a peek inside the fishbowl

Happy New Year! We had a fairly lazy New Year’s Eve here at Casa Fishbowl. For dinner we ate a whole bunch of appetizers (pizza bites, bacon-wrapped scallops, coconut chicken lollipops, veggies and dip), and then we caught Catching Fire at the Coliseum. When we got home we played video games (giving the WiiU a solid workout) and rang in the New Year with bubbly 7-up in fancy glasses. :)

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I really like the idea of making New Year’s resolutions as a family. It’s a great opportunity to come together and tackle new challenges. I think it could be a really healthy activity, one that strengthens family ties in a new and interesting way.

This year we are doing the 52-week money saving challenge. I really like the idea of doing something that involves (a) a lesson in saving money and (b) a really great pay off at the end of it. And although we’re not calling it a resolution per se, we’ve also challenged ourselves to explore new cross-country ski trails around Ottawa this winter. I just hope it warms up a little at some point.

Some other things you can do as a family, if you’re keen:

• How about making a resolution to do to a “Focused 15,” in which every night after dinner the family comes together to do a 15-minute tidy. It’s amazing how much of a difference this will make in your lives.
• Speaking of chores, you can make a resolution to tackle them in a more organized way with a chore jar. (This is what we do, and it is great.)
• What about a fitness-related challenge? A weekly family skate or swim, or an evening walk with the dog?
• What about a creative challenge? A photo-a-day project, or a family gratitude journal? I love the idea of starting a happiness jar on January 1. Start with an empty jar, and fill it up with happy moments written on slips of paper as the year goes on. Then read them all out loud at the end of the year. Imagine the sense of accomplishment you’d have if you did this for a year, and how fun it would be at the end.
• What about a family reading challenge? This could be about reading a set amount of chapter books together, or maybe starting a book club?
• What about a charitable challenge? A regular donation, or a volunteering job you can do together could make a world of difference to your family, and to others as well.
• What about a tech-related resolution? No texting at the dinner table, no iPods in the bathroom. Now’s the chance to do it!

Do you make family resolutions? I would love to hear about them if you do!

I don’t spend a lot of time poking around in my own archives, but sometimes it’s fun to look back. This “year in review” post is something I used to do awhile back, but somehow lost sight of somewhere along the way.

These are the first lines from the first blog post of each month in 2013. If you’re keen, you can read the post in its entirety by clicking on the name of the month. (Interested in playing along? Let me know if you post something similar. I’d love to read it.)

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January: “I am fascinated by things, and our attachment to our things. Why are some people hoarders? How are some people able to live out of a suitcase, or in carefully curated minimalist surroundings?”

February: “When I first got my iPhone I spent a lot of time shopping for apps. I was in awe of how many awesome things my phone could suddenly do. I must have downloaded a hundred different little apps, for everything imaginable. And you know what, I never opened most of them every again.”

March: “I would like to preface this post by pointing out how fun it is to say BABA GHANOUSH. Say it out loud a few times: BABA GHANOUSH BABA GHANOUSH BABA GHANOOOOOOOOSH.”

April: “Guess who we saw in the backyard bathing in the sump pump dump the other day? THIS DOOD.”

May: “I wasn’t kidding the other day when I said I licked my plate clean. This challenge has had me thinking about a lot of things, including food waste. When your food options are limited and the cupboard is bare, you can hardly afford spillage. It hasn’t happened, but I’m actually afraid it will.”

June: “Recently…”

July: “This morning we took a loop around the Canada Agriculture Museum (a.k.a The Central Experimental Farm) and the ornamental gardens. You couldn’t ask for a better day weather wise. Plus it was free!”

August: “It’s guest post week here at the Fishbowl!”

September: “Someone here at Casa Fishbowl is starting ninth grade tomorrow. I am pretty excited for her. The parent orientation day took place back in January so I’ve had a few months to get accustomed to the idea.”

October: “I am writing this at 3:30 a.m. Piper woke me up. I tried going back to sleep but I found myself with the chorus of “What the Fox Say” so deeply fixed in my brain that I had to get up and do something before I suffocated myself with my own pillow. (“Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!”)”

November: “This was the scene when the other night when I played a solo game of Bananagrams…”

December: “You know you love your dog too much when…

Since Christmas 2006 our family has participated in a self-imposed annual “Shopping Embargo.” This basically meant that we stopped buying unnecessary stuff and paid greater attention to the things we did buy. There was a list of rules, but basically, from December 26 until February 28 we restricted our purchases to the basic necessities: groceries, fuel, medicine, soap, things like that.

Overall, it was great, and I’d recommend a personal shopping embargo for anyone. Shopping mindfully became second nature to us. We saved money, thought a lot about how we spent money and why we bought things, and learned a lot about ourselves in the process. You can read my past posts about it here if you’re interested.

So here’s the update… I’ve decided not to host a Shopping Embargo here this year. It’s not because we don’t need to save money – we do – but I don’t have anything new to say about it after so many years. I have said all there possibly is to say about the issue and I’m drained. :)

I AM tossing around some other Embargo-related ideas but I won’t have the details ironed out until some time in early January.

In the meantime, I wanted to share the details of a different kind of money-saving challenge that we’re doing: the 52-week money savin’ challenge! Laurel Anderson (who blogs here and is on Twitter here) shared this concept and I thought it was great.

The idea is a simple one:

• You take a jar.
• You put money in the jar every week for a whole year (that’s 52 weeks).

There’s one other thing. At the beginning of Week One you put one dollar in the jar. At Week Two you put in two dollars, Week Three is three dollars, and so on, putting slightly more and more money in the jar each week. If you’re able to keep it up, by week 52 you will have $1378.00 socked away; a decent sum of money saved!

SO. We talked about it as a family and have decided to make this a family money-saving project. Once we accrue a bit of cash we’ll move it to a bank account. Until then, this is our jar:

I’m pretty excited about it. I think it’s a good lesson in saving. There are handy sheets you can print out to go with your jar too, so you can get the satisfaction of checking something off every week. Click here for some examples you can print.

Thinking ahead to how it’s going to go down, I realize it may hurt a little to put away $50 a week in December, but in my head I’ve already cut back on our Christmas expenditures next year and adopted the four gift rule. (Have you heard about it? You give one thing they want, one thing they need, one thing to wear, and one thing to read.)

If we’re successful at raising the cash, we’ll spend it on a winter getaway at Chateau Montebello. Fine dining, dogsledding, skating, swimming, skiing… the plan is to spend a couple nights there in December 2014. I think that a holiday is better than gifts anyway. What do you think? Would you consider joining the 52-week challenge?