Tipping is the customary way of doing things in the United States. Most of the time, we don’t even consider it. It comes naturally to us. When the bill arrives, especially at restaurants, it’s just something we anticipate adding before paying the tab.

Of course, the United States’ tipping culture differs significantly from most other countries. Tipping is uncommon in several European countries. Due to the way the United States operates, tipping etiquette in the United States is an exception.

Why should I leave a tip?

A tip is a bonus for excellent service in Australia, where employees get a decent minimum wage. Paying extra on top of a restaurant bill may seem excessive, but when you consider that waitstaff (“servers”) in America get only a few dollars per hour, it makes sense. 

In fact, under American federal law, the minimum wage for employees who also receive tips is only US$2.13 per hour, whereas it is US$7.25 for those who do not. Consider waitstaff as independent contractors who you hire to serve your table. When you sit down in a restaurant in the United States, you’re entering into a social contract with your server — you can’t use Australian norms.

In a restaurant, how much should I tip?

A standard tip of 15 to 20% of the bill (before sales tax) is expected, with 25% offered for exceptional service. In America, servers work hard for their money and are generally friendly, knowledgable, and willing to go above and beyond for their customers.

What if the service is unsatisfactory?

It is unusual to receive poor service, but it does occur. However, the service must be terrible if you don’t tip at all. Leaving only 10% indicates that the experience was unsatisfactory. If you genuinely believe your waiter or waitress does not deserve to get a tip for their services, the best line of action is to inform the restaurant manager of your decision. Your server will inquire as to why you left without tipping or providing an explanation.

Is it OK to tip if the restaurant has already included a gratuity in my bill?

Some restaurants will automatically add a gratuity if you’re dining with a large group or it’s a public holiday. If the bill says “gratuity included,” you don’t have to pay anything extra. You are entitled to a refund if you believe the restaurant’s gratuity is excessive.

What about a night out at a bar?

If you’re going to a bar, make sure you have a pocketful of dollar bills. Order and pay for your drink, then leave a dollar bill for the bartender on the bar — no need to put it in their hands. Even if you aren’t paying for the drink, give a customary tip if the bartender serves you a complimentary beer.

Is it necessary to tip for fast food or coffee taken away?

No, is the quick response. You don’t have to tip if you buy food or drinks over the counter, but if you want to, you can put a dollar in the always-present tip jar.

Should I tip anyone else?

Taxi drivers, hairdressers, beauty therapists, porters, and food delivery people can all expect to get a tip. Back-seat monitors in New York cabs allow you to choose a default tipping amount of up to 30%. Generally, 15% is OK, and if you’re paying cash, add a few more dollars. The industry guideline for hairdressers, manicurists, and beauty therapists is 15 to 20%, plus a few dollars for the apprentice who washes your hair. If you order food to be delivered, add 10% to your total (or more if they had to schlep upstairs or battle inclement weather). Porters, often known as bellhops, should be paid $1 for each bag carried or $2 for heavy loads.

Few extra tipping tips:

Cash reigns supreme.

The majority of people prefer monetary tips. It’s cash you’ll be able to take home at the end of your shift. If you pay with a card, you’ll have to wait a few days for your tips, which will go via your manager first. It is very appreciated, regardless of how you tip. If you don’t have cash, don’t forget to tip.

Dollar bills are gold.

If you’re staying at a hotel, make sure you have some cash on hand. As previously stated, slipping a few coins into the hands of the valet to assist you is simple and casual. The unwritten rule at bars is a greenback ($1) for a drink.

Where should you not tip?

Now that you know how tip-obsessed Americans are, you might wonder if there are any places where you don’t have to tip. Fast food restaurants and coffee shops with counter service do not require tipping (but don’t worry, there will be a tip jar just in case). That is all there is to it. Good luck with your tipping!

Tipping Culture In US : The Ultimate Tip Guide is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

By the time Friday rolls around, it’s been a long work week and a night out is long overdue.

A night out can be anything you want it to be as there are so many options and opportunities! From catching a movie to eating out to visiting cool exhibits, a night out with friends or a significant other can be so much fun. But it can also mean paying more than you think.

When you add up food, drinks or dessert, travel time, parking, etc., a night out can make a large dent into your wallet if you aren’t careful.

But you don’t have to let a night out bust your budget. Here are some fun ways to save on a night out.

Do a Night In!

