The ups, downs, and occasional sideways bits of trying to be mortgage free

Cherryfudge

I don't know the cause of your mood but it sounds as though you need a bit of 'you' time. All I can suggest - while you wait for your weekend away - is to take great care of yourself. Rest, vitamins, healthy food, things that make you laugh, fresh air & exercise etc. Easier said than done of course.

Naughty Mr E. Maybe you just have to call fruit trees an investment as hopefully they will pay for themselves in the long term. Was the snapper nice? I've never tried it. It doesn't sound like the sort of thing where you make a pie with leftovers, though, so I guess it's back to the beans for Monday. If it's any help, we used to get our food spending money out in cash and divide it between us. It's much easier to stay in budget if you can see what you've got left, but of course you both need to be on message about the budget, and reading diaries seems to indicate that's often the most difficult thing to achieve.

Hoping for a better day for you today.

Tahlullah

As a fellow 'bad mood, can't be arsed' sufferer, I wish to offer my condolences. And clearly tea and biscuits is not working for you at all!

As Cherryfudge says, perhaps you need some indulgent self time.

Personally, what I need is a shed load of money which would allow me to pay the potential 'grand debt' and to clear the mortgage.

That's all I need. I once had a discussion with a work colleague about winning the lottery. She promised me some if she won. I actually got it down to £50k. That's all I would need. Out of her millions, that was it. She thought it was a small sum to give if she won. I saw it as a life changing amount. So, £50k. It would allow me to do what I want with the rest of my life, if that includes doing voluntary work or part time work to keep my hand in, so be it.

Perhaps you just need to know that you are free and clear of the mortgage, which will then leave you free to deal with the 'achieving world peace' goal. But currently, Mr ACE is spending money on things to make the home what you all aspire to; however, him spending the money on fruit trees is detracting from the bigger aim, which is to get rid of the mortgage.

I know it sounds mad, but perhaps the issue is that the amount is so big. I can only talk about how I feel and perhaps try to understand how I would feel in your shoes. And your mortgage is ginormous to me. Maybe you look at it and think about how long it will take to get to the end and it is getting you down. There is no doubt that you will overpay and clear it early, but maybe it's just not fast enough and that's what is causing the problem. Because you have to focus on the minutiae stuff, they are getting in the way of you living the life you want to live.

To be honest, this is how I feel. Everything that happens to me on a day to day basis makes me feel down because it's another day that I have to spend with this albatross around my neck. And knowing it is coming down slowly and steadily isn't cutting it for me. Chipping away at its isn't doing it for me. I just want it gone, cleared, over.

I need to stop being depressed in your diary and leave that to mine! Sorry.

I am certain that come summer, you will feel better. Until then, hang in there, you are doing a great job and you are moving towards your dream, even if you are not clear what the dream is.

Tx

armchairexpert

You guys are always so patient with my bad moods, thank you. And Tallulah, you're always very wise, so don't apologise about feeling depressed on my diary. I mean I'm not glad you're also miserable, obviously! But if you are, feel free to be so here!

Mr E isn't a particularly wasteful guy, and he's absolutely on board with the paying-down-the-mortgage in theory. He uses up leftover food and he built me a new planter box without spending a cent (except on potting mix) and he's generally great. The problem is that we don't have a big margin for error, so even small-but-reasonable splurges put us over, and that's depressing because we can't live like monks. It's reasonable to buy some fruit trees! It's reasonable to want a nice fish dinner once a month! But add in a few early bills and we're almost $1000 over budget this month, let alone over paying!

It's almost the end of the financial year which means a few things: a) new loan if the bank gets their act together and gets it processed, saving $150 a month or so, b) my business will start paying in an extra $500/month to the family accounts and c) the tax return should be a fairly hefty lump sum. So those things will cheer me up. We should start seeing the benefit of the new mobile phone provider soon as well. Mr E's medical needs are hanging over our heads a bit, but no point worrying until we know what's happening there.

In the meantime, I made an excellent tofu stir fry last night - my new focus on grocery budgets has meant a lot more vegetarian meals for the family, which I think is good - and even baked a new loaf of delicious bread. Veg lasagne tonight, and there's a chicken defrosting for a midweek roast tomorrow.

armchairexpert

Cherryfudge wrote: »

Was the snapper nice? I've never tried it. It doesn't sound like the sort of thing where you make a pie with leftovers, though, so I guess it's back to the beans for Monday

Honestly it was nice but I was so grumpy I was just eating it and muttering silently to myself about it not being $50 nice. Wasteful me. But the girls adored it, and devoured it, and there were no leftovers, so I guess it fulfilled its purpose!

armchairexpert

The other variable I keep forgetting to mention is that there is a teensy tiny possibility that we might have to do a small renovation sooner rather than later. By which I mean: we probably will have to.

There are two things we want to do over time: one is knock through the kitchen and dining room because they're both ridiculously shaped and use space badly, and the other one is to knock through the bathroom and separate toilet upstairs and create one larger space. At the moment, all the bedrooms are upstairs so that's the main bathroom, and it's so small that I cannot fit in there at the same time as a four year old. And the toilet leads straight off from the family room without a hallway or any kind of dividing space (I mean, there's a door) which is a bit confronting.

The upstairs was added on by the previous owners, in the early seventies, and they were on such a tight budget that they got a friend to do the design for free. The friend was neither an architect nor a builder, but had designed his own house so they thought that would be fine. Except that his own-house design included a guest bedroom that you could only access through the bathroom, so I'm not sure they thought that one through.

