Back to work!

Yesterday was my first day back at work after the holidays. I always enjoy that first day back as theres few people around and no-one else working in my building so it gives me some time to get organised before it gets busy again.

One of the first things I did was swap my Year 3 printed calendar for my ‘Year 4’ one. When I set my five year goal I printed of five years of calendars on that first day back at work. Every week I cross the days off as I get closer to my retirement goal. I’ve saved them all and they do help keep me motivated.

So at the moment I’m working on my job application for a higher grade position for 12 months. I had a meeting about it yesterday, it’s certainly going to be a lot of work to get my head around in a short time. 

Our tenants gave notice and moved out last week. Our new tenant has moved in and we raised our rent as it was little behind the current market. So now the rental income completely covers the loan repayments which is great. 

I’ve also signed up for course/mentoring for the next year to help me create an online business doing the consulting I do in my second job. My plan is to spend this year planning & setting up so that next year I can start doing a bit of work part-time & I will continue that when I retire. That way I can work for myself just one day a week & use that money to live on, leaving my savings to grow for a bit longer before accessing them.

I’m off now for a morning walk!

 

plodding along…

 I’ve been back a work full time a few weeks now. Its fairly quite at the moment so I’m spending time cleaning out years of old ‘stuff’, catching up on paperwork & catching up with colleagues. Our workplace has done well with enforcing social distancing & increased cleaning so I feel OK being there. Our local area still has only one case of covid and so far NSW seems to be keeping the numbers down. 

I have not been doing anything interesting – just plodding along with work & home, keeping warm and watching a lot of TV. We had a lot of snow last weekend, but it didn’t stay on the ground where we live. I’m looking forward to the warmer weather so I can get outside more and start walking again.

Our real estate agent contacted us about increasing the rent on our unit. We discussed a new lease with our tenants with a small increase but they are looking to buy a house so they do not want to sign a lease. We’ve decided to just leave the rent as it is for a few months and we’ll put it up when they leave. They have been excellent tenants, probably the best we’ve had so we’re happy to give them some time to find a house even though our agent tells us we could give them notice and probably get $20 – $40 more per week – the last thing they need while house hunting is to have to find a new house – money isn’t everything. 

We’ve had a really good month of throwing money at the mortgage, despite the fact my second job is very late with my pay again.  Its easy not to spend at the moment!

We have tenants!

We put our unit back on the rental market last week. It only took a few days for us to have some enquiries and we’ve now got new tenants ready to move in. We’ve increased the rent as well so its working out nicely.

I need to renew our landlords insurance so I’ll get some quotes first. I do that for all our insurances and utilities each year -get quotes and compare policies. It amazing how much you can save just by taking the time to compare the details and ring about prices. Years ago loyal, long term customers got the best deals but that has all changed now. Companies offer better deals to new customers so if I have to change to save money I do.

Today is payday -can’t wait for the money to go in so I can send some to the mortgage! Its been really busy at work this week and really stressful. I’m certainly in a ‘ready to retire’ mood this week and seeing those numbers countdown in the sidebar is helping.

Do you chase the best prices on utilities & insurances when they come up for renewal?