Month In Review: January 2021

January flew by so fast, and so it’s time for a little roundup of the month.

In January 2021, I wrote/published 21 posts which is 16 more than in January 2020. My blog received about 45% more page views than a year ago.

My goals and resolutions for 2021

Blogging

Well, I guess when it comes to my goals and resolutions, then January has been quite okay. I did publish more posts, increased my page views, and also was able to earn a bit more. Unfortunately, I still have to work on growing my income from blogging because what I’m currently earning from blogging isn’t enough. I guess I should raise my rates, but with some ongoing cooperations, it might be a slippery road 🙁

Eating healthy and exercising

When it comes to eating healthy, exercising more, and losing weight then that’s another story. I have been more active. Since we have snow then we have been outside walking/sledding/ playing in the snow almost daily, plus when I had free time I also went walking. I would have preferred running, but since I don’t have those special running shoes meant for slippery conditions then no running for me at this point. Oh, and instead of a gym I have been shoveling the snow almost daily and sometimes 3-4 times a day 🙂

I’m so sad that Endomondo stopped working. I loved Endomondo – it was easy to use and never failed me. Since it was advised to use MapMyRun (or MapMyWalk or MapMyRide or MapMyFitness) instead, then I downloaded and gave it a try. Oh boy, I hate it. I especially hate its voice feedback! It’s so robotic and so hard to understand (I’m not a native English speaker).

So I downloaded SportsTracker. The voice feedback seems okay. But when I used Sports Tracker and MapMyRun simultaneously then there was a distance difference between the two apps. I Googled and read reviews and decided to download the third app – Strava. Well, it seemed okay, but for some reason its voice feedback doesn’t work during a workout. When I start the workout the voice feedback says that it started but that’s it. So annoying!

The next problem – how to sync my Fitbit app with the fitness app? Strava works perfectly with my Fitbit and all workouts I track with Strava are visible on Fitbit app. But unfortunately, so far I haven’t been able to connect MpMyRun with Fitbit although they should work perfectly together. And well, the Sports Tracker seems hopeless.

Eating healthy part has been a bit problematic, especially when there are some new baking recipe’s I had to try. But overall I think I have done a pretty good job avoiding unhealthy fats and excess sugar in my food. I did lose a bit of weight but unfortunately, I still need to lose about 5-7kg.

Budget

Although I planned to do the 52-week money challenge, then I just ended up putting away 31€ (1€ for each day in January). Since all the winter sales and clearances are going on right now and I usually buy all my boys’ next winter clothes during those sales then saving more money is rather hard. I have cut all my expenses as much as possible and really buying only things I really really really need.

Goals for February

For February I don’t have any new additional goals. I just keep on working on those goals mentioned because there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

How did you January 2021 go? What are your goals for this month? Let me know in the comments! 🙂