Monthly Archives: April 2020

Interest Rates Reduced!

Posted on by
8

Our bank has reduced the interest rates on the mortgages and its made quite a big saving for us.  Because we have three mortgages (2 IPs & PPOR) and the redraw, the total reduction in monthly payments is $408/month.

Usually when interest rates go down we just keep paying the same amount so we are always ahead in our payments. But this time I am going to reduce all the payments except our PPOR mortgage to the minimum and redirect them to the PPOR mortgage, so an extra $408 going towards the mortgage payoff from next month. That is really going to help us make faster progress.

DH made me a desk over the weekend so now I have space I don’t have to share while I’m working from home. We’ve put the curtains up in the lounge room/current office space, they don’t match  but they will do for the time being.

We’ve started walking at lunchtime now as the mornings are getting a bit cool – I love Autumn!


Roses are starting to bloom…

….  and this little magpie is a friendly visitor to our house each day..

Another week done and dusted. take care everyone xx

This and that…

Posted on by
4

My chrysanthemums are flowering! – they are a cheerful spot of colour in my overgrown garden at the moment. I’ve been doing a bit of weeding each day and am making very slow progress on the garden beds.

I’ve paid a bit more into our emergency fund so our balance is now $240.

My second job is very late in paying me this month. Its really annoying when they do this! My pay is now almost 2 weeks overdue.

Yesterday I felt just really worried about everything. An email from work about going back (yes, they had confirmed last week I was supposed to continue working from home) just set me off really. I just felt anxious and worried all afternoon and didn’t sleep well at all. I just want to be finished with working so much! I’m tired of it, I really am. But all I can do at the moment is keep plodding along with saving & reducing debt.

I really hope this pandemic does not set our retirement plans back but realistically I think it probably will. Anyway, I guess we are all entitled to have a few anxious days at times like this.

Well I’m going to go and try and get some work done before DH wakes up and the emails start arriving for the day. I think I need to keep busy today so I don’t think so much!

A New ‘Normal’

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday had the most beautiful sunrise…

I’m so glad I’m an early bird and get to see sunrises like this.

Today is the end of my third week working from home and DH’s fifth week. We seem to have passed that initial, anxious/fearful stage and are settling in to a new kind of of ‘normal’. It helps that in our town there have been no new cases for almost three weeks. We’ve all been told we will be working from home until the end of May.

This week we’ve settled into some better routines. We walk everyday at 6.30am, stop for morning tea at 10 and lunch at 12. After my work day ends I go out and work in the garden for about half an hour. Dinner is at 6.30.

I don’t want to use the big supermarkets in town as they are too busy. So we get a Hello Fresh delivery most weeks which gives us three main meals and several meals of leftovers for $120. Aside from that we eat out of the pantry & freezer.

About every 7-10 days  we collect the mail and pick up a few staples like milk, bread, eggs & meat at the corner store on the next block, its about 10 minutes inside the store and thats our only time out apart from our daily walk. The shop assistants all wear gloves which are changed between each customer and theres usually only a few people there when we go. When we get home we wipe over all our groceries before putting them away, change our clothes and wash our hands.

I’m coping well with not going out and I’m honestly not missing anything. I feel less stressed and am sleeping much better. I think DH & DD are missing the social interactions and just being able to go out and do things. But we’re all adapting OK to this new way of doing things.

Yesterday was payday and after paying the bills, and putting extra money in the offset accounts I paid our regular mortgage payment and everything extra off the mortgage. Our mortgage balance is now $96,977.