird thing though to define what's going off sugar. When I google it people have so many different definitions of what no sugar is. For some people, it's no fruits. Others it's no fruit or carbs. Some people it means no desserts. There are so many different opinions and I actually didn't define it for me before I started. I thought it would be pretty straight forward, but instead it's lead to a few head scratching moments. 

Like muffins. I love muffins. They are tasty and easy to make. I also know that they almost have as much sugar as a cupcake. Cupcakes do count as sugar, but do muffins? Bread isn't too different from a muffin, but I had already decided that carbs are definitely not disappearing from my life. We live naturally a bit more vegetarian and while carbs aren't a huge part of our diet, they definitely have a presence.  So where do I draw the line? 

I've kind of decided that if it's from a box I don't care, since I make most of what we eat from scratch. The things I actually buy in boxes are things that shave off hours of my time - like pasta, bread, and crackers. Fruit I also think is okay. I haven't had any yet, since the fruit in our kitchen isn't ripe. I always feel weird cutting out an entire food group from my diet. It makes me uncomfortable. 

Matt just informed me that the tiny bit of maple syrup I poured on my oatmeal was all sugar. Oops. I guess I really do need to make guidelines. Maple syrup comes from a tree (we pay extra for that kind). It's natural. It can't be that bad right? I guess we better trek over the library and find out.