Over the years, I’ve discovered that concentrating on one big goal at a time is the very best way to make any resolution stick long enough to become a habit. Want to eat healthier, exercise more, and quit smoking? Doing it all at once is probably the quickest way to spell disaster, and trying to tackle all these difficult things at once may end up leaving you worse off than when you first tried to push for changes in your life.
The work-around? Pick one big goal. Just one. Work on that for the year. Half a year minimum. Get it to stick. Done that? Then you can move on to another goal.
And so while there are 7 goals on this list, I’d advise you to pick one to concentrate on if there’s something you’d like to do on here. Maybe pick two. In case you actually have the first one down within the first 6 months of the year – or decide against the first one and want a back up resolution to work on.
Self-Sufficiency New Years Resolutions
1. Save X% of your income for your emergency savings fund.
Pick a number – a percentage of your income – and save that amount of your paycheque month after month for a year. If you already do something like this, increase the percentage. If you don’t do it at all, I’d recommend at starting with around 10%. If you can do more, go for it, just make sure whatever you can put away stays away in your emergency savings fund and does not come back to your main chequing account. Emergency savings funds are one of the best ways to make sure you’re adequately prepared for an emergency situation.
2. Learn a new self-sufficiency skill that can help you save a killing over time.
There are so many self-sufficiency skills that can save you one heck of a lot of money over time if you learn and use them regularly. What are some? Take a look at this post for 10 suggestions, and this post for another 10. Need more ideas for self-sufficiency skills you can learn that would be helpful to your quest to be a better prepper/survivalist? Take a look at this massive list.
3. Eat healthier.
Figure out what you believe to be the ideal healthy diet (for me, it’s low carbs all the way), give it a shot and stick to it for a year. What does this have to do with self-sufficiency? Guess whose medical bills are likely to be reduced way down in the future if they’re eating healthy from this year on. Yeah, that’s a huge boon to your ability to become as self-sufficient as possible.
4. Aggressively pay down your debts (have a specific dollar amount in mind).
If you’ve got credit card debt, you need to work on killing it ASAP. Just have a mortgage? While that’s not too big a deal, I can promise you, being a mortgage free prepper is worth so much more than the dollar amount of your home. The peace of mind that comes with knowing that you own your home and not just a percentage of it is unreal, so the closer you can get even mortgage debt down, the more peace of mind I’d guess you’re likely to have.
5. Begin keeping hens or breeding rabbits.
Always thought it’d be a good idea to have a hen or two around the home, or thought you could probably live off delicious rabbits for the rest of your life if only you bothered to breed them? Get started this year. Make it your one goal and it’s likely to happen.
6. Start saving toward the off-grid location you’ve always wanted.
Enough is enough – if you have had the dream of having an off-grid property and haven’t started taking steps toward making that dream a reality, this should be the year. Your hope of having this sort of place is realistic – just start saving now so you can turn this dream into a reality. Start a separate bank account and funnel a specific amount of money into that account every month for your off-grid property fund. You’ll be well on your way to making your dream no longer a dream after even just one year of saving.
7. Only eat meat you’ve hunted/fished/bred yourself.
Nearly an impossible goal for me right now, but I know many people who this wouldn’t be a problem for. Not only would you be saving money, but you’d be taking yourself and your family one huge step toward being more self-sufficient.
Do you have any goals for this year? Are you sticking with just one goal or gunning for a bigger number? Write up a comment to let me know down below!
This is a great post. It touches on a little of everything. The key point being focus. I tackled #4 with on my blog and I linked over to you from here: http://www.raymondburton.com/surviving-debt-preppers-forget-economic-self-sufficiency/
To answer your question: I’m sticking to one goal this year in each area of my life. Financial, Fitness, Social and Relationship. Any more than that and effort becomes diluted.
Now I’m off to read through the self-sufficiency links in #2 :-)
Very good :)