When I quit drinking coffee last year, and thus my once-twice-thrice-sometimes daily habit of white mochas, I didn’t think that I would still be called into the mermaid’s lair so often. I didn’t give her or my lack of willpower and abundance of boredom credit. I simply replaced coffee with tea. And then I changed things around again, and started getting tea lattes made with soy.

Because I needed convincing that I was doing something healthy?

I average one visit per day to the green-and-white coloured dealer in my financial fate. The latte effect has come upon this house, taunted it, kicked it in the balls and then called its mama fat – that’s how bad the habit has me. But no more.

See, the great thing about being the stocking stuffer-er at Christmas time is that I get to decide what goes into my own stocking. So, I got the cheapest, largest, easiest-to-hand-wash travel tumbler with a humongous Starbucks logo on it. Because I’m a coffee-label whore, apparently.

And so that I can stop throwing out (what I really mean is recycling, but still) so many disposable cups, given how often I’d visit the stores. Add in this whole let’s save all the money we possibly can scenario and the tumbler becomes the whip in this Starbucks S & M goal fantasy.

Zee Goal: I can only get Starbucks once a week, and only if I have my tumbler, unless I have a client-meeting there (in which case, I should get a ceramic mug) – no more often and no more disposable cups. The added bonus of not being an asshole to the environment is that Starbucks gives you a $0.10 discount, when you bring in your own cup.

This goal can run in conjunction with Dossier #1a, since neither one of them is gonna help the other guy out. It’s every bad habit for them self, out there.

Estimated annual savings: $1240

As I tweeted, I’m aware of how backward quitting smoking might be, in order to move to a country stereotyped as full of smokers, wine-drinkers and cheese-and-baguette-eaters. Especially since I don’t drink alcohol (especially wine) or eat cheese (migraines, plus maximum farting output equals avoidance), either. But I figure, as long as I figure out how to make gluten-free baguettes, I can still partake in some of the everyday-France kind of stuff.

Or I can just start smoking again once I get there.

You see, for once, I’m not going to try to quit for health reasons, or because it’s a bad example for my kid to witness, or because smokers are being pushed out of the very realm of society, nowadays. I’m quitting plainly to save the bucks I would be spending every other day on a pack of those filthy (tasty) emphysema-begeters.

And this isn’t my first time, and it won’t be free to quit, if last time’s any indication. Last time, I quit for two point five weeks, using the patch and rewarding myself at the two-week mark with a nose ring.  This means that it cost me approximately $80 to quit smoking; if I hadn’t tried to quit, I would have spent about $65. Then I promptly started smoking again.

Cue head::desk.

This time, I won’t be quite so luxurious in my rewards, but I do still plan to use the patch for the intended eight weeks. Instead, I will stock up on those hideously expensive home-wax jobs known as nicotine replacement therapy and I will reward myself with girliness – as in a Lush bubble bar at the end of every successful week.

Estimated annual savings: $700

Anyone can be watching you on the day that you don’t exercise. Eat doughnuts. Unearth the credit card for a virtual trip to Etsy. Something crazed, like 70% of resolutions have been broken before it’s even Valentine’s Day – a day you very well might have wanted to lose the weight for, save the money up to treat on, or get lap-dance-quality abs in honour of.

There’s a rumour the productivity people are trying to spread around: if you call it a goal, you’re more likely to keep the resolution goal. If you find little micro-goals, that will become catalysts for the big-bad-crazy resolution goal, you’re more likely to surf the big kahuna and look better than Frankie Avalon doing it. And if you want to ‘roids-free version of resolution goal home runs, you set a resolution goal for each month or so, since it takes an average of three weeks or just after for a habit (or the quitting of said tasty, wonderful, nicotine-laden habit) to stick.

I have an field-goal coming my way, if I can just keep my nose in the game and get the damn ball through the uprights: Paris. As in, the moving of us to it.

I figure it will be magical and unforgettable and educational and momentous. Also, it will cost an ass-ton between visas, and moving and travelling costs, plus there’s, you know, living expenses while we’re there. Me? I plan to freelance and maybe try to find an assistant ESL position because I’ve heard that they’re minimum effort for minimum time and maximum dollah dollah bills and really? I just need some sponsorship, to keep the visa aspect as easy as possible.

That being said. I plan to save at least a figure which is more than $9,999 saved up before I consider going. I plan to have Zoë and I well-equipped in French. I also plan to take almost nothing with us except for those really important books and toys and clothes – everything else will be stored until we figure out if we’re coming back or not.

So. Grandiose, yup, but doable. There’s an unofficial time-clock starting now, can you hear it? I’d prefer to be there before Zoë’s 6th birthday, when she would be school-aged, so that gives us less than 2.5 years – in fact, I’d prefer to be there within a year and a half, but hey, wiggle room, right?

How will I do it? Operation Miser’s my New Year’s resolution goal: Save, instead of spend; buy what’s needed, instead of what’s cheap but will be a waste; splurge minimally, instead of always; think before I buy, instead of brainlessly handing over cash; plan, instead of flying by the worn-out seat of my pants.

Cuz Mama’s gonna wanna be able to afford more pants in France.