Back in September, I started to realize I had accumulated a lot of plain ol' stuff over the past few months since getting my first real job as a waitress. I was making good money during one of the busiest restaurant seasons and saving a good chunk of it, but also spending way more than I'd like to admit. 

I had tried apps like Mint to budget my spending in the past before I got my job, but it always glitched on me, lost my data, and I wouldn't keep up with my cash flow. It just didn't work and I didn't trust other money apps to do the job (if you have suggestions on some I could try, I'd love to hear what you use). So I decided to go the old-fashioned route and do a budget with pen and paper, my usual go-to for organizing and planning. 

I made my first budget last October with specific goals like no spend days and a no spend weekend (they kinda worked out) and putting away around $100 into saving, which I didn't know at the time would be so easy to do. Each category such as Eating Out, Clothes, Coffee had a different set budget and for the most part, I stayed at or under my budgets. 

But Clothes and Eating Out? Oh Lordy. It took the month of October to realize just how much I was spending on such frivolous things. 

I documented everything I spent or made in October as well as kept track of my tips, checks, and what I was putting into savings. I was really proud of myself and it felt like a game to me, never becoming a hassle to go through my receipts and bank statements. I learned a lot and reflected on it in my November budget plan.

November's Budget was a reflecting period that really helped me focus on my spending and my abundance of it. I listed what I needed to improve on (less eating out, more cooking at home), what roadblocks I kept coming to (made shopping a hobby, had a bad case of Fear of Missing Out), and what advantages I was working with in November (pick up in business at the restaurant and more free time to cook and spend time at home). 

I also made November a No Spend month for clothes, which was quite intimidating at first, but by the second week, it turned into a breeze. Sadly, I had stopped documenting my spending and money flow since the holidays and school were picking up and getting more consuming. I didn't even bother making a budget for December, something I regret now seeing that I have little money left after the holidays.

But here we are in January! And with my surplus of time before school starts and with the scent of new beginnings in the air, I've already created my January Budget and have saved my receipts to document. I'll share it in my next post to keep this from being a novella. 

ooh, the suspense!

What I wanted to say with this post, however, is that it's always okay to fail at keeping up with a habit, hobby, or budget. Yes, it would have helped me financially to have kept up the budget, but I was just plain busy these past few months, as was everyone. So I'm not beating myself up about it, I'm just restarting! And you can restart at any time, that's the beauty of living. Every breath is a new beginning. 

So just breathe and the rest will follow.

I've always wanted a blog since the first time I found blogger through some YouTuber around 2007. I wish I had more details to make this a better story, but that's honestly all I can remember. I can't tell you who or what blog it was, but the idea of people reading an online journal of sorts was fascinating to me. It wouldn't be until 2015/2016 that I would become interested in self-care.

As someone who has had depression all her life, it would have been helpful to be practicing mindful breathing, yoga, and clean eating for a while before I finally realized what powers these things had. And I'm still ignorant about the holistic game.

I have the bad habit of reading a lot but then not retaining anything that I had just learned. I drown myself in YouTube videos, blogs, books, podcasts, and magazines all about healing and helping oneself. Rarely do I put this "knowledge" into action, though.

I try writing it down in my "Self Help" spiral notebook (more on that later) and reading it whenever I'm feeling inspired...yet I remain in the oh-so-familiar slump.

Yes, I am getting into better habits again (I was a pretty well-oiled machine this summer), but with the stress of my senior year of college pressing down on me, it makes nearly everything unenjoyable and my drive to do things, things I love, diminish into nothing. That's why it took so long for this post #2.

There are some habits I've been sticking too recently, however. I'm dry brushing my trobles away before each shower, trying to do a quick morning yoga, and recently switched to natural deodorant which can surprise you with how much good it does for this girl.



Yeah. I bet I'll make it.

Hello everybody,

And welcome to The Mindful Tenderfoot.

With this blog, I plan to document my journey into mindfulness, slow and intentional living, and self-care through simple ideas that I pick up around the web or through the several magazines I read. It'll be a lot of trial and error, but I feel like that part of the journey gets overlooked too often with "lifestyle blogs" and that's not good for one's self-esteem. I know it's definitely not for me as someone who feels like she has to do everything perfectly, first try. If I fail, I'm a failure. If I succeed, it's not good enough, I could have done better. Sound familiar?

As a young woman in her final year of college, I am constantly in a state of comparison. The girl across the room has better skin than me, the boy next to me in class speaks up more and has better ideas, that model who I follow in Instagram has my ideal body I'll never get to. Everything and everyone are