January Challenge - One Week In

Thanks to Carla for hosting the no spend challenge. I always need a kick start to get things going after the holidays. :-)

I posted about my January challenge goals here, but here's a quick summary of how I'm doing after the first week!

1. Lose 2 lbs. - I've lost 1.2 lbs. :-) 
2. Track my calories every day in MyFitnessPal. - Yes!
3. Complete 1,000 minutes of cardio. - I'm currently at 240, so just a tiny bit off of my monthly goal. Oh, & I plan to workout today, so that should push me past my weekly goal.
4. Complete 10 strength workouts. - I'm crushing this goal! I'm at 5 workouts. Woohoo!
5. Complete 8 stretching workouts. - And, not so much on this one. I did my first yoga workout yesterday.
6. Find a half marathon for the spring, and start the training plan. - I've done some research, but haven't finalized. I've also started running more to build up a base before I kickoff my training plan. 
7. Have one date night with M. - We're having lunch this week, but I don't have an evening planned yet.
8. Plan/do one social activity with friends. - Yes, I went to a speaking event with a friend yesterday, have a girls evening planned for tomorrow, and two social lunches planned!
9. Save $1,000 towards our California house down payment fund. - Not yet. I  expect to be able to fund this with my bonus, coming in a couple of weeks. 
10. Save $500 in boys college fund. - Done, on the last day of December, we actually put another 1% towards the boys college tuition credits (so, total of $688/per kid, or $1376 total).
11. Pay $3,000 towards our mortgage(s) - We haven't made any mortgage payments yet. 
12. Talk to my parents about potentially watching the boys for a 2014 vacation. - Yes, & I think we have dates selected! Just sent an email to my mom this morning about potential flights. I think we're driving to Napa. So excited!
13. Work is very, very crazy & the schedule is not something I can handle long term with my health situation. I'm currently working 60+ hours during the week, & I'm on call every day. Every holiday. Every weekend Everything. It's way too much. I need to start figuring out a plan. - So far, things are easing up a bit, although it's not perfect. I'm working on managing my stress. After my coworker returns from leave towards the end of January, I should have a better sense of longer term implications. 

How am I doing on my planned budget cuts (January fiscal challenge)?

• Trim our grocery spending down to $450 - We are one week in, and have spent $76, so at the 17% budget mark. In good shape to close out the month at $450. 
• Trim dining out down to $75 (should just cover one date with M) - $0 spent so far!
• Spend $0 on clothes for the kids + me. - $0 spent so far! 
• Spend $0 on gifts, travel, personal, health, liquor, & house categories. - Here's how this breaks out:
• I did spend $2.07 on toiletries ( a super on sale giant conditioner at Rite Aid, to use up a reward). 
• I will also be purchasing my mom's flight whenever we land on dates. It will come out of our planned 2014 travel expenditures. 
• The boys also got $30s of haircuts (3 haircuts, $10/each) on the weekend. We had intended to do this before Christmas, but ran out of time - hence the January expense.
• I may also have some medical/health expenses that need to be paid, but should get reimbursed.

I feel pretty good about the progress so far! What about you? How are you doing at the end of week one? Staying focused? Areas for improvement? I need to add some more challenging goals for the rest of the month. I think I sandbagged myself. ;-)