Who I am and what I want from this blog

Here is some background on me and my family. My husband and I have been married for almost 16 years and we have three boys - ages 13, 12 and 10. They are very active in sports. My husband coaches when he can and I am usually a team manager as well as active in the associations. This keeps us way too busy and way too broke! One of the changes I want to make in our lives with this move is to be able to still volunteer but not to the degree that we do now. the commitments I have keep me from being able to give all that I can to my family, and while what I give to the community benefits my kids directly as they are entering the teenage years I feel like they need me more directly in their faces to help guide them.


I have a degree in Microbiology that I don't use and am currently enrolled in a University Certificate in Accounting, which I am way behind in - see above paragraph for why. I am also working fulltime as a night auditor which means I work from 10pm to 6am and sleep while the kids are at school. DH got his class 1 licence in the summer and is now working as a tow truck driver so he works on call 4 on 2 off, which means we rarely are home at the same time. Our employment opportunities where we currently live are limited and this is the driving force behind the move - to improve our financial position. Even though I know in the short run the move will be difficult financially it will get better quickly, especially if I can apply the lessons I have been learning.

We have some debt, not horrendous, but enough that it hurts the monthly cash flow. The bulk of it comes from a loan to purchase a travel trailer, which we use a great deal and gives us a lot of pleasure so I consider it good debt. A small bit (<$2k) comes from a business loan my dad secured for me to open a craft/scrapbooking store several years ago which failed. And then we have about $8k that we have racked up over the past two years from unemployment and underemployment. I am not too worried about the debt (all together about $35K) as it will be paid off when we sell the house. I am more concerned about our daily spending and staying on budget. And I want to use this blog to help me do that. I will report weekly and monthly on our spending and where we stand with our budget.

Hand in hand or rather hand in mouth with that is our food spending and waste. The biggest part of our spending is food. I know I can cut those costs if I can be better organized - plan meals, plan shopping and watch waste. I have been inspired by The Frugal Girl's Food Waste Fridays and will participate from now on.

Our house which will be going on the market soon is in need of some major TLC. We purchased it new 12 years ago and it still has the original paint and carpet. There has just never been enough time or money to do these things and now it is an issue. Along with the updating that needs to happen major decluttering has to happen as well to prepare the house and also us for the move. This is something else I will be using the blog for - to hold myself accountable in this process. I will pick one day a week to set goals and report on my progress.

In the next few days I will post more concrete goals in each area and start mapping out my plans of action. I am a list person and function best that way, somehow over the last while I have gotten out of the habit and it shows in my motivation and productivity. Here is to a better 2010!