Lets start with I am terrible with grammar, spelling, writing, so if you can bear with the shittyness of my structure and such it would be appricated. I will get better as I go, also will add videos, photos, and hopefully a podcast as I get shit figured out
The Family
Im Chris a 30 year old Husband, and father of 2 amazing girls. My awesome wife Carrie (also 30, and 1 month and 1 week older than me, but whos counting) and my daughters Penny 3 and Parker 2 are my world I would do anything for them.
The Current Situation
I work for a Petroelum construction and service company as a service technician. Carrie is a real estate agent and beginning blogger http://www.travelingrealestatemom.com . I make a good living around 90k+ depending on how busy our company is. We own one 4 unit rental properly on a lease option contract with 3 units plus a garage rented to tenants and one unit in need of $10,000 plus of renovation which we will hopefully be able to take care of this year. As stated earlier I am way over weight at 250lbs at 5’9” and have been for a few years, I need to make a change in my health big time so I can be around for my wife and girls. The $75000 debt is largely due to purchasing the rental I have with rose colored glasses on about 4 or 5 years ago with no capital plan on how to make it profitable. This has been a great learning experience though and we do plan on making much better real estate investments moving forwards. The other debt is from travel and being stupid the first 30 years of our lives and finally making a decision we need to get our shit together.
The Plans for A Change in health
I have been a voracious listener to podcasts, audiobooks, and other forms of personal development for years. Im going to take that knowledge I have been acquiring and half ass implemting for years, put it into a plan ( semi important) then stick to that plan no matter how lazy and useless I feel like being (SUPER IMPORTANT). A plan without action is a fucking waste of time. Trust me I’ve spent hours planning and plotting things out in my head for years and with little to no action have accomplished very minimally due to this. In order to accomplish my personal, weigh loss, and finaninical goals I will preform the following actions.
1. Wake up consistently 7 days a week at 4 or 5 Am depending on what I have going on for work that day. I’ve been saying this for months if not years, but will implement this tomorrow 6/26/18 to meet my goals set on my home page. This I feel is going to create a discipline that will affect every other area of my life.
2. Work out in some form every morning even if it’s just walking for 20-30 minutes to wake up. I will struggle with this as well, but the main reason I am starting this blog is to get this written down by me and out into the world so even if no one is reading this I will be held accountable.
3. Put better food in my body as often as possible. I’m going to be completely honest I already fucked this up for this morning I had 2 doughnuts for no other reason except boardem. I feel the main reason I eat bad is due to boardem or to avoid doing something’s else this adds up to a very unhealthy combination. I can’t count the number of times I’ve pulled into a drive through and thought to myself as I’m ordering I’m not fucking hungry why am I here. Rarely after that thought I have had the will power to just pull right back out or order an unsweetened iced tea or coffee or something.
These 3 actions I will struggle the most with, I have never been great at waking up early except if needed for work, aside from organized sports have never kept a consistent workout program going, and love the shit out of pretty much anything unhealthy. As I am writing this I am realizing unless I have structure behind something I tend to suck ass at it.
4. Meditate daily. I have very intermittently been meditating on and off for a year or so now and do notice a differnence in how I deal with life when I make the time to meditate. With work, 2 kids and general life I am piss poor at making time for this highly beneficial action. Waking up earlier in the day will ensure I make the time needed to get even 10 minutes a day in.
Financial changes
Between not being great at delayed gratification( luckily I don’t want much), having big dreams I tend to poorly execute, and having a wonderful (seriously wonderful not sarcastically) wife that forces us to travel ( really not a bad thing at all, but I would probably just wait my whole life until my shit was perfect before going anywhere fun) we have put ourselves in a semi shitty financial situation. Before I go on I know we are extremely blessed and could be way worse off I am beyond greatful everyday for everything we have, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy with where I’ve put us financially. I also do feel if your not trying to better yourself you are likely going to be back pedaling.
1. Be bad debt free by 33. What this means To me. I will have no debt that is over 7% interest that is not providing me with shelter, earning me a return greater than that 7% (rental property, business loan ect.) Why debt free by 33 I think it’s catchy and achievable. I will achieve this by being super stingy aside from travel because I do not want my family to miss out on that. Creating more income from overtime, more rental properties, and maybe someday this and or other websites.
2. Being creative. As stated above my first rental property is owned on a lease option, which means I am leasing it from the owner with an option to purchase it in the future. I obtained this property by calling people off craigslist for a month or so and finding this owner that was interested in selling one of several properties owned. This particular property was auctually a terrible purchase for me at the time I made it and how I treated it going forward, but with what I’ve leared from it and how I’ve dealt with it over the past year it is finically brining in money on a consistent basis as it should. We will hopefully be able to refi it with a rehab loan get the last unit rented and pay off some of the unsecured debt with 30 year low interest debt. My problems how not gone away by me ignoring them I took action and worked toward a solution, even though it’s been about a year and a lot of money in the making by acknowledging the problem and working towards a solution I am gradually resolving it. This is a long way of saying I will use similar strategies to help other people and acquire more assets.
3. Achieving my health, fitness, and general life goals. Achieving my other goals I have set will leave me with more energy, a clearer mind, leave me more prepared to deal with any other life situations that come up.
Conclusion
Overall I am a generally happy person. I also know that without putting forth a conscious daily effort I will not stay that way for long. I will trip, stumble, and fall along this journey, but need this out there to hold myself accountable. I hope this Journey will inspire someone to take one little action to make themselves better.
Fat2happy! 