Cottage Countdown

LeighofMar

Thanks for dropping by @family355. You are definitely correct that my mortgage balance now is less than some new luxury cars on the market. It must go, lol. 

Quote for the roof is $4900.00 for the nicer shingles. But he suggested that DH and he swap labor as one of his investment projects will need an electrician. So DH is off to look at it now and see if it's possible. Might save a few bucks that way and everybody's happy. He would buy the electrical material. We would buy our roofing material. And then they would swap labor. If there is a difference in what the labor would be, that will come out of pocket. So it might just be a win-win for us. Networking sure is helpful, especially when you are in the trades. 

Just paid the car insurance for 6 months. $450.00 and $430.00 respectively. Sheesh. The $430.00 is for the work van so the business thankfully can pay that, but my car is out of our own pocket so I will definitely have to sweep whatever's left over before the next payday to put on the cc that I used to pay the insurance. 

Cashing out my transcription this week, another $250.00 for the coffers. I will just take $50.00 cash and leave the remaining $200.00 to build up the business savings account again. With all the spitting and sputtering work is doing, I want to build up a few months of payroll just in case. 

"Your DH will be very happy, take it from someone who knows.xx"
Thanks for the words of experience @bit_by_bit. I hope so too. He's worked so hard. He deserves something to call his own as well. 

savingholmes

That sounds positive on the labour swap. Fab!

Gem2889

Well done on fantastic progress 👍🏻👍🏻

LeighofMar

Very busy financial day today. We are finally caught up from our client with his checks (for now) so we received our payroll, submitted our retirement contributions, paid off the 6-month car insurance for the work van on the CC and allocated some funds to business savings. 
$318.60 send to mortgage today. New balance $37,611.40. Will definitely Tilly Tidy over $11.40 tomorrow for an even $37,600.00. Efund received $37.37. House fund received $80.00 and general savings received $80.00. This mortgage OP put us on the payment for January 2033. My goal is to pay off all the way through to Dec 2035, but with only 6 months left in the year, I'm not sure I can make it. However, I will go as hard and far as I can without breaking the budget and see where we land. My insurance of $450.00 put on my CC was paid off today. 

DH is doing his part of the swap labor with our flipping partner. He is rewiring an investment property and our flipping partner will roof our house and all it will cost us is the roofing materials. Score!!! Of course, poor DH is under the house in the crawlspace at the moment, so he may not feel as excited as I am, but he's a good sport and recognizes a good deal when he sees one. The investment property we flipped is still waiting on an interested buyer trying to get financing. Hopefully, that will go through. 

I have done a lot of reorganizing our retirement funds. I've always been a novice and understand the basics of investing, so when I finally realized I had so many redundant funds in the investment accounts, I knew I had to change everything. So once they reached their pre-COVID market tanking levels, I sold the redundant funds and funneled them into the target date funds and some other ones. It does get so confusing, but I basically did it and have a 4-fund portfolio now like I've read about, which should work for DH. He is 15 years my senior so much closer to retirement. His target date fund seems to be a strong balance of stocks and bonds, international, and large/small cap so I will keep depositing into that as well as a healthcare fund and a separate international fund. It makes my head spin, but I feel pretty good that that will work nicely for him. 

As far as mine goes, I have a 5-fund with healthcare, small cap, S&P 500, a target date, and total stock market. Even that is probably redundant, but since I have more time, I can always readjust as I learn more. 

Now I have to find a way to have some peace and quiet as one of the neighbors is having trees cut in their yard, and the vibration and boom of the truck are making me dizzy and my ears reverberate. 

LeighofMar

Tilly Tidied 11.40 to the mortgage today. 37,600.00 it is. I don't know how much I will be able to OP next week but I know that just another 20.00 will finish the payment for Feb 2033. So that is exciting and very doable. I need to get out of bed and start working but I'm nice and comfortable right now. I might as well get my day started. I have to work, exercise, and pick up the groceries today. And now that my neighbor cut their tree down, I have more sun in the corner of my backyard. I was planning a shade garden and I think I still can do it as I have a giant oak tree there too. I just have to think on it some more as gardening is still new to me anyway. 
Enjoy the weekend all!

savingholmes

Enjoy gardening. Congrats for sorting out your pensions too. 

