Mortgage free by 2021?!

hiddenshadow

shangaijimmy wrote: »

West coast of Ireland would be fabulous location I think! I can't ever imagine living anywhere else (think it's a northern thing) and I think it's so brave of people who move about!

We're planning a week(ish) holiday in September so we can explore a bit and see what we like. Just from researching online I think we'd aim for either the western counties or possibly the southern ones if we want to be closer to Dublin/the UK. Nice part of it being such a small country is it's only 3 1/2 hours from side to side and 6 hours from top to bottom so getting out to different areas should be fairly simple.

Think I would enjoy the planning bit though!!

I'm all about the planning, though DH seems a bit freaked out by it. He says his concern is that we "move too soon", but I'm not sure what too soon really means...I think absolute earliest we'd move would be January 2017 so we've still got 6 months to prepare/plan/etc. My concern is more on the "move too late" side as far as it becoming more challenging to live/stay there and qualify for citizenship (I'm assuming they'd have some sort of grandfathering rule but who knows how that will be worked out or when?!).

Given that the plan is to rent out the house (or, worst case, leave it vacant) for at least the first year we're in Ireland, I'm not too worried about moving earlier. If everything here seems amazing after we've moved we could always alter our plans and move back (though I think that's unlikely in the short term).

gallygirl

shangaijimmy wrote: »

West coast of Ireland would be fabulous location I think!

hiddenshadow wrote: »

We're planning a week(ish) holiday in September so we can explore a bit and see what we like. Just from researching online I think we'd aim for either the western counties or possibly the southern ones if we want to be closer to Dublin/the UK.

Do your research on the weather HS - some parts of Western Ireland, particularly down south, can get twice as much rain as Dublin, which is the driest part - and, from memory, that has around double the rainfall of London! The Cork area is beautiful but has always p**'d it down when I've been there and the locals carry golf umbrellas rather than normal ones :rotfl:. North West is beautiful, as is North East, going up towards Northern Ireland.

hiddenshadow

Thanks GG, you've inspired me to go study the Irish MET site. Looks like our best bets are
Meath
Offaly
Kildare
Cork
Galway (east)
Mayo (south-east)
Tipperary (south)

...given that we don't particularly want to be on the coast (would rather be rural/flat). At least we weren't leaning towards the mountains, those areas get crazy rain.

hiddenshadow

Pretty productive day.

Plumber came out to re-quote on installing the downstairs toilet. Over the phone quote from ~1 year ago was £300 + fittings, today was £150-200 + fittings. Plus another £80-100 would hook our outside tap up to the mains supply rather than the loft tank, which would fix our water pressure issue.

Worked on the bathroom some, and ran errands. Didn't make as much progress as I might have liked, but we're trudging along. Hope to get all the cladding up tomorrow and possibly work on painting it. (At least painting can be easily done in the evenings if need be.) Next weekend the goal will be to get the flooring in, and then we should be ready for the plumber.

If we're smart with our scheduling, the plumber and the fencer can come on the same days and we can knock both out in 2 days. Then we'll actually have space in our garage for all the stuff that's cluttering up the house! :j

edinburgher

Why Ireland particularly? Think I missed that...

hiddenshadow

May have been because DH and I have been discussing it (in general and pros/cons) for the last week and I don't think I outlined it here, oops.

Original plan was Wales due to quiet/rural location/pretty/cheap/friendly/etc. That's out of the running because we don't want to lose EU citizenship. Plan B was going to be Scotland, but that requires an independence referendum and however long re-entry to the EU might take. Plan C is Ireland, based on its similar qualities to Wales (re: attractiveness for semi-retirement), its semi-strong tech industry (not as strong as Berlin, but neither of us fancy Germany), and English language.

Given our plan to semi-retire in the country in the next 5-7 years, accelerating this plan in Ireland seems to make more sense than moving somewhere else (like Berlin) to get citizenship and then have to move again to achieve the semi-retired/rural lifestyle.

That's the logic anyway, whether that comes true is another story.

gallygirl

hiddenshadow wrote: »

Thanks GG, you've inspired me to go study the Irish MET site. Looks like our best bets are
Meath
Offaly
Kildare
Cork
Galway (east)
Mayo (south-east)
Tipperary (south)

...given that we don't particularly want to be on the coast (would rather be rural/flat). At least we weren't leaning towards the mountains, those areas get crazy rain.

Tipperary? That's a long way.

I'll get me coat :rotfl:.

I adored Galway and the surrounding area, also have a look at Sligo, beautiful countryside. Ignore the fact that all the men look like my ex as that's where his family are from :eek:.

lippy1923

Sounds like you've been busy lately Hidden. Feel like joining you on the move to Ireland lol. My hubby wont have any of it though :rotfl:

hiddenshadow

That's too bad, lippy! To be honest when I was daydreaming about living abroad originally, Dublin was top of my list. Only after I actually did some research and discovered that UK citizenship was easier for me to get (and not that helpful re: living in Ireland :rotfl:) and there were more tech-y jobs in London than Dublin did I change my plans.

hiddenshadow

Oof, quite a spendy day with Prime Day...all told spent £237.08, some of which wasn't really budgeted, but for that we'll get:

- packing cubes for clothes organisation on holiday
- boot organiser/shopping bag for the car, should hold all our weekly shopping so we don't have to faff about with remembering bags
- 2 sets of headphones, I'll try them both and return one (ideally the more expensive one)
- sleeveless top for me, should be good in the heat
- 24 boxes of kleenex (not budgeted, but DH is going through them like nobody's business with hay fever)
- 2 knitting bags, will need to see if I like them
- 64gb microSD card for my phone to replace the one that's floating around the house somewhere
- dog bed for the greyhound
- sandals for me

So, not too bad really.

Waiting on bank balances to update with the MB earnings...should be a good number at the end of the week!