Tag Archives: coronavirus

How time flies!

Posted on by
2

 Its been a busy time since I last posted. 

We celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary a few days ago. How quickly the years have gone by! It seems like not so long ago we were busy moving into this house with our children 6 & 4 years old. Painting, planting, decorating and enjoying our young family. We’d built our home with a plan to stay here and grow old, and I guess thats exactly what we’re doing. There are a lot of happy memories here and many more to come in the years ahead.

However our house and really does need a ‘makeover’. Its a bit faded and worn and theres lots of work that needs to be done before we retire. At the moment we’re still going back and forth on what can wait a bit longer and what can’t. 

I’ve been busy decluttering and have six bags ready to go to the op-shop. I’m making slow progress in the sewing room and planning on getting rid of a desk in there which will free up a lot of room. 

Other than that I’ve been doing lots of planning for next year, doing calculations and trying to work out the best options financially. I might be working in a higher paying position at work next year, I should find out this week. It will be more money but also more responsibility but its only for 12 months if I get it.

I’m excited for the end of the year. Restrictions here are easing and borders have opened up between states. Our state has had no new community cases of Covid for 15 days now and you can feel people feeling relieved and more hopeful. At work we still have restrictions until the new year. I have only seen three clients in person since March as they were urgent issues, everyone else is still via phone or telehealth. In the new year the plan is to slowly return to normal so long as numbers stay down.

DD has been unwell and I spent three hours in emergency with her yesterday with asthma. There is dust and smoke in the air at times and very changeable weather so there has been an increase in ‘thunderstorm asthma’ here. A young boy came running in having a very bad asthma attack while we were waiting which was awful to see but the staff were fantastic as they always are here. We have a great local hospital. DD is much better today and will have a few days off. She a severe asthmatic but very well controlled and diligent about her medications which is good. 

So, thats a very quick catch-up lol!  

I’m thinking of my US readers with all the worries there. Sending you good thoughts and warm wishes for the Thanksgiving holiday, stay safe xx

Another Mortgage Milestone!

Posted on by
2

 

With this weeks mortgage payment we reached another milestone – Year 23 on the amoratisation table had been crossed off. 

Our mortgage is now $72,897.  

My next goal is to reach $67,200 – the end of year goal to keep on track to be mortgage free before we retire.

October is a big month for bills with house & car insurances all coming due in the next few weeks. Also my hours at my second job have been down so we have less extra income coming in now. Hopefully our tax refund doesn’t take too long so we can keep making good progress this year.

Not much has been happening here. Work continues to be quiet and we are still just going to work and collecting our groceries. Our Covid numbers have been very low which is great news, only 4 cases in our state yesterday, all from people in quarantine. I just hope the numbers keep going in the right direction and life can start to get back to normal soon. We have a meeting at work today to discuss first term next year so it will be interesting to see what is planned. We got told yesterday that our restructure should start next year, but I’ll believe it when I see it. In the meantime I’ll keep working on getting the mortgage paid off asap.

 


plodding along…

Posted on by
2

 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!