I have 3 cigarettes left and have decided not to buy anymore. Our quit date was set to be January 1 but it's silly to spend almost $2 to buy cigarettes later today when tomorrow is my last day to smoke. So, when these 3 are gone, they're gone.

DH has a few cigarettes and wanted to buy some more a bit earlier but I expressed how I feel about buying more when we're about to quit and he agreed and didn't buy any. So when his are gone, they're gone.

I'd forgotten all about the $1 tax going into effect Monday. That's yet another reason to quit smoking. The cigarettes that now cost us about $1.45 will cost $2.45 and that's just ridiculous. That means that if we continued to smoke we'd spend about $280 a month on cigarettes!

We can't afford to smoke and it's horrible for our health so that's it. No more smoking when these cigarettes are gone. No more smoking, no more smoking, no more smoking...

I read the replies to my "No resolutions allowed" entry and the one about accountability really struck home with me. I need to be accountable. Oh, I know I'm accountable to YHWH in regard to my stewardship of what He's given me and I even have a group of women online that I report to in some things. But apparently that's just not enough for me.

Now, I'm a pretty frugal person, believe it or not. I feed a family of 4 adults and 2 part time teens on less than $250 most months. We have no car payments and very little credit card debt. We manage to pay our bills for the most part but the mortgage payment, as small as it is, has just been an issue lately. We're self employed so we don't have a stable income and that's part of the problem. I won't go into all that here and now but suffice to say it's an issue and one I'm not sure I can resolve quickly. I'm going to pray and think on all of this.

In the meantime, I need more accountability so this blog will be my spending log. I'll post entries detailing our anticipated monthly expenditures, what we've actually spent and where, when, and for what, etc. Maybe that will help me.

I'm still reading the blogs of others and I'm still impressed. I'm also learning quite a bit but if any of you have suggestions for me, I'd love to know them.

For several reasons, I'm not into New Year resolutions. Oh, I say I'm going to try and do such and such and so and so but I think it and verbalize it in a sluggish, slovenly, half-hearted sort of way. I lack sincerity. I also lack a mission, goals, objectives and strategies. I think it's because even when I think about what it is I'd like to do, I know I won't actually do it. So why go to all the trouble of cementing goals, objectives and strategy if I know I won't really do anything to get there?

I'm lazy in this respect. Obviously. And I freely admit it. I'm not proud of it. I'm not happy about it. But honestly, I don't know how to change it. I've spent the last I don't know how long reading some of the blogs here and I'm impressed at the things some of the bloggers have done. Mortgages paid off, credit cards paid off, saving account balances tripled, etc. It's a wondrous thing! But none of the members seem lazy.

Rather, they seem motivated and charged up and that's what I want. That's what I need. But how do I get that? That's what I don't know.

So, my plan for the next two days is to come up with a goal of some sort for January 1, 2007. No, not the year 2007 but the day of January 1. I'm starting small.

Since that's the day of The Quit for me and my other half, I think it would be great to make not smoking a goal. That saves us quite a bit of money right there. Ever since we started smoking only outside the house we've gone from 2 packs a day each to less than 1 pack each every 2 to 3 days. That's amazing progress and we've saved a tidy little bundle, already. I think not having a single cigarette on January 1 is a reasonable and practical goal but I need another goal, too.

Maybe I'll put the money that we would normally spend on cigarettes in a jar or envelope and start my "Thank you for not smoking" fund. There's something to ponder so put that in your pipe and umm..smoke it.