Why I am starting this blog

First let me start by saying that my husband and I are both overweight, however we have no health issues and we actually both feel great. I am 35 and he is almost 35. We will be celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary this month. I have decided that I want to change my lifestyle. I want to SLIM down, but this does not just mean weight. While that is one aspect of what we want to achieve, there are others.

So what exactly do I mean by slimming down? Well we want to slim down the following:

*Bills
*Debt
*Weight
*Junk
*Spending

So this post I will talk a bit about each of those aspects.

Bills:

Really we only have a few of these anyhow, We have a mortgage, electric, water, TV/phone/Internet, cell phone, car insurance, personal property taxes, and one credit card.

Really none of these can be changed or dropped. Well we could just not use the credit card.

ELECTRIC AND WATER: We want to start conserving (with 3 kids that is hard) but we are wanting to teach them how to conserve, basically by turning things off when they leave the room, things like that.

MORTGAGE: We want to start paying more on, so that we can pay it off faster. We actually want a bigger house since we know have 3 children (the 2 above and our almost 13 yr old nephew).

TV/PHONE/INTERNET: Now many would say to drop this, but here is the issue, we attend college online and we have to have the Internet. I am also starting my Tupperware business and will be getting a fax machine, therefore I need the phone line (there are other reasons I need a Fax). The cable is more for the kids. I think my daughter would die without Disney channel, although, she could start watching shows on the Internet, so it could be possible to drop that, but then because we are bundled, we would only save about $5.00.

CELL PHONES: This is what we use as our phones, plus I use mine for my business. I will look into seeing if there is anyway to save some money.

CAR INSURANCE: Really we got the cheapest possible rate recently. I went and did a long search and got this to a really great rate. The only way to go cheaper is to not have it but the state will not like that to much.

PERSONAL PROPERTY TAXES: There is no way to change these.

Debt:

This is something that we have been working on for a while. Hopefully this will be the year we have what little is left taken care off. Except for our growing student loans.

Junk:

We are wanting to get our house organized and cleaned up and this means decluttering (in other words, cleaning out the junk). This is a work in progress. Something that there will be time dealing with throughout the year.

Spending:

We want to find ways to cut our grocery bill, not going out to eat, no fast food, only buying necessities. Not going overboard on gifts and parties and things of that nature.

Weight:

This is one that will be a big part of this, because my husband and I both want to lose weight. We will do a weigh in later this evening and we will start a exercise program together. We will be using out Wii fit, and hopefully be able to join the YMCA in the near future, hoping that maybe to do so in Feb and that way we can just pay for the whole year up front, so we do not have to worry about a monthly bill.

So that pretty much sums up what we are doing.

I decided to create this blog, so that hopefully we could get some tips from others on things and get support. Also maybe we can be an inspiration to others through our journey.