The journey to financial independence.

ourcornercottage · 1 February 2015 at 11:57PM

Cream_Tea wrote: »

Ps. Ourcornercottage we are going with that idea and spending the next few months focusing on the extension, debt and emergency fund. Then I will reduce my hours in June. I am going to have to really pull up my socks with the money making to achieve it!

CT

Good for you! I'd love to go part time but I work for myself so unfortunately the works still there if I take time off!

On a plus note for ebaying (you will be proud) my BF sold a coat for £132 today! That's nearly enough for a solar panel! He's much better at this ebaying lark than I am!

Good funds from the car boot, you did well. I secretly like doing them. We had a garage sale last year and made £300! You just have to get a few neighbours to join in and your laughing. On a negative note we were so chuffed at the success we sat in the garden all day drinking beer and getting sunburnt! Luckily my sis was supervising so we didn't sell anything too cheap during the day and looked after the little one oververnight at hers which was a right result as we hardly ever get to go out! We walked to our local, had good food and then my BF fell in a bush in the way home (told you we don't get out much!) lucky we didn't walk via the broads as he might have ended up in there!

Cream_Tea · 2 February 2015 at 9:53AM

Haha! Nothing like impromptu drinks to knock you off your feet! £300 is amazing. We were tempted to do takeaway last night as our treat but kept telling ourselves 'don't spend the profits' so the roast seemed a good balanced.

£132 is brilliant! I think mens stuff seems to go for more on eBay and in the car boot. DH stuff went quickly and reasonable price but my stuff and my friends stuff was slower to move and much cheaper. Not sure why because they weren't necessarily cheap bits but I guess lots about so no market for it.

CT

ourcornercottage · 2 February 2015 at 1:23PM

He Blames the gluten free beer being stronger! The garage sales was such fun and we got to know our neighbours. Since then I have been making and selling jam outside my house and they always disappear with a couple of quid left as a thank you!

I'm going to try and snag another jacket or something of his as he has sooooo many clothes. must have wasted thousands on them. My stuff never sells. Sons stuff sells well but we have mainly brought him good brands so they always go for nearly has much as brought for. Ive sold a couple of t shirts for more than I paid for them and have a good years wear too.

Well done for not having a takeaway think about the pennies and all that!

Cream_Tea · 3 February 2015 at 5:27AM

So woke up at two and have now given up on trying to sleep. We have a someone over to plaster today our 3rd bedroom (our rooms are called 1= our room, 2= 2nd room, 3= 3rd room) so last night consisted of clearing out the last bits of that room which is now empty.

I finished making a pair of curtains for 2nd bedroom yesterday. I've never made curtains before so I am very proud of them. In fact before last year I had never really done any sewing until hubby bought me a sewing machine because I wanted to try. I was so pleased with the result I took pictures and sent them to pretty much everyone! Now plan for later is to start a pair for the 3rd room ready for when plastering and painting is finished. I will not miss the artex ceilings when they are all done.

House plans are as follows:
1) save for extension of bathroom and start when nearly there towards total - Hopefully start in March.
2) plaster 3rd bedroom then paint, make curtains, re upholster chair which is in there -hopefully completed by beginning of March.
3) plaster our bedroom then paint, make curtains, buy new bed - Hopefully completed by June.
4) plaster stairs and hallway then paint - to be started once bathroom and all of upstairs bedrooms are completed hopefully end of the summed.
5) carpet upstairs (3 x bedrooms and stairs)
6) remove massive fire place surround replace with smaller nicer one plaster living room/ dining room then paint.
7) replace wood tongue and groove flooring as sadly damaged when re wiring done.
8) all finished either move house or start from room one again :rotfl:

As big a list as that looks we are fortunate to have friends who are plasterers so the price will not be as bad as it could be. We aim to have made our way through most of the list by the end of the year.

CT

Cream_Tea · 3 February 2015 at 7:45PM

Internet banking finally caught up and our mortgage has reduced by £947 this month with the OP! That means we have knocked £10,564 off in the last 2 years and 6 months! We are in 5 figure territory! (Knocking off that is not what is left sadly)
CT

Cream_Tea · 5 February 2015 at 12:38PM

Loving Ourcornercottage's idea of drawing a house with £1000 bricks, I'm tempted but not exactly an artist! We will see how time goes today I might try.

6/11 of my eBay items have watchers and 3 of those have bids so looking promising for some additional income this week. I'm looking forward to DH payday this week because with the plastering and my car needing its service we have had a little set back. A planned setback but non the less, less money than I want in the extension fund sadly.

Our mortgage is going into a new £1000 bracket every month because it's going down by about £950 a month however in April it will go from top of £154 thousand to low £154 so I think I will have to do an additional OP to rectify that. It's a great feeling seeing the big numbers go down.

Still waiting on the plaster drying. Hopefully this weekend we can start white washing it. We are going to look into getting someone into professionally decorate it because we are no good and I think it might be worth it. I'm pleased we decided to start other smaller projects in the house whilst we save for the extension. I was losing interest whilst waiting. I think there is a psychological benefit to seeing an improvement in the house not just the savings account even if it sets us back elsewhere.

CT

Cream_Tea · 9 February 2015 at 11:00PM

Sold a few more bits on eBay so £20 off the CC. Had a little lull this week. I think the excitement of the last few month money saving has caught up with me and now I've run out of things to change! I need to inject some more excitement and enthusiasm. Any ideas?

In none MSE news DH has asked me to take 5 days off over my 30th bday June 2016. He won't say why but I'm really excited now. I'm not sure I can last 16 months!

DH is working nights this week so my plan is to cook some lovely dinners and chill out with the hubster on his nights off to keep moral up. Nights can be a little miserable at times.

Right off to plot and plan something good for the financial future.

CT

Cream_Tea · 9 February 2015 at 11:12PM

Oh also had to pillage the extension fund to pay for new cam belt and service and the plastering. So slight set back but I'm getting the excitement back so we will get that money back in no time!

CT

ourcornercottage · 10 February 2015 at 12:02AM

Sounds like a trip away to me!

With the exception of this month (solar month!) im going for £1000 off the capital per month too (regular repayment plus OP), missed it by a couple of quid last month :-( I want to colour in at least one square per month (I am sad!) 138 months to go so if nothing else changes that will be 11.5 years. Oh my that's a long time!

On the plus side I have 18 things listed on eBay :-)