Mortgage free by 2021?!

hiddenshadow

debtfreeoneday wrote: »

Just popping in to say hello and subscribe and say thank you for the posts on my diary.. I can'd add to any horsey chat, but your plan and long terms goals are great.. we are down the south west and undertook a massive lifestyle change, mainly financial to do it (best thing we ever did)

Wales is a beautiful part of the country and some awesome properties there.

Thanks! I'm really looking forward to trying out Wales. Wish it weren't 5 years away, but I think it'll take that long to get DH settled to the idea of leaving his job (he's only worked at one company and has been there over 15 years). Perhaps if his boss would agree to let him work from Wales rather than London....:D

Hope the solar install is progressing and the neighbours are still talking to you!

We've just bought two wine and chocolate hampers which should arrive tomorrow, so hopefully that'll put the neighbours back on our side! £60 unplanned spend from our gifts category, but happy neighbours are worth it I think!

debtfreeoneday

What survey sites have you signed up to?

We always planned to retire to where we live now and in the end we thought stuff it and even though it took a few years of trying to pair up jobs and house moves and a lot of disappointment, we managed it 5 years ago.. I am so glad we didn't wait till retirement to do it.. I love our life now and am glad we are putting down roots and getting to know people now.

hiddenshadow

debtfreeoneday wrote: »

What survey sites have you signed up to?

1poll, Valued Op!nions, p@nelbase, sw@gbucks, inbox£s. Tried signing up for p!necone but they decided they didn't want me. Think I've made just over £135 since the middle of September, which isn't too bad. p@nelbase has been the best so far (over £20 paid out so far and expecting another £55), but I've also gotten am@zon gift cards off VO and SB (helped pay for the hampers for the neighbours :cool:)

We always planned to retire to where we live now and in the end we thought stuff it and even though it took a few years of trying to pair up jobs and house moves and a lot of disappointment, we managed it 5 years ago.. I am so glad we didn't wait till retirement to do it.. I love our life now and am glad we are putting down roots and getting to know people now.

Glad it's worked out for you! I think the unknown is the hardest bit. So far we've been on holiday once and spent 4 days total in Wales. Granted, we had a lovely time, but it's a bit of a stretch from that to buying a property and relocating for good. Right now our tentative plan is:

- pay off the mortgage on this house (so we don't need much income in Wales)
- save up for a year to have a cushion
- spend a year in Wales renting someplace (to make sure we like the area)
- sell this place/buy something in Wales with cash

It would be nice if we could skip/combine some of those steps, but I'm not sure how - suppose if we could somehow afford to pay off our mortgage and rent in Wales at the same time we could combine that year, or if we could keep our London-sized wages while working (and renting) in Wales we could combine the cushion-saving/try-out-renting years.

Either way, even if it does take that long, we'll be MF and semi-retired (planning to either freelance remotely or work on our own online projects) in Wales by the time we're in our mid-40s, so that's pretty amazing.

apple_muncher

hiddenshadow wrote: »

This is a kong - it's hollow inside so you can fill it with treats/food/etc. They come in various sizes but they're about 4-6" tall. We use peanut butter, which our dogs love. It only lasts them 30 minutes or so (bit longer when frozen, I imagine), but it means they're excited/eager for us to leave the house.

Oh boy! I read that as 4-6' :eek: and wondered where on earth you found that much peanut butter...and how big your freezer was! I should slow down when I read!

hiddenshadow

apple_muncher wrote: »

Oh boy! I read that as 4-6' :eek: and wondered where on earth you found that much peanut butter...and how big your freezer was! I should slow down when I read!

Would love to see the greyhound's face at the prospect of 6 feet of peanut butter.

Solar panels are installed! We generated a whole 0.03kWh today. Solar company called and assured me that the scaffolding would be gone by Friday - phew!

Now to obsess over our solar panel monitoring - 0 trees planted , 0.00 carbon tons offset , £0.00 earned. I'll be curious to see what we can get out of a full day (today's monitoring started around 4pm so not much sunlight left!).

hiddenshadow

£21.55 interest from S@ntander so that's gone off to the mortgage. Not sure when N@tionwide and T$B will pay interest, but will move that over as well.

Watching out for a text alert to show that my salary has been paid in - sometimes it doesn't actually end up in my account until the next day, which is annoying.

In happier news, we've planted 1% of a tree with our solar panels!

Luckyinlife

Them kong balls my Alsatian loves it hes lost without it near him haha really good quality

Great way to use the interest from the account :]

hiddenshadow

Thanks!

Nightmare day with transit - commute that normally takes just under an hour took 3 (and included a 2.5 mile walk). The one silver lining was that TFL should refund me for the journey as it was well over a 15 minute delay.

Neighbour's wine hamper arrived today and looks good. Also got paperwork to register for FIT payments and start getting some of the £0.43 of income the solar panels have made today.

smallholdingsister

Excited about your solar panels!
I don't think dry food will fall out any worse than peanut butter.

debtfreeoneday

Good work on the solar panel tree offset!