A night in may not seem as fun as a night out, but it can be. Dust off the board games or break out the blanket fort. You can even use a coupon to buy take-out pizza and to save money, or have a potluck style game night. A night in can even be a way to rekindle that romance, or a way to reconnect with your besties after a long absence.

Eat Before Going Out

If you are catching a few drinks with the gals after work or going out to dinner with friends, one of the easiest ways to save on a night out is to eat a quick meal before you leave the house. It will save you from having to buy a full entree. You’ll be able to get away with a small appetizer and a drink. This way you can still participate but save money.

See a Matinee

A matinee can be half the cost of an evening film. If two adults can see a movie for the price of one, it’s a win-win all around. You should also watch for special deals at your local theatres. When I lived in a larger town, the theatre would offer $1 popcorn and $1 pop on Tuesdays.

Skip the Drink

Markup on soda is at most restaurants is ridiculous. You can save $2-3 per meal if you just order water instead of a drink. Not ordering alcohol at a meal can save $5 or more per meal too. Unless it’s dollar night, skip the pop at the movie theater too. This is a no brainer way to save on a night out.

Eat Out Using a 2 for $20 Deal

If you and your friend or significant other want to save some money on dinner out, use the 2 for $20 menu that has become popular at many sit-down restaurants. These usually include an appetizer or dessert and two entrees. It’s the same great meal for a lower price!

Hit up Happy Hour

Drinks during happy hour are usually half price or less, making it easy to save on a night out. Some bars and restaurants will also offer half price appetizers to go along with that. A couple of drinks and an appetizer are cheaper than one entree during happy hour.

The importance of a night out (or in) is that you enjoy time with your family and friends. Even on a tight budget, you can enjoy a night out with these savings tips. It takes a little more planning to save on a night out, but it’s worth it in the long run.

How do you save on a night out?

How to Save on a Night Out is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

Trying new hobbies can be a fun way to have a little “me” time and get your creative juices flowing. But it isn’t quite as fun if the hobby you want to do is expensive and leaves you feeling guilty for spending your money on something other than your bills and financial goals. To help resolve this problem, I’ve done a little brainstorming and put together a list of 10 fun, new hobbies that won’t cost you a fortune.

1 Learn a New language

There are plenty of resources available for you to use when learning a new language. Check out books in your local library or bookstore, surf the net for tips, talk to a friend, or purchase a teaching tool. To make it extra fun, partner up with someone so you can talk to each other.

2 Whittling

Grab a knife and a piece of wood, then fire up your imagination. For instruction, search the internet or buy a book. If you’re really lucky maybe your grandpa or another family member can teach you!

3 Build Model Rockets

Kits can be found at hobby stores as well as some discount stores. Or for more creativity and learning, make your own from scratch. Check with your local 4H club or a teacher for help if you don’t have access to the internet to search for directions. After you’ve built your rocket, you might even be able to test fire it a few times.

4 Learn a New Game

Have you lost your marbles? If not, give that game a shot. Use your computer and the internet to search for instructions. Then challenge friends to play against you. If marbles don’t sound interesting, try Tiddlywinks or Jacks. These old-school games can provide hours of fun for little cost.

5 Weaving

Basket weaving is a fun hobby you could try your hand at. I’m not kidding. You might even be able to sell what you make on Etsy and turn it into a side hustle. You could also try weaving a rug or two. There are instructions on Pinterest for all kinds of rugs wove from t-shirts, old jeans, and even plastic sacks!

6 Join Pinterest

It might be sad to say, but even though Pinterest was intended to be a place to store and organize ideas, it has turned into an hobby for some. They spend all their time pinning hobby ideas instead of doing them. At least this one is free.

7 Start a Club

If you have a couple of friends with similar interests to yours, perhaps you could all start a club. Some clubs to try are a game club, cooking club, or a book club. Clubs are basically free, unless you start a club that creates a new craft. In those clubs, you’ll have to pay for supplies.

8 Adult Coloring Books

This hobby has quickly soared in popularity recently. It isn’t difficult to find coloring books because they’re everywhere – hobby stores, discount stores, and grocery stores. They are pretty inexpensive and take up a lot of time if you want them to turn out beautifully.

9 Geneology

Starting a project like this is a big commitment. However, tracing your roots is also a wonderful gift to pass on to your children and their children.

10 Start a Collection

Do you have more than one of something because you love it so much? Maybe you even have two or three? Go ahead and all them a collection and see if you can add more of the same type of item to your group.

