Changing Financial Goals

The last few weeks I’ve been flat out working with not much energy left for much else, hence the lack of blog posts. But I have been going through our finances, doing lots of calculations and re-examining our goals as we get closer to the final year of our five year plan. And so we’ve made a few changes to our financial goals for 2021 – I guess thats the ‘personal’ part of personal finance.

So whats changing and why.

We’re stopping the extra payments off our mortgage. Our mortgage is currently 19 years ahead and will be paid off in four years with no additional payments. Or, if we needed to, we could just pay $90/week for the remaining term of the mortgage. So we’ve got a great buffer there and an affordable mortgage if we were suddenly out of income. While mortgage interest rates are low and savings are getting good returns,  it makes financial sense to put additional money into savings where it will grow & create additional income for the future. Emotionally, I really want to pay off the mortgage asap – but logically, this is the best financial decision.

We’re increasing our savings.  I’l be paying some of the extra money that would have gone to the mortgage into our retirement savings. The more we have in savings the more choices we will have and we can payout the mortgage on retirement if we wanted to.

We’re paying extra on the investment property loans. I’ll be directing some extra payments off the IP mortgages as I would like to have a 6-12 month buffer on mortgage payments before we retire. Its just another safety measure in case of tenant problems or financial problems.

Overall I’m feeling pretty good about where we’re up to financially. I’ve updated our new goals in the sidebar.

I’m feeling tired from work, it’s much busier, but in some ways less stressful than my previous job. I’m really hanging out for the student holidays in two weeks!!

 

A trip to the park

 We went for a visit to the local park after work for a bit downtime and to just soak up the beautiful view and the peaceful atmosphere after a very busy day at work.

The park was opened in 1890 and was designed as an English country town park despite the very different weather conditions between Australia and the UK. Its just a beautiful place and has many big, old trees that were bought out from England. Right in the centre of town, its just a very big part of local life. 

Some of the garden beds were being replanted, others were in full bloom.

The bandstand sits in the middle of the park and still used for musical events. Its a popular place for wedding photos.  There a beautiful old fountain, a duck pond, a fernery & a begonia house. Its just beautiful! 

I sometimes think about the people who designed and planted it back in the 1880’s. Trying to grow an English garden in the hot Australian weather. Having the imagination to ‘see’ how majestic those huge trees would look years into the future and possibly trying to bring a little bit of Mother England back into their lives.  We spent about hour at the park and I felt much better for it.

A society grows great when old men plant trees 

whose shade they know they shall never sit in” 

Greek proverb.

February Progress Report

Time for another progress report! 

Mortgage

  • current balance $58,899
  • down from $60,089
  • total reduction $1,190
Savings
  • current balance $585,718
  • up from  $576,578
  • total increase $7,140
Work
I’ve been very busy at work in my new job, mostly taking in a lot of information about various projects and attending hours of meetings each day. Its very busy, but I am quite enjoying it so far.  I’m actually feeling less stressed than usual to be honest, I have a great manager who has been really helpful while I’m learning the ropes. 
Health
No weight loss this month and my morning walks have dropped off too. I have just been very tired with the extra work responsibilities & sitting about too much.  I did get my mammogram results back and they were clear & I also did my bowel cancer screen & that was clear as well. 
February has flown by so quickly & I need to get back on track with the exercise & diet. I also want to go through our expenses to see where we can make some savings as I didn’t get this done during February as planned. Overall I’m feeling more optimistic this week – only 654 days to go!