An Intro To 2017

Welcome to 2017, everyone!

 I know I'm a bit late to the whole New Years resolution thing, but I have decided that 2017 is going to be the year that I get all my ducks in a row, or at least as much as a 22 year old can. I've never been very good at keeping things organized, or keeping track of finances as closely as I maybe should. I've tried using all kinds of different apps, and planners, and nothing really ever suited what I was looking for. Not to mention how unpleasing most planners were to look at. 

Enter the Bullet Journal.

 I was scrolling through Instagram and Pinterest one day, and I kept seeing these things called a Bullet Journal. Essentially, you are creating your own life planner. If you've never seen some of the amazing journals on Instagram, you need to go check them out. They're pretty addicting to look at, and really make you want to get your sh*! together, which is exactly what I plan on doing.

The above photo is my first page. I love that I can just doodle all over this thing and no one can say i am doing it wrong! I spent a few weeks going over different ideas on how I wanted to set my journal up, and figuring out what kind of journal I wanted to use. From what I have seen, a lot of people use moleskin, dotted grid notebooks. Let me tell you, unless you are willing to wait to have one shipped, they are not easy to track down. I gave up after two days of looking for one, and decided to just get a lined notebook that I ended up finding at Meijer.

I also picked up some Paper Mate Flair felt tip markers in the Tropical Vacation colors, and some fine tip black marker pens to use in my journal. I do have to say, the one thing I regret not taking into consideration when picking this up is that the paper is really thin. While none of my pens bleed through too badly, the paper is quite see through. You live and you learn, right?

The Setup

As I said above, I took a lot of time trying to figure out how I wanted to set up my journal. There are so many cool ideas on what kinds of pages to include, and a million ways to design each page. As inspiring as it was, I was honestly very overwhelmed. I started here.

A Year At A Glance

I feel like this page is pretty self explanatory, so I won't go into much detail. The only variant I saw for the most part was the design. I kept mine simple.

Savings Goal

I decided this year would be the year I seriously crack down on cutting down my spending, and upping my savings game. I liked the idea of visually seeing how much money I am saving in something other than a dollar amount. At the bottom of this page I wrote what my goal is for each month, and then I can color in each month accordingly. Now, because I know some months I won't hit that goal, and I decided I will just fill any "empty areas" in grey, and when I do sit money aside I'll alternate colors each month. What a fun way to keep track of your savings goal!

Year In Pixels

I really enjoyed seeing peoples completed 2016 Year In Pixels, and decided to do one of my own. It will allow me to reflect each month, and at the end of the year on how I was feeling. I feel like this will make it easier to see what kind of changes I need to make. Was I overly sad? Angry? Stressed? All I have to do is go back to this page.

Welcome To February

I decided that instead of starting in the middle of January, I would start in the new month. I'm not 100% happy with how this spread turned out, but for my first month it will due. I like to add important dates to this page so I can see everything that is going on this month. I also like having a few goals set here, so that I can constantly be reminded. The thing I'm not sold on is my tracker. I think next month it will get its own page instead. 

Week One

I decided to include my first weekly spread in this post, because I am pretty darn happy with it. I like being able to keep track of what is going on in so many ways. The meal planner actually helped significantly this month, as far as the whole saving money thing goes. 

From now on I plan on just posting my weekly spread on Instagram, so go follow if you'd like to keep up with that! If you guys are interested in picking this way of organizing up, definitely check out #bulletjournals on Instagram, and if you already journal, I'd love to hear any tips you have for beginners! xoxo