Spending a little time for yourself sometimes leads to you feeling guilty for not using that time to do a chore or spend with your family, but everyone needs to recharge now and then. So go ahead and take some time for yourself by trying one of these new hobbies. If you choose any of the 10 fun, new hobbies that won’t cost you a fortune, at least you know you won’t go broke in the process.

Can you think of any other new hobbies that won’t cost a fortune?

10 Fun, New Hobbies that Won’t Cost You a Fortune is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

I didn’t have a budget and I had no clue how much money was going into or coming out of my account each month.

I had just discovered personal finance blogs, which lead me to start tracking my spending. All of a sudden I was able to sleep better at night knowing that I had enough money in my account to pay my bills, at least the minimums. I still didn’t have a budget, but I was on my way to learning more about my financial situation.

I made the decision that come January 1, 2014 I was going to start living by a monthly budget. I was confident that I could set up a successful budget because I had been tracking my spending for a couple of months by that point.

Some critics might say that I should have started budgeting right then and there instead of waiting for the New Year, but I disagree. By preparing for my new goals for the new year ahead of time I was able to get a head-start on my progress.

If you’re the same way and you have big plans for next year, don’t just wait around until then to get started. You can start preparing for the new year (and new goals) now. Here’s how.

Reflect on the Past

Take time to think back on the past year. Did you accomplish what you set forth to accomplish in 2015? If not, why? Should you consider setting the same goal for the new year that you had for this year?

Thinking back on past successes (and failures) can teach you a lot about yourself and will help you set more attainable goals for the future.

Find Direction

Along that same line, you need to spend some time thinking about what you want to accomplish in the new year. Are your goals helping you to accomplish the big picture of what you want your life to look like? If not, perhaps you need to change directions a bit.

Last year I decided to set fewer goals than I did the year before and for 2016 I anticipate setting even fewer still. I’ve found that the more I narrow my focus on the direction I want to go, the further I get, even if I don’t meet all of my goals.

Set Your Goals and Have a Plan

Instead of just setting vague goals for the new year, like “I want to lose weight” you need to set more concrete and measurable goals, like “I want to lose X lbs by the end of the year.” Once you’ve decided on your goals for the new year, formulate a plan to help you get off on the right foot. Create a meal plan to help ensure you eat healthily following the holidays, or start creating a budget so you can kick off your financial goals with ease.

No matter what your goals are for the New Year, and no matter how this year turned out for your 2015 goals, everyone gets to start over with a blank slate for the new year.

Are you preparing for the new year already?

How You Can Start Preparing for the New Year Now is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

You don’t have to spend a bundle to have fun with your friends. Think outside the box and enjoy the opportunity to spend quality time with your friends, while also staying true to your budget. Here are just a few ways to have fun with friends and not spend a bundle.

Have a Potluck Dinner

Potlucks aren’t just for old ladies with casserole recipes. Have the host of the dinner provide plates, utensils, napkins, and beverages, and everyone attending can bring a dish to share. You can really make a potluck dinner great fun by choosing a theme.

Have everyone share a dish from their heritage or make it a dessert themed potluck. Who doesn’t love three different kinds of brownies and chocolate cake?

Go on a Winery Tour

Winery tours are a great way to get out with friends and not spend a bundle. Usually just $5-$15 per person, winery tours also generally include a complimentary wine tasting afterwards. Get out and support some of your local wineries while having a great time with friends. This is one of the things my best friend and I love to do whenever we are together.

Host a Projection Movie Night

Projectors are relatively inexpensive on Amazon, and some smart phones even come equipped with them. Download your favorite movie, pop some popcorn, spread some blankets, and invite your friends to have a projector movie night on the side of your house or on a sheet draped across the front of the garage door.

Build a Bonfire

The sights and sounds of a bonfire have the uncanny ability to bring people closer together. Listen to each other’s stories over the warmth of a fire, roast marshmallows, and enjoy just spending time together with your closest friends. This is something I love doing with my friends and family out at my parents’ farm.

Visit Some Yard Sales

Yard sales and garage sales are a great way to get together and not spend a bundle. Meet bright and early on Saturday morning at a flea market, or carpool to the nearest yard sales together. Give yourself a $20 bill and see who can find the best deal. Bonus points go to the individual who can turn around and sell that same item on craigslist for a profit.

