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

armchairexpert

The invoices for my Mad March are coming in now, which is making me feel quite pleased - this will probably be my highest earning month to date. I'm not sure if I'll get to my new income goal or not this year ($12K more than the year before, basically), but it'll be close. I'm waiting on a huge job at the moment, the client's gone quiet but if it comes off it's going to be worth several thousand over my usual income. I'm hoping they've gone quiet because they're super busy, and not because my quote made them fall over in shock!

April spending is fine so far and should continue to be. It's my birthday at the start of May, but I think all the spending for that is basically done. I have highlighted to Mr Expert that I require a cake this year, because I never get a cake and it was starting to hurt my feelings so I said it and underlined it and I am confident he'll come through. But a cake won't blow the budget!

I'm eking out the grocery budget a bit, because Mr E did the cooking over the Easter weekend and used up about a third of the meat I'd laid in for the month. But he's away for five days next week, and four the week after, so it should even out.

This is a very boring update! I do better when I check in, though, so, here I am checking in.

ToeDipper

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2015/09/14/75-million-cake-sets-price-record.html

:rotfl:

Tahlullah

ToeDipper wrote: »

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2015/09/14/75-million-cake-sets-price-record.html

:rotfl:

Fantastic! This would so suit ACE! And no doubt it will come in under budget.

armchairexpert

Has it been a month? Goodness.

Since I'm sure you're on the edge of your seats, let me start with the most important thing: I did indeed get a birthday cake. And the crowd goes wild! Not a million dollar cake, sadly/luckily. A perfectly respectable lemon syrup and yoghurt cake.

My MIL decided to fly over for my birthday, so I spent it entertaining a house guest, cleaning a lot and we spent rather too much on entertainment. But it was sweet of her. And Mr E and the girls pulled out all the stops re: presents - they didn't spend a fortune, but it was all thoughtful, which was even more touching because they know I get anxious about money.

Money: the business continues steadily. A huge job that was supposed to come in in May turned out to be a far smaller job, so I can't quite retire yet, but it's all ticking along. Still trying to find the balance between business-building and doing actual billable work, but I'm working a lot fewer evenings than I was 18 months ago, thanks to higher paying clients. So that's nice.

Still waiting for the overtime from Mr E's April field trip (just a day's worth, sadly, but it was a Sunday so I think double time) to come in. He has another two week job scheduled which keeps getting pushed back from originally early May to now probably-early-June, which should be more lucrative. The holiday fund is building, but slowly.

Oh, and we decided to take the plunge and splurge on solar panels - $10,000 worth. Our electricity bill is absolutely bonkers, because we live in a cold part of Australia in a big draughty house with no gas mains. I'm a bit worried that the roof is too shady to get a lot of use out of the panels in winter, but we'll see. If they live up to their promise, we should save 75% of our current power bills, meaning it'll take about 6 years to break even.

The mortgage will go backwards, therefore. So far we've only paid the deposit of $1K, but it does mean we won't go under $200K by the end of the year, which was my original aim. We'll see!

Chrystal

I think the solar panels are an investment well worth making. Are you able to 'sell' any electricity you don't use to the Grid?

armchairexpert

Yes, but not for very much money - it's more lucrative to just buy enough system for your needs, since the price-per-cent of the electricity you don't have to buy is so much more than the price-per-cent of the electricity you sell back.

The major unknown is that we have such a big draughty house that we need a 6kW system at minimum, but we don't have a big roof space (it's a tall narrow house) and we have a lot of tall trees shading the north side of the block (the north, of course, being the side that gets the most sun, because Southern Hemisphere). To cut those trees down would cost me around $30K, so that's not happening. So we've had to squeeze the panels on, and some of the roof doesn't get a lot of sun any time of the day. With a bigger roof we'd have been able to avoid the shady corners, but no luck. Which means that there's a real chance our huge expensive system won't save us nearly as much as we're hoping. We have spent extra to bump up the power per panel, so I'm hopeful.

mfmaybe

Why so much to fell the trees? :eek: Obviously it's very hard to compare, but we had about 8 felled - very large dying beech trees. In sections, using ropes etc as it was quite a tight area so you couldn't just fell them in a one'r. It cost £400 per day for a 3 man team, took 2 days. They even cut it into log sections for us to burn later. Plus we then had the firewood. Local farmers with all their certifications etc so not cowboys.

If that's not possible could they have their crowns lifted, or even remove just a few. Double payback if you have a woodburner too!

Chrystal

Wishing you good luck with it all AE.
The thing is you know it's going to pay in the end, and for the rest of the time you live in the house you'll be reaping the rewards. You may be able to take the trees down at a later stage (or even one at a time, and use the logs for burning?)

Sorry MFMaybe ... cross posted

armchairexpert

The trees are a thicket of pines. They're probably 25m tall, and there's about - not sure, but 15-20 of them in a smallish area? It's the height that's the problem. They'll need special equipment to fell them, and they can't be crowned because nobody's going to climb 'em. I will get more quotes, but that's what I've been told so far.

Also I don't have a wood burning fire, much to my sadness - most places around here do but the barbarians who owned this before us pulled out the original fireplace and put a gas heater in. Barbarians.

In other news, an electrician came out, looked at the trees, looked at the steep pitch of the roof and said he wasn't sure he dared to climb up onto the roof anyway, and there isn't room to get a cherry picker in to the back garden so he can get up there safely. So we're waiting to see if someone else will take the job, and if not I'm tempted to just abandon this whole idea, frankly.

Also, we've spent a bunch of money this month and I'm depressed about it, because it's going to take our entire holiday-savings for the month to cover. Both Eldest Daughter and I needed dental work done, and the gap after our private health cover was $600. Hopefully won't have to be done again, but still. It feels very frustrating that in so many months, something comes up and kills off the savings. We are getting better at keeping running costs like groceries down, but sometimes it's still a long slog.

armchairexpert

Doing some very boring business stuff (SEO, that sort of thing) this evening in the hopes that it will start encouraging clients to come to me instead of me having to find them. I do hate outbound marketing. My business partner is good at it, and earns double what I do, which you'd think would be enough motivation for me to follow suit. It is not, alas.

I've let it all slip a bit this last month or so. I've been thinking we had a bit of slack to play with, but then 2 x expensive dentist visits plus a doctor's appointment for Mr E, plus one of the animals needed vaccination and then another one got fleas, and one of the girls is sitting a ballet exam which means an extra workshop plus the entrance fee on top of usual class fees - so I shouldn't have also been buying shoes, no matter how cheap. I'm looking at the accounts to see what I can claw back. Not much! Even things like school costs are high this month, thanks to the annual photography session.

Um, let's see. Groceries are nice and cheap, I feel like I have a handle on those. Chilli con carne this evening with the last of some sour cream and an avocado, then baked potatoes with tuna tomorrow, home made pizza and a beef casserole that should do us for two days. That leaves me with some rump steak (not much: I'll slice for stir fry and stretch it with noodles), smoked fish for kedgeree, a vegie curry, spinach and feta quiche, pasta of some description and I reckon we're at the end of the month.

We're trialling a thing whereby the girls take turns cooking us dinner on Sunday evenings. At the moment that's involving a lot of parental supervision and help, because they don't know how to cook and also Little Girl is too small to be able to do things like lift stuff out of the oven/drain boiling water, but the hope is that over time they'll be able to take over completely. Eldest (and I) cooked an apricot chicken tagine thing on Sunday that was surprisingly good. And fairly MSE, since we went to the supermarket Sunday afternoon and they were ys'ing the chickens.

Somehow don't think that shaving $50 off the grocery bill will cover the $800 in medical costs this month, but it's better than nothing.