In my ideal world I would take the entire second storey off and do extensive restoration to my lovely 1940s lower storey (they blocked off the original fireplaces to put the second floor on! MONSTERS) but that's never going to happen.

Anyway, the tiles are coming off the floor in the upstairs bathroom in strips, and the wall tiles are also looking dodgy, and if we're going to have to gut it and completely retile it it might be worth just doing the reno earlier rather than later. I'm trying to get recommendations for builders at the moment. The kitchen'll wait.

Tahlullah

So, the source of your angst IS money. Whether it be coming in slowly or going out quickly, that's the issue.

You cannot control the passage of time or the rate at which external organisations move, so you will just have to suck up the long, drawn out protracted process and wait for good things to happen. And it will. Patience is a virtue so I am told.

And living like monks isn't a great idea, but it's better than living like a Buddhist! See, when you look, you can always find a positive in your situation!

And be honest, the Red Snapper was wonderful! I LOVE Red Snapper. it was something we used to have regularly when I was younger as it was almost part of my parents staple diet. It wasn't until I left home that I realised what a treat it was.

What always surprises me is how people don't have the vision to see what is an attractive feature in the home and so destroy it in their quest for their version of perfection. Well done the previous owners for wanting to put a 2nd floor on the property, even if it wasn't designed well. But to take out the fireplace to achieve it? Madness.

Knocking the bathroom and toilet into one will give you extra space that you can work with to get a decent size family bathroom. But as usual, the timing could be better. But think of the fun you will have designing the space, choosing the bathroom suite, choosing tiles etc.

Ohh look, shiny new project!!!

armchairexpert

Oh Tallulah, the crimes they committed to put the second storey on. They also sacrificed the beautiful sun room to put the staircase in.

The bathroom/toilet thing is also ridiculous. There's this enormous family room at the centre of the second storey, and then they crammed the world's tiniest bathroom into one corner. Why? WHY? Don't get me started on the bedrooms.

I honestly think it wasn't so much their quest for perfection, I think they were just very non-aesthetic people who wanted it done quick and cheap. On the bright side, when we turned up we had the pleasure of pulling up the carpets downstairs to find 1940s original timber floors that had never been exposed to the sun. I thought there were no houses like that left in the world.

Anyway, I digress! Money saving continues apace, insomuch as I did not spend any of it today. I made a loaf of bread last night and the girls are now on a fresh bread kick and between us we've eaten almost the whole loaf. They requested "plain fresh bread" in their lunch boxes and again for afternoon snack, so, okay then I guess. There's a new one rising in front of the heater as we speak.

Veg lasagne with two cheeses and a tin of brown lentils in the vegetable sauce went down well too, although I can tell Mr E is just being polite every time I feed him vegetarian food. What is it about men and meat? And tomorrow I am off to Costco where I will be Terribly Sensible and definitely not come back here reporting hundreds of dollars spent.

Tahlullah

I'm with Mr ACE on this one. I would be searching under the lentils for my side of beef!

So, a family room in the middle of the upstairs. If it like a extremely large landing which all other rooms are entered from, or is it a real room off the landing? With time and resources, could you re-figure the layout of the upstairs?

I bet the timber floors were like the most wonderful discovery for you. What made you buy the house in the first place? Is it the size or the location, because it doesn't sound like it has that many period features left?

I have a Booker's card - equivalent of Costco, but a bit smaller I think. I never go, because like you, I'm not convinced that i'm not just buying more of something, rather than lots of something for cheaper - if you get my drift. But the cakes are lovely!!

armchairexpert

Location 100%. This place is the shabbiest house on the best street: we're surrounded by huge houses in the $1-2M range, walking distance from the library and park and lots of little boutiques (think Surrey village), and the garden is huge. We could never have afforded to live here in a renovated house, but it's my dream location, and the house is perfectly serviceable and large and sturdy which is all you could want really.

The owners had lived here since 1970, and had retired a few years back and retired to somewhere sunnier, and they were dithering about selling it because the risk was very real that a developer would buy it, knock over the house and build a fancier one as befits the land value - you'd think why would they care, but when you've owned somewhere for 45 years, ever since you were newly weds, I guess you'd care. And they were right: next door is fancier than this by some way, and they're knocking theirs down and building from scratch.

I wrote them a two page letter shamelessly flattering the house-as-is and talking about how my small children would love to play in the garden, and my artist husband would love to use the old stone garage as a painter's studio, and we did it as a private sale under market value. Also that meant they didn't have to bother titivating it for sale: we bought it ugly curtains and overgrown garden and all!

armchairexpert

I am returned from Costco relatively triumphant! In a plot twist literally everybody could see coming, I did in fact spend $200. But! For that I got:

2 roasting chickens
2 kg good pork sausages
2 kg lamb roast (actually YS from butcher next door, but details details)
1kg chicken thigh fillet (as above)
700g lamb chops
3 kg beef mince
4 kg frozen berries
120 dishwasher tablets
1,564,857,365.5 loo rolls (approx)

And some other things that were all staples (tofu, noodles, passata, hot sauce) if you ignore the emergency spanakopita, which I think we should all do.

Got home to discover that my freezer was rammed. Decided to turn on my chest freezer which has been languishing in the basement laundry. Discovered my cat in the chest freezer, just chillin' (see what I did there?). Turfed cat. Cleaned chest freezer. Stocked with many things. Why is spending large amounts of money on bulk food so satisfying? If a blizzard arrives, I'm all set!