Take a Hike

Hiking is the best free activity. Find a great local trail which leads to an amazing view, a fun waterfall, or natural hot spring. No matter where you live, there are great trails which you can explore with friends completely for free or just the cost of parking.

Run a 5k

5K events have become super popular in the last few years. Find a local charity 5k to run with friends. Whether it’s a mud run, a color run, or regular old run on the pavement, charity races are a fun way to spend your money on a good cause while hanging out with friends and staying active.

Getting together with friends and having a great time doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Enjoying the simpler pleasures in life, getting together for homemade food or dessert, or getting out and staying active are all just a few activities which can help you to respect your budget while hanging out with friends.

What do you and your friends do to have fun while not spending a bundle of money?

Easy Ways to Have Fun with Friends and Not Spend a Bundle is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

I don’t mean that in the sense that your economics and mathematics teachers talked about the time value of money and how to calculate it with some complex formula in your fancy calculator. But rather, I want to talk about what your time is worth in terms of money.

No matter if you are salaried, hourly, or a project-based contractor, you truly are exchanging time for money. Some of you might be getting $8 for an hour of your time and others might be getting far more than that, but we all exchange our time for money in one form or another.

This also means that when we buy something, we are not only exchanging our money for that purchase, but we are also exchanging our time for it too.

The Time Value of Your Purchases

Here’s an example. If you earn $10 per hour of work and you just spend $90 on a fancy bottle of perfume at the mall, you will have to work a whole entire day to pay for that one tiny glass bottle of chemicals.

Math equation: $90/$10 = 9 hours of your precious time.

If you live to be 80 years old you will have lived approximately 701,280 hours according to my fancy calculator. Nine hours of out that 701,000 may not seem like much, but that’s just for a bottle of perfume. What about for other things you buy?

The Time Value of Your Career

Switching gears here a little bit, let’s think about how much of our time we really exchange for money.

Most adults will work a 40 hour/week job for 35-ish years before they retire. That’s 72,800 hours which is just over 10% of your life span. That doesn’t include things like the time you spend on your daily commute, the time you spend getting ready in the bathroom mirror, or the time spent on working lunches, working late, or working the weekends. In reality, most of us spend way more than 40 hours/week working in exchange for money.

The Time Value of Your Time

Not to get too much more profound, but what is your time really worth to you? Isn’t it worth more than working an entire day away from your kids, pets, hobbies, friends, etc. just to buy a bottle of designer perfume? I’d like to think so, but most of the time how we actually spend our money says differently.

We tell our friends and family that we don’t have time to spend with them, but the truth is that most of us would rather exchange our time for money instead.

If you spend 10% or more of your lifetime working, and another 33% of your lifetime sleeping, what are you going to fill the rest of your time with? It’s up to you to determine that time value for yourself.

But I hope you don’t decide to waste an entire day to buy a chemical-filled glass bottle of perfume anytime soon. I know I’ll think twice before I buy something next time I go shopping.

Evaluating The Time Value of Money is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

Fall is my favorite season for many reasons, one of which is the frugal nature of the season. Fall means being able to turn off your AC and not having yet had to turn on your heater. It means crisp morning and evening air, but still fairly warm days, and the colors of fall are gorgeous!

As if all those reasons weren’t enough to celebrate fall, here are five of my favorite frugal fall activities that you should definitely take part in this year!

Baking in the Kitchen

Baking is one of my favorite things to do, but I just can’t bear to spend much time over the hot oven in the summer. So when fall arrives I’m more than ready to whip up a batch of cookies, or a pumpkin pie. Yum!

If you do it right, baking can be pretty cheap. I always shop sales and pick up extra baking ingredients when they are on sale. (Most of them can be stored in the freezer for nearly a year to preserve freshness.) You might even be able to find some ingredients, like fruit, at farmer’s markets.

Creating Freezer Meals

Cooking and baking can be a great way to spend time with family or friends too.

Sometimes my girl friends and I spend the majority of the day in the kitchen making up some freezer meals to save us time and money down the road. It’s a fun way to save money by using bulk ingredients without having to eat the same meal over and over again yourself.

Visiting a Pumpkin Patch

There aren’t a lot of options for pumpkin patches around here, but there are a few. Going to a pumpkin patch is fun and usually pretty cheap among the fall activities. By the time you spend the afternoon outside looking for the “perfect” pumpkin for carving or decorating and enjoying the other activities the pumpkin patch may have to offer, it’s a pretty cheap way to entertain yourself. It’s also a lot of fun for kids!

