Monthly Archives: July 2018

Getting rid of more ‘stuff’.

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I’ve had a busy weekend here, sorting and decluttering. In our lounge room one wall is a floor to ceiling bookcase and its a spot where we tend to just put bits and pieces, empty pockets and anything we can’t think of a place for. It ends up just getting stacked with other ‘stuff’ and has looked pretty rubbishy for a long time now.

Well this weekend I completely cleaned it out! … and what a difference it makes!
I filled four small bags of rubbish, one box of books to be donated. I tossed out years of professional journals that I never read.

The books that were left to be sold on fishpond I decided to donate. I started selling books there several years ago when I first decided to declutter. In total I have sold 110 books and made $1,135.33 from those sales. That money was paid straight in to the mortgage. There was about 25 books left to sell and I just thought its time to donate them and be done with it.

I’ve always been a book lover and when I was younger could never imagine getting rid of books but downsizing takes priority now and I still have plenty left. I tend to buy audiobooks and kindle books now as it saves space and they are less expensive.

Now the shelves are all clean and tidy with two shelves completely empty. I cleaned up the area in front of the bookcase as it was also just junked up with boxes and bits and pieces. It feels good to walk out and see the area nice and clean!

Good news!

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Well the good news is that DH still has a job!  His job will be part-time and he will be paid out for the days lost. So his actual income will stay the same for a few months while that payout happens. It really the best option we could hope for in the current workplace environment. Someone else was laid off yesterday so we’re just glad he’s still got a job.

So in looking at our finances my first goal now is to pay down the redraw to $0 and then cancel it. Then we’ll get back to our mortgage payoff goal.

This weekend I’m finishing up our tax paperwork so I can submit it next week. Our tax return will go a long way to reducing the redraw.

Its a relief to know whats happening and now we can get on with redoing the budget.

In other good news I checked our superannuation fund and we have reached our goal for for 2018 – $380,000 in retirement funds!   and theres still five months of the year left.  Thats two goals for the year achieved and three more to go (mortgage $100,000, redraw $0 & weight 70kgs).

Time to go – I’m heading outside to try and watch the lunar eclipse.

Another mortgage milestone … & job changes

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I’ve just transferred extra money off the mortgage for this month and that has taken us to a new milestone – the end of Year 13 on the mortgage amoratisation table. 

Our new mortgage balance is now $144,285.


and in other news…

DH has been called to a meeting today to discuss his job. There are two possible outcomes – 1 is that he is made part-time, we had been advised they were considering this earlier in the year and 2 is that he gets laid off – two people have lost their jobs last week.

Without going in to all the details I’ll just say that there has been a deliberate downgrading of his position in order to say it is no needed. His job has effectively been changed from management to clerical and its been a very frustrating few years watching this happen. Prior to this ‘management’ he really enjoyed his work and colleagues. They’ve gradually got rid of almost all the senior staff that used to work there with the same process so its not a very happy or rewarding workplace anymore. It’s the same as what is happening in my workplace – slash and burn and get rid of all the more experienced staff.

Anyway,  it certainly puts a bloody great spanner in my five year retirement plan whichever way it goes. But at least by the end of the day we’ll know exactly what our new financial situation will be so we can make some changes. It might just be that DH becomes ‘semi-retired’ overnight -then I can put him to work around the house!