How are you doing today, friend? Can you believe we have entered into December? I am always one that takes forever to get into the Christmas spirit. I am a last minute shopper, and that’s if I shop at all.

But, I didn’t want to fully immerse into December without providing an update on my goals for November 2018. I love planning and to do lists. Even more, I love to cross things off. And, I am becoming more fond of setting goals. I am an idea person and I consider myself to be creative in some aspects of my life. However, I can have tons of ideas! Sometimes, I can just lose track of all of them. Or, simply get discouraged, because they didn’t come into fruition as I had envisioned.

But, goals help me to keep track of my progress. I can put timelines to them and tweak my goals, if necessary. I have always had goals, but I really have been more intentional about writing them down and not giving up so easily over these last few months.

So, I posted my goals on my Instagram page in November. I have seen some other friends do this. And, although it is scary, I like how it can make you accountable. Trust me, accountability is so key.

So, if you did not catch my IG post, be sure to follow me on Instagram or follow the Facebook page. This is where you will pretty much find out what my goals are for the month. And, see a few progress pics.

For November, I focused on three areas: Health, Wealth and Faith.

Health

Keto to Turkey Day: So, a few friends and my sorority sisters challenged ourselves to take part in Keto to Turkey Day. I had been wondering about the Keto craze for a while. Honestly, I was just scared to try. I have failed a lot of times at trying to lose weight. Although I was encouraged by stories of significant weight loss, I just told myself the Keto lifestyle cannot be maintained. I mean I would text friends about it, but I would never make the big jump. However, my line sister aka Mondayz’ Best Friend encouraged a group of women to do it together. So, from October 22 to November 22. I decided to go for it.

Wealth

Update Entire Budget: In a previous blog post, I mentioned that I am a Stay at Home Mom (SAHM) now. So, I have been working on drastically trying to cut our expenses, since we only have one income. I have always been intrigued with financial experts and gurus in my life. However, it has only been in the last year, that I have made tiny steps to work on my finances. But, Saving Shannon is not only about my faith journey, I also want to include my financial progress. Because I believe that God called us to be good stewards and to also to be generous. So, I wanted to make sure that I included this objective in my November goals.

Total Debts Sheet: Again, I am not the best at finances (Lord, grow me in this area!). There were plenty of times I was young and dumb. And, then I was older and dumb. But, it is never too late to get back on track. So, I wanted to write out all of my debts in one place. I have scribbled things done here and there, But, I wanted to have this an electronic form, so I could find it anytime that I got ready.

Faith

Love God Greatly Bible Study: I am determined to make reading my Bible a priority. I want it to be intentional. My biggest desire is for my faith to increase and to draw closer to God. I am fan of Love God Greatly because it includes an accountability component—groups. I was interested in this installment of Love God Greatly, which was the Promises of God.

RESULTS

Keto to Turkey Day: Before Thanksgiving, I had lost 6.6 lbs! I was so proud of myself, because I was not full blown Keto. My ultimate goal is just to stick to a weight loss plan. So, I didn’t want to put so much pressure on myself that I would give up. There were times, that I ate bread or had a sugar filled treat. However, I tried not to let those cravings over take my whole day or week.

I cooked. A LOT. And, this is totally out of my norm. So, Keto did not make me happy initially because, I felt like I was always running out of food and slaving over a hot stove, lol. However, I have begun to get over it. And, I am working on ways to combat all the cooking (i.e. meal prep and restaurant hacks).

Now, during the whole challenge, I didn’t always lose weight. So, I had a moment of discouragement when I didn’t see the scale move. However, my Keto group is awesome! They were so transparent about their struggles, so it really helped me to keep going. Now, I killed everything in sight during Thanksgiving and until the dressing ran out at my house. But, I am really committed to being Keto-ish for a while.

Updated Budget: I don’t have a fancy worksheet, but, I have an excel sheet that works for me. My next step is to make sure that I am as close to the budget as possible. So, I use an excel sheet to figure out my budget. If you need a guide to help you budget, please leave a comment below.

Then, I use Mint to record and categorize my expenses. At quick review, it looks like I was $263 over my budget. I am pretty positive that I know where some of it came from, which include late fees. I’ll do more digging in December. Another thing, I plan to work on is my food budget. I have been playing around with the Walmart grocery pick-up, and I honestly think that I might can save money this way. Again, another challenge for December.

Total Debts Sheet: So, I didn’t really get to this. I thought about it. One of my barriers is that I don’t currently have a laptop and wi-fi at home. And, as I write this, I know it is a horrible excuse. I could have sat down to do it on my old desktop. If I were really motivated, I would have just done it over the cell phone. Yet, other things took priority. I had worked on a special project for the church and then of course, I try to get in my time with baby girl. And, I am okay with this for now. But, trust me you will see this goal again. I already know what my biggest deb is, though. You probably already guessed STUDENT LOANS.

LGG Bible Study: I completed the study. Yay. I ended up being in two groups. There were a couple of times that I skipped a day or two, but I made sure I would double up on lessons the next day. I will definitely do a study again.

Thankfulness Challenge: So, this also got completed too. My goal was to do a live video everyday. However, this did not happen. The first couple of days, I didn’t have much data on my cell. I did an awesome video the first day lol. Too bad Facebook didn’t record all of it. You can check that out here.

So, I would definitely prefer writing, when I can do that. In the end, I did 29 videos.On November 17, I just said it wasn’t happening on that day. But, I still gave thanks.

But, you know what? I still want to get better at being thankful. I felt that there were some days in November, that my attitude could have just been better. I just ask that the Lord, just continue to help me to be grateful.

So, I promised that I would include all the scriptures that I used for the challenge. So, you can find them here. I hope we can use them throughout our lives to help us become more grateful.

So, how did you do for the month of the November?Do you use accountability partners or groups?

I will release my December goals soon. I have so many things that I would like to accomplish. How many goals, do you try to accomplish in a month? I have to thank God for all of my ideas, but I sometimes need help with prioritizing. I can’t wait to hear from you!

Stay Saved,

Shannon