I have been busy since I got back from my honeymoon. I did a lot of mystery shops. The end of the month is a good time to do them because the remaining shops usually have good bonuses. After doing five days of mystery shops I started my new job yesterday and worked it today as well and have a mystery shop to do tonight. I’ve been neglecting my blog because I’ve felt so busy and just don’t want to deal with it at the end of the day. I don’t know how people who run blogs on top of doing a full time job do it. Neglecting my blog doesn’t seem to have hurt it though. My Alexa ranking is its highest ever and I finally reached 500 RSS subscribers which was one of my goals last year. Maybe I should neglect it some more and see if I get even more readers. 
Speaking of goals I did terrible on my July goals. My first goal was to lose 8 pounds to get down to 210 pounds. My weight at the end of the month was 217.4 pounds. I didn’t get close to losing the weight. This is not surprising since I didn’t maintain an exercise routine or cut back on my soda and junk food. I’m going to set a goal of getting down to 210 pounds again. Actually, a better goal is to exercise three times a week and cut my junk food spending in half. If I meet those two goals I will have a good chance of meeting my weight loss goal.
My second goal was to cut back on my driving. I haven’t checked my final mileage figures but I am pretty sure I didn’t make much progress on that. I did a lot of driving at the end of the month for mystery shops. Now that I have a regular job there should be a lot less miles driven this month. I will continue to monitor this and make an effort to reduce unnecessary driving.
The third goal was to reduce my spending. I knew this would be difficult since I had my wedding and honeymoon in July. I didn’t make this goal but if you take out the wedding and honeymoon expenses I would have made it. I actually only spent about $50 more in July as compared to June. Since my hotel and airfare for the honeymoon were already paid and all my food, drinks, and show tickets in Vegas were comped I only spent about $200 while on my honeymoon. This month I am aiming to see for a significant reduction in my expenses. I do need to get some work done on my car though which might cost a bit. Even if I don’t reduce my expenses my income should be up this month and I need to start adding to my savings again.
We are having our wedding reception this weekend. After that I start on a regular work schedule next week. It might be nice to actually get into a routine.