LeighofMar

Another $50.00 sent to the mortgage today. Balance is now $37,550.00. Worst case scenario by end of July, I will owe $37,300.00. Best case scenario would be to break into the 36K bracket. But we will see. DH has completed his electrical part of the swap labor. Now we will buy the roofing material probably next week, and our construction partner will do his labor and swap out our roof. So exciting, although I hope when they throw all the old shingles off, they don't hurt my garden. I've worked too hard. I'm mowing the grass once a week with this Georgia rain and sun, it grows so fast. And unfortunately, even by 9:00 AM while I'm cutting, it's already so hot that I'm sweating. Gotta love the South. Transcription is off and on but I already have $100.00 so far for this month, so I'm happy with any extra pennies. And I'm hoping I can put the roofing materials on my credit card online for 2% cash back, which I can put towards the mortgage. That would be nice. Just have to convince DH not to buy the darn material while he's at the store! I'll try to sway him by telling him I could order it so they could have it all stacked and ready to put in the van by the time he gets there  We'll see if that works. 

Still waiting to hear about the investment property, but I know it takes time so just trying to wait patiently. We have some more local jobs which are nice for now, and we hope to travel again when all this is over. DH has finished remodeling the travel trailer, and it is too cute. We can't wait to use it. I think I would like to start spending some summers in the Northeast like Vermont, Maine, or the Adirondacks in upstate New York where temperatures are mild for the summer with cool evenings. I think that would be a nice compromise as DH is fine with the heat, but I'm tired of it. 

LeighofMar

Payday today and the money shuffle is on. I decided to make a calculated move and pay $500.00 to the principal instead of the $511.00 official monthly payment. By doing this, not only did I knock 3 payments off the mortgage, but it also means I will be in the 36K bracket by the end of this month after all.  I am very happy about that. I will make the official monthly payment early August, which will pay for October 2020's payment, and I will still have my 3-month buffer of when I need to make a payment. My goal now is to use September's 3-check month to pay December and January 2021's payment and then be free to OP everything for the rest of the year to principal. Hopefully, by doing this, I can really crush this mortgage even faster. I just thought of it today because I was playing with the calculators trying to see how to get to the 36Ks by the end of the month and I was struggling because if I had just made the regular monthly payment of $511, only $185.00 of that goes to principal. The rest is interest, taxes, ins, etc. It's just starting to get annoying of paying so much for so little. But now with the OP of $500.00 straight to principal, I've moved ahead all the way to April, 2033. I'm much happier with that. I will start working on some calendars for next year. My goal will be to wipe out all the remaining 11 official monthly payments next year within the first few months. If I can do that, then the rest of the year, I can OP to the principal and see how much faster that takes me. It's exciting and it will take some strategy, but I think I'm up for it.  

Savings pots topped up today. Efund received $265.00, House fund received $80.00, although I'll be paying almost $2000.00 from it next week to pay for the roof tiles. That's okay. That's what it's for. After all is said and done, I should have $185.00 left and need to build back up to 2K min. General savings received $80.00.

Roof tiles are sitting out front waiting to be installed hopefully next week if the rain doesn't mess everything up. I couldn't order it online as DH needed to be there with our roofer while he bought everything, so I only got the 1% on my CC. But it works out, as that transaction alone netted me $19.78 plus my other rewards, and I will be able to redeem it to the mortgage next week $25.00. I'm also expecting $7.60 from Rakuten. Every little bit helps. 

More room darkening curtains ordered for the guest room that we use as our movie room. Of course, now DH loves the idea of a bigger TV and sound system. Maybe I'll tell him the sooner we pay off this house, the sooner he can have it  I will encourage him to get a good one though.  He wanted a dessert the other day, and I just didn't feel like baking it. He said he would, and sure enough, I just read the directions to him and he made delicious Paleo pecan and date caramel pie bars. They're just as good as when I make them. So I'm happy to keep him happy, especially if it means he bakes more in the kitchen when I don't feel like it 
Have a wonderful weekend all!

savingholmes

Great to have a DH who's good at diy and baking. Amazing. Well done on the garden and the OPs.

LeighofMar

Thanks SH. I might keep him around a little bit .
Next week should bring us to 30k that's been paid off the mortgage since we bought 4 years ago. So excited. We are almost to 50% which will be the next mini goal, then onwards and downwards. I'm so ready.