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12 Things I Want to Become Proficient at in 2025

Who wants a $500 Amazon Gift Card?! (2 Winners!)

FREE Printable Simplified Home Checklists!

12 Things I Want to Become Proficient at in 2025

Yesterday I shared my 25 goals for January. In that post, I mentioned one of my goals was to learn to make some new-to-me things and that I’d tell you more about this today!

In 2024, I set a goal to learn how to make sourdough bread. I am so thrilled to report that not only did I learn how to make sourdough, I feel like I really became proficient at it.

And then I went on to learn how to make sourdough pancakes, sourdough waffles, sourdough English muffins, whole wheat sourdough, and sourdough bagels.

Inspired by my sourdough success, I also tried my hand at making fermenting kombucha, sauerkraut, and water kefir. I wasn’t a huge fan of the kombucha or sauerkraut, but we loved the water kefir and I made many batches of it!

I also perfected French Bread and Overnight Artisan Bread this year!

These successes in the kitchen gave me the idea to set a goal to try to become proficient at 12 new-to-me things in 2025. Most of these are food related, but not all of them area.

I polled my audience on Instagram to get ideas for things I should learn and then took there ideas, thought about what would inspire me most and what were things I’ve really wanted to learn to do. From all of that, I picked 12 things I want to learn in 2025. My goal is to focus on one area per month.

Here’s my list:

12 Things I Want to Attempt to Become Proficient at in 2025

1. Making Homemade Focaccia (using my sourdough)

2. Making Homemade Yogurt (I’ve made this in the crockpot before, but I want to learn how to make it in the instant pot and find a recipe that we all love!)

3. Making Homemade Vanilla (can you believe I’ve never made this before??)

4. Making Homemade Noodles

5. Making Homemade Mozzarella Cheese (This one honestly feels the most intimidating from my list!)

6. Making Nontoxic Candles

7. Making Homemade Croissants

8. Making Homemade Pretzels

9. Making Homemade Silver Dollar City Cinnamon Bread

10. Making Homemade Lotion

11. Making Homemade Hamburger Buns

12. Making Homemade Mayo

I have a few other things I want to learn/try: like making sourdough bread with mix-ins, making chocolate sourdough bread, and making homemade soap again. But I’m going to start with the list above and then if I feel like I’m proficient in the thing I picked for each month, I can add something else that month to try that’s not on the list if I want to!

I’ll be documenting what I’m trying and learning and experimenting with over on Instagram stories in more real-time and then sharing some of the journey here in posts on the blog!

What are you hoping to learn in 2025? Tell us in the comments!

Coming tomorrow: The list of all the books I read in 2024 + my top 4 favorites!

P.S. Just for fun, I thought I’d share a post from 2012 where I set this same goal. Unfortunately, I didn’t do a great job of following through that year — a lot of it had to do with me picking things I wasn’t really excited to try, choosing a specific month for each so then I felt boxed in, and also it just being a season of my life where I was traveling so much and exhausted so much of the time. Really hoping for better success this coming year!

Who wants a $500 Amazon Gift Card?! (2 Winners!)

To celebrate the holiday season and to say THANK YOU for being here, we’ve been doing a FUN 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway! And we’re going out with a bang with today’s final giveaway! But keep an eye on our website, because we plan to continue giveaways in 2025!

12 Days of Christmas Giveaway #12: TWO $500 Amazon Gift Cards

For the final giveaway this season, we’re giving away TWO $500 Amazon gift cards!

Here’s how to enter: It’s super simple! Just go follow us on Facebook and leave 3 comments on your favorite deals we’ve posted this week. Leave a comment on this post saying you did so.

That’s it! We’ll pick two of you at random from the comments on this post to win the $500 Amazon gift cards and notify you by email.

Giveaway ends Sunday night, December 29th, at midnight. Good luck!

Giveaway is not sponsored and the gift cards are personally provided by Money Saving Mom, LLC. No purchase necessary to enter the giveaway. Two winners will be selected at the end of day, December 29, 2024 and be contacted by email.

FREE Printable Simplified Home Checklists!

Do you feel overwhelmed with daily household tasks? If so, grab our FREE printable Simplified Home Checklists to make things easier!

Have you ever felt like staying on top of allllllllll the regular household tasks can feel like a never-ending job? If so, download our FREE Simplified Home Checklists to have a super simple easy-to-follow system!

When you download the these checklists, you’ll get:

An easy set of regular household tasks for you to quickly go through and check off each morning, afternoon, and evening so you can feel more on top of things all day long.
Extra space and some ideas for you to personalize your lists with tasks that are unique to you.
Two versions to choose from for those who are home most of the day and those who are away from home most of the day. (You get both versions, so that you can decide which is best for you!)
Weekly, monthly, quarterly, and even annual checklists for your tasks that need to be done regularly, but not daily.

These simple lists will not only help you simplify your life and save you time, but they will help you start your day with a few quick and easy wins! And here’s the thing I’ve learned: when you start your day with a few quick wins, you’ll usually be inspired to follow those with even more wins and productivity!

Click below to save your sanity and streamline your day — starting today! Here’s to less stress and more joy and organization in our lives!