New Year's Resolutions: The Granny Project

After a month of working on my project which some may call a New Year's resolution, I have something I can finally sit down and write.
A little background so you can understand the idea of this project. My paternal grandparents lived on a farm in rural Alabama. A small one from what I understand but still a farm. My maternal grandparents lived on the coast of Florida and made a living from the bay.
Both sets of grandparents used and reused many of the things that nowadays we just throw away or donate. And that got me thinking...this year I didn't need some silly resolution that by February I'd have completely failed but I needed a change.
And here's where The Granny Project was born.
This will be a long journey but my goals are simple to achieve.
The big picture is that by year's end I'll be closer to living my day to day as my grandparents did. Simply and clean.
January's goal was to track how I spent my income, think about purchases and not to bring anything into the house that we couldn't use.
I spent several weekends focusing on each room in our house and sorting through what we use and preparing for a yard sale for the stuff that held no purpose for our household any longer.
I know you are thinking that this is a task I've been on for quite sometime. I have but with a new mindset the task became more focused and well meaning.
We haven't made any purchases this month that clutter the house so that yard sale was more than profitable in my opinion. We earned about $60 and can see our garage again.
In tracking our spending, I kept a notebook on each week's non essential purchases right down to the Redbox rentals. I'll continue to keep track through the year until we curb our bad habits.
In January, we spent around $245 on things we could have lived without. That may sound like a lot  or very little to some of you but I've got this new view and to me, I think I'd rather be pocketing that $200+ into my savings! My notebook has helped me focus and think about what I'm doing.
Our days are so overfilled compared to how our grandparents lived. It's easy to stop for take out on the way home or just go shopping. My grandmother probably had to wait to go into town for the things she needed and I'm fairly certain she wanted for none of our ways of shopping. Black Friday and Cyber Monday would probably make her shake her head at us all.
January's goal was met. It carries over into February and each month I set myself a new goal.
February's goal is simply continuing with what I've learned in January and focusing more on meal planning.
Curbing the clutter and overspending!