Monthly Archives: March 2018

A morning at the Highland Games

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The last few days we’ve had temperatures in the mid 30’s -so hot days and hot nights that are usually long gone at this time of year. Yesterday my daughter, my niece and I went to the Highland games. Fortunately we were able to find shady places for most of the morning.  They had erected a castle front in the middle of the oval which added a lovely touch. The bands all entered through the castle gate when it was their turn to play.

I love listening to bands play but I have to say I love the Scottish bands the most. I used to do Scottish dancing when I was a kid and we would dance at fairs like this and in the Eisteddfod.

I remember when I was about 6 or 7,  I had been practising for my Eisteddfod performance to a tape of the bagpipe music. On the day I went out on the stage and instead of hearing a tape of the music, standing behind me was a bagpiper. Well I did my first bow and just froze at the sound of the bagpipes!! I stood there till the music ended, then did my last bow and walked off. The sound of loud bagpipes is fantastic and I love it – but that first time, with him right behind me was too much lol!

We stayed a few hours and had a nice walk around, watched a bit of the dancing and bought some gluten free chutney from the lady I had bought jam off a few weeks ago at the Farmers Markets. There were some nice craft stalls with sewing and patchwork and other homemade goodies, as well as lots of Scottish goods.

 But after a while the wind got really strong and the heat was getting worse, so we went into town and had cake & coffee before doing  the grocery shopping.  All in all it was a lovely day costing only $2 entry and $14 for the chutney.

Work has been very busy the last few weeks and I’ve been a bit unwell so my goals for shopping, exercising and eating well have slipped a bit- will update on that soon.

Good news is that I had the meeting about the extra work and its going ahead so extra mortgage-smashing money is coming!

Mortgage interest under $500.

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The interest for the mortgage just got withdrawn for the month – $498.62.  I’m finally under $500 a month! I’ve put the monthly interest in the sidebar so I can track it.

I just paid $500 into the account to cover the interest. For a few months now I’ve been paying the monthly mortgage interest like a bill, to keep that balance moving downwards asap. Currently its $160,881.

I’ve also added another page with the amortisation schedule for the original mortgage – $200,000 over 30 years. We are almost at the balance for the end of Year 10.

To reach my 2018 goal of < $100,000 is not going to be easy, but I just keep focusing on that number and believing we can do it. I know I’ll have a nice big tax return to use and I have a meeting this week about extra work. All that income will go off the mortgage.

DH has had some hassles at his workplace over the last few weeks.Not sure how its going to turn out – wether it will settle down or wether they will offer him a payout. Hopefully it settles down and we can just keep on plodding along towards retirement!

* I added some photos to the post about our retirement unit:

Visit to our retirement unit!

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We got the keys to our rental unit yesterday and went down to have a look after work. It was great to see inside again – its been a few years- and nice just to spend some time there thinking about where we will  put things when we move in. I took a heap of photos so I can refer back to them.

This morning we were down there again taking measurements and deciding what repairs we want to do. If we do things now its a tax deduction. If we leave them till we move in they aren’t. We are going to change the lights over to LEDs as that will be more economical. We also need to regrout the shower and we will also make a wooden top for the window seat which is showing a bit of wear and tear. The garage floor could do with a repaint so we’ll get a quote on that as well and some more pavers for the garden.

After making our list of jobs we went off to Bunnings and bought our supplies.I’m looking forward to going back down tomorrow for a while to do some more planning while DH does the grouting.

Our unit has just four rooms and a small garden. Its a timely reminder of just how much downsizing we need to do over the next few years! I have several bags of ‘stuff’ to go to Vinnies so I might try and drop those off tomorrow.  In the meantime I’ve been on pintrest pinning ideas for the little garden and for storage in small places.  Can’t wait till we’re retired and living there for good!

Heres a few pics of where we’ll be headed in a few years time.

The kitchen and lounge/dining room

The second bedroom upstairs, which will be my sewing room.

The ceilings in the front of the unit are all lovely and patterned.

We have a small yard for an outdoor setting and a smaller side yard off the kitchen as well.

Looking back from the kitchen to the lounge/dining area. The door opens to the garage / laundry which will be DH’s workshop area when we move. We’ll park the cars in the street.

There is also small bathroom and lovely large main bedroom with leadlight windows behind those curtains. The window seat looks out over the garden and that timber on the floor goes on the seat.

So I need to cull our ‘stuff’ from 30+ years here in our big four bedroom home to fit into our little four room home over the next few years.