Okay, take a pause. How is it possible that New Year’s Day is almost a month ago?! I know, I question how time flies every single month.

Even though the New Year has passed, the Chinese New Year is coming! Yay to all the Hong Baos (Red Packets that the younger generation gets from Married Couples) that I will be getting in this new year!

For those who don’t know about the CNY traditions, the red packets are a form of blessing from the older generations. And for the young generations, we often have to say New Year greetings to get them. Some auspicious phrases include 恭喜发财 ，大吉大利 (May you have good luck and profits), 升官发财 (May you be promoted and given a raise), 心想事成 (May your wishes come through) and many more.

1. COVER PAGE

This Cover Page is a reflection of all the Chinese New Years festivities. I’ve been inspired by intuitive_curiosity on Reddit. In this spread, I included a cute red fan and a huge red lantern and calligraphed “February” on the banner.

I really like having the Red in this spread. So this is the accent colour for the rest of the spread!

2. CALENDAR, GOAL TRACKER AND QUOTE

The rest of the February spread is a more minimalistic spread. So, the calendar is nothing too special, just a simple one for the bigger events in the month.

At the bottom of the spread, I left some space for me to write down my monthly goals for each of the three big areas of my life, Studies, Blog and Business.

Finally, a quote page which signifies 恭贺新禧 which means Happy New Year! Fireworks. It is decorated with some of the essential things that we’ll see during Chinese New Year.

On the left, from top to bottom, 福 (Blessing) which is often hung upside down (倒) because the wording sounds similarly to Blessing Coming (福到). Golden Coins, 發財 (To Get Rich) on an auspicious red scroll, candies and Mandarin Oranges (Which we always bring while visiting other households).

On the right, from top to bottom, 平安 (Safe) is hung on a keychain, an ingot (To signify wealth in abundance), Sparklers (What’s a party without some fireworks?) and most importantly 红包 (Red envelopes with cash gifts) with the word “财“ (Wealth) on the red packet.

In case you haven’t realized, the Chinese love to wish each other to get rich and/or be rich HAHAHA.

3. HABIT TRACKER

In the New Year, I wanted to refresh my memory on my New Years Resolution for 2021. One of the ways to reach my New Years Resolution is through having habits.

The quote by John C. Maxwell says “You’ll never change your life until you CHANGE something you do DAILY”. This is very true in my opinion because I believe that any tasks done consistently will reap great benefits. So, persevere with all your habits!! We’ll all get there someday (Hopefully within 66 days) 🙆🏻

I’ve decided to split my habits into 3 categories (Monthly, Weekly and Daily).

This will better keep track of my habits and remind me that I need to make sure that I will do all that!

The habits that I decided to upkeep monthly is to Bullet Journal monthly, conduct a monthly review, have a no phone day, change my bedsheets, go for my monthly dental appointment and log my period tracker.

The habits for weekly includes reading (a book), blog (a post), workout (ranging from Yoga to Golf to Squash, depending on the type of activity I choose that week), keeping up to date with my Spanish tracker (See my post here on what that tracker is all about), apply for a job (because it is time to step into the real world 😳) and have myself a Me Day (It is probably not very realistic to have it weekly but it serves as a reminder that self-care is super important!).

Finally, my daily habits. Every year, I always want to document my days (and I try to do so as frequently as possible through my diary), sleep by 12 am and wake up by 8:30 am (SleepTown app), skincare, have more water intake (PlantNanny app), and tracking my expenses (FortuneCity app). All information on the tracker apps can be found in this blog post here.

4. EXPENSE TRACKER

Keeping my expenses tracked is a very important part of my journey to becoming more financially independent. So, this is one of the most important spreads that I need!

But, I don’t always record my expenses down (Especially the cash transactions) as I don’t always have my Bullet Journal with me. So, I use the application Fortune City to keep track of my expenses daily. You can find out more about this application in this blog post here.

How I use this expense tracker is there are two parts to it. Firstly, recording the beginning balance for your bank and wallet and secondly, the debit-credit to track all expenses. I will be using data recorded on FortuneCity in this spread.

At the end of each month, using the data from above, I will do a monthly Profit and Loss Statement, using the income I’ve garnered and deduct the expenses in this spread. Take the ending balance, and deduct the beginning balance, it should match the amounts reflected in your bank accounts and in your wallet.

For a more instructional way of how I set up my monthly expenses, do check out this post here for more information!

Do take note that you are discouraged from writing your bank balance in this spread. You don’t want people peeking and having bad thoughts. Just use the ending balance from the previous month on your bank statements!

5. WEEKLY SPREAD

My weekly spread in yet another layout. This month, I’ve chosen to use this as my daily spread. I’ve included a little calendar at the top left corner and also a little doddle box at the bottom for each week. I’m really proud of how these little doodles came out hehe.

In the middle, it’s a simple layout for each day of the week to denote the tasks which I have for the day as well as my schedule for each day. For a 15 minute quick setup of how I plan each day over in this blog post here.

In the last column, those are just little goals each week which I should accomplish. I have to confess that I don’t always accomplish this list but I do try my best each week.

6. MEMORIES AND REVIEW

One of my favourite things to do is to look over photos and record some of my memories. I do realize that I don’t take enough photos to commemorate my life. Instastories don’t count though since I often don’t include myself in them. So, this is to encourage more photo-taking with me in them.

My monthly review is used to reflect on what went great in the month (which I want to continue) and reflect on what went wrong (which I want to find alternatives for a better month ahead).

Every month, I also want to record down some of the things which I learnt as a sign of growing month on month.

With that, I hope that this Chinese New Year, you’ll have a wonderful and blessed one ahead in the 牛 (which sounds like New) Year ahead! 恭喜发财，大吉大利，心想事成！