I Could Be Mortgage Free

Popgirl

Still can't sleep will watch the tennis instead :)

Popgirl

We have had a lovely weekend with my parents despite the mixed weather. We were invited to a surprise birthday party of a family friend on Saturday and that was lovely. Yesterday was a relaxing day which allowed DH and I to hide away for 20mins to work out next months finances. Not using the CC has really helped, we will be able to save £2k this month when pay day arrives for me, which is Friday. I will still make my usual £100 OP but the £2k will go into FIRE pot.

Popgirl

While my parents were here we started to discuss the possibility of doing some home improvements to our holiday home. On our roof terrace we have a room that we use for mainly storage, there is no access to this room direct from the apartment just from the roof terrace but we think we could put in an internal staircase. If we can do that we would renovate the room on the terrace and make it into a bedroom and ensuite with a small storage room. We know an architect in the town so we are going to ask him to come and have a look and tell us if it is possible when we are there in September . Trying not to get too excited 1. Because the answer might be no 2. The cost might be too much. Parents have said they will contribute to the cost which is really nice of them. They do use the apartment for holidays so they will get the benefit. The kitchen could do with replacing so we will do that at the same time.

If we renovate I think I will need to work alittle longer to recoup the money that we will need to pay out for the renovation We would continue wth the plan of DH finishing at Christmas then if we have the work done in January he could go and supervise the work and I would stay in the UK and carry on working. I think I would feel happier financially doing that as I think it will cost about £20k in total to do what we would like done. If we go 50/50 with my parents I don't think I would need to work more than 3-4 months to recoup most of the costs if we cut back even more. Working that bit longer will be worth it . We will decide when we have spoken to the architect.

Karmacat

That sounds great! And £2k in a month, because of not spending on the cc, is fantastic!

Popgirl

My Parents have left the building following a longer stay than expected :T:T . They have left a little bit of a dark cloud over us regarding their thoughts on our retirement plans. DH and I had never really discussed it with my parents in any detail until this week and now we wish we hadnt mentioned it. :( my parents were full of negative opinions and totally unsupportive.
my mother in particular was very vocal about the whole idea, she thinks we are far too young to finish work, we will be bored and I will miss the "high flying" role that I hold and the power that gives!!!!! She says she knows me well enough to know that I am making the biggest mistake of my life and I will regret it 6months in!!!!!!!!!!! I won't bore you with all of the other negative comments they provided but hopefully you get the gist. I think it's fair to say I am bitterly disaapointed that they are not supportive of our decision but I am not surprised they have been like this towards most things I have done in my life:mad::mad:. However it's made me more determined to go ahead with our plans and prove them wrong!!

Ok back to the money side now pay days have come and gone

The usual £1k gone into investment bond
£100 OP made not far away from hitting the £87k milestone - even small OP's make a difference:j
£660 into123 account (part of the FIRE Fund) I plan to put another £500 into this account next week once all the DD's have gone out of our accounts. CC bills paid in full:money: as normal. the CC bills were a 1/3 of what they normally are as we have stopped using them. Next month CC bills will be ZERO as we have not used them since cut off date and have no plans to use them again :j:j. This has left us with £1.5k for the rest of this month which is far more than we need for everyday living. We will change some of the money left into €'s ready for our holiday and the rest we will put away to pay towards the final balance of the purchase we made for DD2.
My 123 account has taken a bit of a hit over recent months so we need to get that back to £20k before DH finishes work in Dec.
Have a lovely bank holiday weekend everyone
Popgirl :j

Karmacat

Good grief ... sorry you got that reaction from your parents, Popgirl thats very distressing I think you know of it, but do you remember MrMoneyMustache? He's younger than you (cos you have a son away at uni, thats all, he's about 37 I think) there's a *huge* forum there, and he and a lot of his forum members talk about how people are either dismissive or extremely critical of early retirement. You'd find a *lot* more understanding souls on there, as well as here

Popgirl

Had a fairly quiet weekend, weather wasn't too bad so managed to get in a couple of country walks yesterday and today.

Did spent £165 yesterday on a night out with our friends, beautiful meal and well worth the money. It was our turn to pay so reasonable for 4 people, we had budgeted for it so happy it didn't have to come out of our FIRE fund :j trying to use up the content of the freezer before we go on holiday so meals for the next week will include unusual combinations did have to spend 89p on milk today so can't class it as a NSD :(
Managed to put away the £2.1k savings this month as planned really need to do more than this over the coming months if we don't want to dip into the FIRE pot for the holiday home alterations. We have spoken to the architect and told him what we would like to do so he has starting to think about the plans and we will meet up with him when we are there in a couple of weeks. :j:j

DH and I signed up for 30 day free trial credit check through Qui@co yesterday so £10 CB to come our way in the next month or so. Must remember to cancel before the 30days are up.
Credit scores for both of us were as high as it gets which was nice to know:j:j

Early night tonight after late night out last night, plus me staying up to 4am watching the tennis :p enjoy what's left of the weekend :T

Popgirl

Popgirl

I must be mad...:D:D in bed Watching ladies tennis on iPad, at the same watching men's tennis on TV and DH is snoring happily bedside me:p:p

Karmacat

Definite multitasking going on there and you must really love tennis!

Popgirl

Yes love sport in general, suffering today with tiredness as Murray game didn't finish until 2am. Self inflicted so can't moan. Luckily working from home today so will sneak in an early finish!!!

Hope you are feeling better


Best wishes Popgirl