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

Tahlullah

Woo hoo!

Welcome back.

armchairexpert

Did a whole bunch of clearing out this weekend, including listing some furniture for sale. The new kitchen is actually a bigger renovation than it sounds. We moved the kitchen to a room which didn't really have a good function before and we're stripping back the old kitchen (ripping up flooring and plastering in the holes in the walls from the old plumbing and wiring - lots of elbow grease!) and turning it into the new dining room. Then the old dining room becomes a guest bedroom so that I no longer have to turf Big Girl out of her room every time grandma comes to stay.

Unfortunately, in all of this, we have to sell our beautiful dining table and buy a smaller one. We've found the right smaller one in a second hand shop, and Mr Expert will restore it so it looks nice, so now I just have to sell the other one - I should be able to sell it for more than the new one cost, but we'll see. I've also listed a display cabinet, an old rocking chair, a dresser and some chairs, put some more stuff on a local giveaway site and booked a hard rubbish pick up for the things that nobody will take.

Flipping exhausting, and if nothing sells I'll be pretty down.

wishingthemortgaheaway

At least, with that sort of new kitchen, you weren't without a kitchen while the work was being done.
It's one of the reasons our kitchen refurbishment has taken a back seat.

jodles16

Hi ACE,

Have read through the diary and am impressed at how well you balance mortgage vs everything else, even if you don't always feel that way! You have done some great things, your girls seem great and work sounds like it is doing well!

Jodles

armchairexpert

wishingthemortgaheaway wrote: »

At least, with that sort of new kitchen, you weren't without a kitchen while the work was being done.
It's one of the reasons our kitchen refurbishment has taken a back seat.

We actually were without an oven and cooktop for about a month, because the new kitchen was going in on the other side of the wall from the old kitchen, so we needed all the old wiring out before we could start. But we did have a working sink the whole time, which helped enormously.

I've sold an old rocking chair for $60, but no enquiries about any of the bigger or more expensive stuff. The guy who is delivering the new-to-us table will take a look at the old table and cabinet and see if he wants to buy them for his shop, but I'd imagine that would involve taking a far lower price than selling them myself.

Oh, and the weather forecast is for - are you sitting down? - 45 on Thursday. FORTY FIVE. CELSIUS. Some days I wonder why I ever left England.

wishingthemortgaheaway

armchairexpert wrote: »

Oh, and the weather forecast is for - are you sitting down? - 45 on Thursday. FORTY FIVE. CELSIUS. Some days I wonder why I ever left England.

Because it's freezing cold, snowing and miserable. It's not even nice, blue winter day, sunny crisp snow. It's yucky horrible wet, grey, miserable snow... (although 45 is far too hot for me)

armchairexpert

I mean you're not wrong, but again: 45. The garden is shrivelling and dying, and I can't go out for more than a couple of hours because I have to keep putting ice cubes in the chickens' drinking water and I can't leave the dog outside for long even in the shade.

Little Girl said yesterday "not salad AGAIN" and I was like, if you think I am turning on the stove, young lady...

We're also on the sixth week of the school holidays and my appetite for finding free things to do is severely curtailed by the weather. I had all sorts of plans to picnic in the local forest or do nature trails, and actually it's more like "let's hide out in the library and then buy ice cream" and "sure, I can find the money for yet another trip to the swimming pool" because there are only so many days inside anyone can stand! But hopefully we'll be over the worst of it soon and I can claw back the budget once they're at school again.

ChasingSunshine

45C is so so hot. Always forget how miserable it can get when it is just unpleasant and hot like that but thats mainly because I am back in the cold now and would love it to warm up a bit! It is definitely not the kind of weather that lends itself to being outside and makes AC an absolute essential.
When do the school holidays end? Hopefully you can stretch the budget until then and as you said it should improve once they go back.

armchairexpert

They go back on Tuesday, but there's a cool change due tomorrow so today is really the worst of it. It's absolutely record breaking heat even for here, and I know I'm whining about it but it creates so much extra work looking after the garden and the animals and whatnot. Plus the bushfire risk: I have a change of clothes for everyone and the paperwork essentials in the car, ready to go.

I know it's a money diary, but saving money is the last thing on my mind at the moment. Dinner might have to be a ready cooked chicken from the supermarket, honestly. Except that I think the rest of the country will have the same idea...

armchairexpert

Nearing the end of a very busy weekend! We spent Saturday sanding back and replastering (and then sanding back, and then replastering) the walls in the new dining room. This is a labour of love and taking us forever because we're doing it ourselves. Basically, we've switched the dining room and kitchen around, which means that we're creating a dining room out of an old kitchen. It being an old kitchen, there were lots of holes in the walls as cabinets and plumbing works came out, so we needed to do some deep trenching and repairs. Not to mention the floors, which had cork tiles laid over lino, both of which needed ripping up and then the underlay and glue scraping off by hand before we could sand and polish and seal the floorboards.

Anyway, we've been plugging away at it for about two months - my poor kids have become very good at entertaining themselves and just taking advantage of access to the snack pantry! - and we're finally at a point where we could paint the walls with undercoat yesterday. So that's exciting. What's even more exciting is that we found three half-used tins of the same paint in the shed, which we've combined and should give us a couple of coats of paint.

We've picked up a very cheap rug off gumtree ($50!) and a second hand dining room table ($400), sold off a display cabinet and rocking chair so far ($180). I need to sell our old dining room table, but it's so huge (which is why I need to sell it: it won't fit in the new room) that I think it's putting people off. It took a team of experienced removalists to get it into the house!

Anyway, it's all very exciting seeing the new room developing, and although it's hard work it's very satisfying and I feel like we're learning a lot. It does have some cost associated - the hire of the floor sander, the big bags of putty - but it's minimal compared to hiring a tradie.

Now it's Sunday afternoon and I'm working while Mr Expert and the girls make dinner. I've taken on far too much work recently, and I'm starting to regret it. But the money's so tempting!

Meal plan for this week looks like:

Peri-peri chicken and salad tonight
Monday tacos
Tuesday leftover chicken in probably stir-fry?
Wednesday frittata or quiche with whatever we have
Thursday spaghetti bolognese
Friday minestrone

Nothing exciting on the money front to report except that we're FINALLY heading in the right direction again! January was a three-pay month for Mr E (he's paid fortnightly, and the budget is based on 2xhis salary per month, so technically twice a year we get a bonus paycheck) so I used some of it to pay back the red pots, and the rest to start funding the next month again. I want to get back to having the whole budget funded a month ahead before I start trying to overpay the mortgage again.

This month is shaping up expensive, though: we're barely over the Christmas and holiday expenses, but the girls went back to school this week so there's school fees plus they both need new ballet shoes, plus dance-class term fees (higher this year because Little is sitting her first exams), new school uniform bits...it's never ending!