Taking Control

January is a time for new beginnings, though I suppose that could be said about many times of year--spring with life re-emerging, August/September with school restarting, etc, so I guess any time you're ready to restart is a time for new beginnings, but now is our time.

Our new beginning starts with Josh's new job.  After being under-employed for the past year and a half after earning his master's degree (he's been working as an adjunct at a local community college), he now has a full time job.  This is a huge change for us.  We'll be better off financially, but we're losing much of the time we used to spend together, so it's a huge adjustment.  We've been used to having him home much of the time, and he's been able to run errands whenever, take care of the house, and just do anything that's needed done.  That's changing now, as he's working 45+ hours a week, so we're discovering a new balance of running the household, and I'm having to take much more responsibility for it, which I'm not sure he's loving (I have much higher standards than he does when it comes to taking care of the house).

We're also getting our finances in better order.  This is a journey we started last year.  Our immediate goals are to have the car paid off by July and to start setting aside $100/month to increase our emergency savings account.  We're also going to be paying cash for my master's degree, which I'll start this summer.  All of our increased income from Josh's job will be going towards meeting these goals.

We're taking control over our health, too.  I'm making a big effort to cook more of our meals from scratch, so we can avoid food filled with preservatives and also eat out less, which saves money and calories.  We're also working out more.  I mainly stick to walking, but Josh has been doing an amazing job with EA Sports Active 2 on the Wii.  It has a heart monitor, unlike the other workout "games," so it does a much better job calculating actual calories burned.  He's been waking up at five most mornings to work out before work, and he's generally burning 400+ calories, which is great.  I need to use him as inspiration to do more.

So join us on our journey to take control of our lives, and share your journeys with us, too, as you do the same.