301k in debt and morbidly obese - things aren't great!

Wife safely tucked up in bed and kids snoring so I'll confess some more.

301k debts comprises:
48.2k on credit / store cards
3.3k on overdraft
27.3k on unsecured loans
221.3k on mortgage

At the start of this week I was recovering from a vasectomy, had the mother-in-law finishing her third week at my house, and weighed too much for the Wii Fit to measure me (ie, over 23stone 8).

Decided it was definitely time to confront the issues - and with mother-in-law dropped back at Heathrow it was time on Tuesday to fire up the spreadsheet and forensically go through all the paperwork and online accounts. I'm not fazed by the numbers, I have a complex, some might say bipolar approach to money but whereas MrsBloater is aghast at the amount of debt we have run up, I can look on it as something of a challenge.

The fact I have to shift some serious weight too is simply another column on the spreadsheet - a decade ago I weighed 14stone 5.

Anyways, this is what I've done so far

- Wednesday: rung up Sky on a freephone number (cheers saynoto0870) and cancelled the HD - 10.25 a month of utter waste, will not get rid of the whole package as Disney keeps my kids sane, Food Network and Ty Pennington keep MrsBloater out of the nuthouse and Discovery is my Prozac.

- Wednesday: dug out all the loose change and stuff stashed in drawers around the house, ended up with 50quid in coinage that I bagged up - 30 of it taken to the bank, 20 left to annoy the local shops.

- Thursday: dug out some DVDs that I never have and never will watch and scanned them in on musicmagpie - am so wowed by the fact I can scan in barcodes like my own little checkout that the fact they are only paying me 30p each clouds into insignificance.

Also later this evening I hit the back of the shed and found a box of CDs - most of them copies or HP driver disks, but managed to get a bagful of loot to scan in tomorrow when I get the chance.

Also plan tomorrow to sort out all the various insurances we have (house, contents, building, car1, car2) and see if better deals can be had - we currently pay nearly 180 a month which I think can be bettered.

Am also going to research how best to batter down the deals for existing customers on RAC, Talktalk, Orange, Vodafone.

Oh and I've stopped eating like a fat idiot and have lost 3 pounds already.

Tomorrow I go out for a run for the first time since the operation - here's hoping the stitches will hold......

Have 2 solid reasons for not going out for a run this morning: kids are up but Mrs B is in bed suffering from the (deservedly half price) rose wine we'd had sitting in the fridge for weeks. Plus it is tipping down.

But the real reason is that I am petrified the vasectomy stitches are gonna split open and my god I've probably just ruined someone else's breakfast.

Have to make the most of the remaining holiday time we have and that doens't involve any more time in hospital.

Am down to 23stone 4 already so it's all moving in the right direction.

Have new found respect and sympathy for those who make a living from ebay - packaging up my 2 parcels for musicmagpie stretched my patience to the limit - it was so fiddly. God only knows how people send out hundreds of parcels a week.

So on top of the 30 for the DVDs I relinquished some quality CDs for 20, and used a £3 voucher in the Co-op so am keeping on track for trying to save £30 a day.

Top tip today tho was instead of using those machines that take all your change and then charge you 13p per pound for the privelige in most major supermarkets, chuck all your change in a fit of rage down the hatch of the self-service checkout - done that at Morrisons with a bag full of 5ps and got back pound coins in the change.

Payday for Mrs B tomorrow but we're going to take out £250 cash and use that for living expenses - it's really sharpening my mental arithmetic paying for stuff in cash again.