Semi-Early New Years Post

I've had it planned for a couple of months now of two different things to start doing for the New Year. No it's not "let's go get a gym membership and go for 3 weeks!" because I already have a membership and have been going (more lately than during the semester shhh). I like to go explore on Pinterest every now and then, because let's face it, who doesn't, and I discovered/found the 52 Week Money Challenge! The pin that I found came from Life As You Live It's blog and I found it to be an absolutely fantastic idea! Especially for the New Year coming up and everybody likes to do new things, you know how it goes. The second thing that I'm going to start doing is a good memory jar which I also found on Pinterest though it was just a photograph and not linked to a blog post.

We'll start off with the 52 week challenge first! Basically what you do is get a jar, or I got a tall plastic storage container from Walmart for around $2-$3, put the 52 weeks on the outside of the jar, and put money in every week! You can get the spreadsheet that I used from Life As You Live It since she has attached to her post. Each week has it's own number so the first week in January, which is the 1st through the 7th, is Week 1; the second week, the 8th through the 14th, is Week 2. Whatever number the week is, you put that amount of money into your jar. So since January 1st starts this upcoming Wednesday, I'll put $1 into my jar sometime between Wednesday the 1st and Tuesday the 7th. When the second week of January comes on Wednesday the 8th, I'll put $2 into my jar between then and Tuesday the 14th. Make sense? By the time you reach this time next year, you'll have almost $1,400 saved up! You are always welcome to put more money in for a certain week than just the week number. For example, I've already added $5 in change to my jar because I had that much money in dimes and nickels and it doesn't hurt to put a little extra in right?! It also took me a whole maybe 5 minutes to create my jar between printing, cutting, taping, and writing! My jar is pretty plain but it'll do the job.

 This is what the top looks like. SO fancy right?

 I took pictures of the left side of the jar containing half of the first part of the year, the middle where both sides meet and my Sharpie "52 Week Challenge Jar" mark is, and then the other side of the jar containing the second half of the year. 

Now onto the good memory jar! This is one that I really wanted to do because I tend to veer towards to negative side of things. The good memory jar works like this: every time something good happens, you write it down on a piece of paper, you can date it if you want, and you throw it into your jar and one New Years Eve, you go back through the jar to remember all the good things that happened that year! I think it's a really good way at the end of the year to look back and see how many good things really did happen. I also love reading books and on Instagram saw my book fandom post about doing pretty much the same thing as the memory jar but instead writing all the books you read throughout the year and then see how many you had been able to read! The jar that I ended up getting was from Joanne Fabrics, it's actually a paint tin apparently, and it was about $4!

This is how my jar looked before I partially decorated it.

This is my lovely end result! Had some funny using Sharpie markers.

And since I had some extra change to spare, I decided to throw it in there!

Hope that you guys give these two/three things a try in the new year and please do let me know how it goes! I'll have a post on New Years Eve of a list of good memories that I have from this year. It won't be as long as it would if I had started last year but it'll be a decent size. Hope you guys have a good New Year!