Wandering Around a Craft Fair

Craft fairs and frugality don’t always seem to have a lot in common, but I usually go to craft fairs to get ideas instead of to buy things during my fall activities. I’m pretty crafty and thanks to my parents’ farm, I can use a lot of scrap material and tools they already own to make a lot of the things you can find at a craft fair.

Crafting is another good way to spend time with family or friends, exercise your creativity, and hopefully end up with a cute project to display in your home too. Plus if you use a lot of scraps, or at least make sure you don’t waste much of what you buy for your craft, it’s usually pretty cheap too.

Sprucing Up Your Yard or Garden

Working on your yard or garden may not sound like fun, but I personally love getting a little dirt under my nails, working up a bit of a sweat, and enjoying the outdoors during fall. I like to spend some time working on my yard in the fall before Winter hits so I can make sure it’s ready to endure the cold weather without too much damage. After all, preparing before winter is the best way to make sure it still looks good come next Spring.

Do you love fall? What are your favorite frugal fall activities?

5 Frugal Fall Activities is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

If you are serious about finding your twin soul in Ukraine, these simple recommendations will help you meet and court the girl of your dream.

Be Open For New Experience and Emotions

Men who want to start dating Ukrainian women should be ready to change the usual course of events. It is quite clear that lots of things are completely different in Ukraine and you must be ready to accept this. Indeed, there will be lots of things that will seem strange and unusual. Behavior of a Ukrainian woman, as well as things she may say, might puzzle you in the early going. Do not show your confusion and be open-minded. Do not forget that you are in a foreign country, with its particular culture and traditions. Otherwise saying, take things as they come.

Bravely Go to Your Dream

If you have found a girl who seems to be your perfect match, put the most efforts to win her heart. Stop thinking that something will go wrong, or that your relationship are too good to be true. Be brave, cast away all fears and go to your dream. Most women love self-assured men, who know what they want. So, just be that man!

Keep your Expectations Realistic

Leave the fairy dreams for ladies and make realistic plans. Many men want to date younger girls. This is definitely possible, however if you are looking for a girl that will be 20 years younger, than you have scarce odds of finding a wife. Building relationship with a foreign girl, who is furthermore much younger than you is a challenging task. Otherwise saying, keep your plans and expectations realistic.

Be a Real Man!

Every Ukrainian girl wants to live her life with a “real man”. They want a man to take the lead in their relationships. Though most of Ukrainian girls are strong-willed and have their own point of view on any event, they want to give the decision making power to a man.

First Kisses

What is the best time for the first kiss? Giving an absolute answer to this question is impossible. It depends on the situation, on your lady and duration of your romantic relationship. In most cases, a Ukrainian woman will never kiss a man if she is not sure about her and his feelings. Thus, the task number one is to gain her confidence. If you manage to do that, you will definitely feel when the right time comes.

Tips for Dating a Ukrainian Woman is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

Some of the things we cherish most in life like our family, our friends, and the experiences we’ve had or have yet to have, have little to do with money. Even so, most of us feel that we’d be able to be a little happier if we did have at least a little more money coming in every month.

With that in mind, here are 3 ways you can live a rich life by spending your money wisely to end up with more in your pocket in the end.

Give Creatively

Finding creative ways to open your wallet and give even small amounts of money is a great way to build some self-confidence and good karma. How? When you are worried about money, you are less likely to give it away to charity, those in need, or just to brighten someone’s day. But by deciding to give a little money even when times are tight you are symbolizing self-reliance and the confidence that what goes around comes around.

Here are a couple of creative ways you can give small amounts of money to make someone’s day special:

• Tuck a $1 bill into several children’s books at the library.
• Give someone a tip who you normally wouldn’t. For example, the carhop at the drive in who isn’t really a waitress and doesn’t usually get tips.

Giving creatively is a great way to get started on the track to live a rich life.

Pay it Forward

You’ve heard of the pay it forward movement haven’t you?  The pay it forward movement is supposed to be an act of charity (although that has been debated) which in turn helps you earn some good karma.

There are ways to pay it forward besides just paying for someone else’s latte at Starbucks, including passing on jobs to other people in your industry when you simply don’t have time to take them on yourself. For instance, when I started as a freelance writer, I got a couple of jobs via recommendations from more established bloggers who weren’t looking for any more jobs. They could’ve chosen to work more hours and take the job themselves, but instead they paid it forward.

