My life and I've had enough!

This will be a long post I think. I need to take stock of my life and now seems as good as any time to do it. Here we go.

 

I am 31yrs old, weight 117.3kg, with a waist circumference I don't want to think of and £18901 in debt. Yup, you read all that right. I don't own anything major other than my car, I rent my apartment and I have a pretty good standard of life – albeit one that has been funded by credit rather than earnings. I'm tired of living like this – the constant roller coaster of getting out of debt and back into it, losing weight and putting it on again, over and over and over again. I've figured out that it will take me 12months to reach a weight I am happy with at a reasonable rate of loss, but TWO YEARS to get out of debt completely on my current rate of pay. So let's tackle all this one thing at a time.

 

1) Weight. I am over weight. I am obese. In fact, I may even be morbidly obese (I stopped worrying about the categories of obesity a long time ago). I can lose weight quickly when I set my mind to it, and I know where I can cut back to lose weight, but if I do the same old things I've always done before then I will get the same results I have always gotten. So something different needs to be tried. I've lost a stone over the last three months just by eating when I'm hungry and logging my food. This is fine – and it is a rate of loss that would have me looking slimmer than I have done for years, but I need to stick with it a while longer.  2kg a month will have me FOUR STONE lighter next year in time for my wedding. Think how great that would be.

 

2) Finances. At my current rate of repayment, I will still be £9000 in debt on the day of my wedding. That's assuming my wedding expenses are not covered by credit either. I can manage that. On the other hand, I am sure I can raise extra money in other ways as well. I have things in the house I can sell – books, dvds, cds, clothes. Thank God for ebay. If I took one room per month and did a really thorough emptying and admitted to myself the things I don't/won't use anymore, I'm sure I would find enough to make an impact on the debt. I'm also looking at ways to earn money from home. I think there are a number of websites that crowdsource so I will have a look at those. I can type reasonably well,  am articulate and I'm good at taking down and managing information. I'm also good at maths which might help with some things. For every hundred extra quid per month I can throw towards the debt, that's another month at the end knocked off. So every extra pound that goes towards the debt, is another pound that's free later on for living on.

 

3) Expenses. Generally, I've not been paying attention to what I've been spending and where recently. Petrol and food prices have shot up and while I should be getting by on half a tank of petrol a month, for some reason, I'm  squandering a full tank. This isn't really acceptable and from now on all journeys will be carefully measured. I'm also going to start cooking good proper meals again. I've been living on snacks and takeaways and sandwiches – none of which really help the money or the weight. So, I will be making a meal plan for a week and make full use of everything possible. I have been throwing away food in recent times which is not only a waste of food but a waste of money as well. There are things in my freezer that could easily be eaten as well. So the challenge this month is to see how little I can spend on food for the rest of it........

 

4) The wedding. By any account we will need £10000 for the wedding. But that's assuming we pay full price for everything. Thank God, Ma and Da are paying for the food, so that's a major expense out of the way, but we still have things like bridesmaids outfits, wedding dress, stationary, flowers, cars, entertainment, photos.......there's a lot of money going on here. If I can get in with the sales on most things, that would be good. I think I need to start a wedding folder as well to see where things are and how we can manage it. I may even see when what sales are on and all the rest – see what kind of deal the florist will do for me.......and oh Lord the cake1!! Currently costs are looking like this:

My dress - £800

Bridesmaids - £200 (total)

Cake - £300

Photgrapher - £700

Flowers - £250

Cars - £250

Entertainment - £500

 

So £3000 and counting.......

 

It's all still up in the air of course and there are obviously places we can cut back on with this. I need to decide what's important for me not what's going to please everyone else. But it's hard....really hard.......

 

So overall – financially, I'm screwed at the minute. Weight wise I'm not much better. But this is my line in the sand and it goes no further. It gets no worse. £9000 is the MAX I'm willing to be in debt on my wedding day, not one penny more!