Holiday Time!

I’m finally on holidays for Christmas and really looking forward to the break! The last few days I’ve been catching up on sleep with afternoon naps and I certainly feel better for it, nice not to be thinking about work.

I’ve been throwing every spare cent off the redraw as well as our holiday pay and its now down to $2964. I have one last payday before the end of the year and I am also waiting on a big payment from my second job which will see the redraw finally down to $0. DH just got his last full pay before it goes down to a part time amount.

Our tenants gave notice and are moving out this week. We have new tenants moving in straight away so there will be no vacancy at all.

I’ve been working on a new budget for 2019 and planning the work around the house that needs doing -I can’t wait to see the mortgage numbers come down next year! 

So I’m planning on getting some more decluttering done this week and spending some time with family over Christmas.

Rethinking our plans

The last few weeks I’ve found myself questioning which direction to go in. I had a conversation about possible redundancy (in 18/24 months)with a manager and was told I could be up for consideration – no guarantees though. This is the very opposite of what has been indicated up till now. While I’d welcome it, I guess it just has made me think about a lot of things. It would bring forward my date for finishing work plans by about 2 years.

I had considered starting up a side hustle online – however the truth is that I really don’t want to spend my time running a business. And I think I’d rather be putting funds into retirement savings or debt reduction than into a new business venture. So, after much thought and a few sleepless nights I’m axing that idea and just sticking to my original plan of $500,000 in super minimum and a paid off mortgage.

I guess its sticking with the tortoise vs the hare approach. Saving and debt reduction is not overly exciting in the short term. Each week I just transfer money between accounts, each month I add up our progress, and in between I suit up and show up for work.

Its slow and dull but it really is does work.

I remember when we were drowning in debt & family illness and I felt like we would lose everything. Stress was through the roof!  Enter Dave Ramsay, we started following the baby steps and slowly we made progress to the point where our financial lives have completely turned around over the last 8 years.

We’ve had another big bill last week with the car needing some repairs. I also paid the deposit on our holiday for next year and paid for some professional development.

I’m not sure if we’ll meet our goal of $0 redraw by the end of the month -its now at $4,464. But we’ll get close to it.

I’m looking forward to 2019 and just staying the course with our original plan for retirement in five years. How we get there might look a little different, but its still the goal!

 

November Progress Report

Its been a busy month for me at work so haven’t had a lot of energy left for blogging or much else. Heres the update for the month.

Mortgage
Our annual mortgage fee of $395 was paid this month and our tax refund and all extra payments were directed towards the redraw.

  • $135,345 down from $139,962
  • $5,643 down from $15,551
  • total mortgage reduction $10,158

Retirement Savings

  • mine $109,233
  • DH $275,027
  • total $384,260
  • total increase $2,034

Groceries

  • $50 CC points
  • $46.12 savings
  • $96.12 total savings 
Health
well, not much walking this month and my weight has jumped up, otherwise all is good- just out of balance as work has been hectic
Work
Busy!  much less work at my second job this month – can’t wait for the Christmas break.
Home
My lemon tree is filled with little baby lemons! I haven’t done much work outside this month, did get some shrubs trimmed and start my compost bins though so its a small start.

We have out Christmas tree up and a beautiful Christmas wreath. After some years of not celebrating much at all I was determined to get back in the Christmas spirit this year and its been fun to decorate again.

Overall we’ve done well financially this month. I’m feeling pretty ‘blah’ about the thought of another four years work and wonder if I should change strategies or do things differently some days. I am thinking of starting a side hustle next year, perhaps ebay or Amazon – not sure. Just need to keep plodding along I guess and not overthink it all.