Paying it forward is also about pursuing something besides just money, like happiness and a work-life balance.

Invest in Happiness

The final way you can live a rich life (and hopefully more monetary riches too) is to invest in your happiness. We all like to say that “money can’t buy happiness”, but is that totally true? I’d argue that sometimes money can indeed buy some happiness.

As I pointed out above, when someone is struggling and you decide to pay it forward, they probably feel happiness. When a child opens a library book and finds a $1 bill they will probably feel happy. So can money buy happiness?

Another example where money can buy happiness can be found in a research project from Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert Ph.D. Here is some of what his study says according to Business Insider:

“This sentiment is lovely, popular, and almost certainly wrong,” says Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert in a paper he coauthored.

Money provides an “opportunity for happiness” the authors say, since moneyed people can live longer and healthier lives, enjoy financial security, have leisure time, and control what they do every day.

Gilbert and his colleagues suggest spending on the following in order to live a rich life:

• Experiences, not things.
• Helping others instead of yourself.
• Many small pleasures instead of few large ones.
• Buy less insurance.
• Pay now and consume later.
• Think about what’s it’s really like to own the things you want to buy.
• Stop comparison shopping.
• Ask your friends’ advice.

Do you live a rich life? Do you practice any of these 3 things so you can live a rich life? What do you think about Dan Gilbert’s study and suggestions for aligning your spending to create ultimate happiness?

3 Ways to Live a Rich Life is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

If you can believe it, 2015 is almost 50% over already! Yowza!! When did that happen?

If you are anything like me, you set some lofty goals for the year: for your life, your finances, and everything else.

My goals list for 2015 included things like:

• Pay off $5,000 of debt (principal).
• Reach $1,500 of emergency fund savings.
• Attend FinCon15 and pay in cash.
• Paint my home office.
• Declutter some books.
• Limit my spending on clothes.
• Quit my full-time job by the end of the year.

Even with some pretty exciting, fun, and scary goals on that list, I still had a lot of other things in mind that I also wanted to accomplish in 2015.

Some of them are little things which is why they didn’t make it on the list, and others are things like have more time to spend with my family, friends, and pets, which is part of the motivation behind me accomplishing the goals on my 2015 list.

Personally, I think goals are great to have. They keep you motivated and focused on what matters, at least as long as you go about setting them correctly.

Sometimes goals have to be changed before they are met. For instance, last year I had to reduce one of my goals because there was NO WAY I was going to make it, which made it depressing instead of motivating. This year I had to scratch one off the list. (If you can’t guess which one, you must be living under a rock, haha.) After only about 3 months I had already completely failed at my goal of limiting my clothes spending for the year to a certain threshold. But ever since I scratched it off the list, I’ve actually done better at limiting my spending on fashion.

Anyway, the point of this post isn’t to argue about if you should set goals or not (which you totally should in my opinion) but instead to point out that we are nearly 50% through the year. This means you should be nearly 50% through your goals.

If you are way too far ahead or behind of the 50% mark, now is the time to re-asses not only your goals by why you set them in the first place.

When you asses your goals and progress and you find you are way off, here’s what you should do:

Too Far Ahead

If you happen to be one of the lucky people who are 75-80% or more done with your yearly goals, you should take this opportunity to make them bigger.

For instance, this year I’m going to crush my debt payoff goal. Since I already know this, I’m going to re-set my goal to a higher amount so I’ll still be challenge and have to stretch to reach my new goal by the end of the year. This will keep me motivated and working hard.

Too Far Behind

Womp womp womp! Sometimes we fall too far behind in our goals. That’s ok, it happens. Instead of wallowing and feeling bad about it, use this opportunity to figure out why you are behind.

If the only reason you are behind is because of an un-foreseen circumstance or because you set your goal too high, simply adjust it down to just outside of reach and keep going!

But if you find that you are no longer motivated to reach your goal because you no longer care about it, you should abandon it now. There’s no sense in striving for something you don’t care about. Instead you should set a new goal in it’s place to reflect your new direction.

No matter where you are at when you asses your 2015 progress vs. your 2015 goals, there’s still time to rectify the situation and make great progress the rest of the year.

Where are you at with your 2015 goals?

Are You 50% Done With Your 2015 Goals? is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.