Cottage Countdown

savingholmes

It will be great to hit 50%. We would have to pay around £75.5K to get down to 50% of the original mortgage.

LeighofMar

You'll get there SH. Mini goals like you've been doing, and you're doing so well. My house is admittedly super cheap too, which is more the exception than the rule. It's crazy to think that my same house, 1500 sq ft 3 bed 2 bath would be $500,000 and up in parts of NY and San Francisco. That just boggles the mind. 

DH is happily putting some cedar shake shingles as an accent for our front stoop today to boost the curb appeal even more. I should be helping him but I'm enjoying the AC and no mosquitoes right now

savingholmes

Great if you can get a bargain it all helps. Our house would be multiple times the price if we were down south.

LeighofMar

Roof is being worked on as I type this. It sounds like a herd of elephants up there, but hey, for $2000.00 in materials and free labor, I won't complain. (Unless of course they hurt one of my plants)  I can pay my CC for the roof materials directly from my home repair/maintenance pot, which is great. So I will pay that on Wednesday and be all paid up. I am quite pleased with that.

Now I just have to try to wake up for work and do my budgets for the next 2 weeks. I've gone slightly crazy buying some things for my garden like a gazing ball in art glass. I've wanted one for so long, I decided to treat myself. Plus it's solar so it'll light up at night. I'm just super geeky into that. I know. But I love it. $48.00. Then I went to the garden center, and they did not have any lavender, so I had to order some from a nursery. That was another $40.00 for two live plants in quart pots. So I need to cool it so we will have some money until next payday before it all goes into my garden 

LeighofMar

Roof is almost complete. They worked 13 hours on it yesterday, and we don't have a big house! But there was some decking rot that they took care of. Besides the constant pounding, it looks great, and I can't wait to have a nice secure roof that will probably outlive me. 
While our contracting friend is here, we asked him for an off-the-top-of-his-head price on what it would take to build a sunroom. They measured it and he said about 5K. I am so thrilled as I was expecting anywhere from 7-12K. Of course, as DH said, he may still have to swap some electrical labor to get these good prices, but he's happy to do that if it helps us do some of the things we want to the house faster. The dream is a sunroom with a corner antique fire stove, wood-burning and maybe even sneak a closet and a half bath in there, like a bookcase that slides opens to reveal a half bath on one side and a closet on the other. DH also asked about possibly putting a dormer over our dining room to kind of amp the curb appeal and aesthetic from the outside as our house is pure rectangles with no real dimension (only a front stoop and not a wide Southern porch sadly). He said about $800.00. So far, we are liking the prices we're hearing and think we can make this house perfect for us for not as much money as we thought. The goal is always to be mortgage-free. But how much more will we enjoy the house being mortgage-free AND having the house exactly the way we want it! So exciting. 

I did tell DH though that if we're not going to move again, which makes sense if we're going to put all these touches onto the house, then I want to talk about spending summers in the north where it's cooler. He agreed. So the plan would be during the hottest weeks of summer like we just had last week, ugh, we could take the travel trailer to the coast of Maine or enjoy the upper peninsula of Michigan or something. That's a good compromise I can think of for right now. 

LeighofMar

Roof complete, yay. I needed to pull another $400 out for some odds and ends besides the permit. But it's all good. Total cost was $2345.00. My house fund only had $2160.00 in it, so I will have to make up the difference, but can't complain. It's done. 

Mortgage OP sent today, $25.00 from my cashback CC and $190.00 from savings. Mortgage balance is now $36,835.00. So happy to break into the 36Ks. I didn't think it could be done this month, so I am super stoked about that. And only one plant died due to roof tiles crashing on her, and I can replace her easily, so that's something. Now to build up the house fund again. The goal will be 2K minimum. 

When the home improvement store delivered the roof tiles, they left 2 pallets in my yard, so I've decided to upcycle them into some kind of planter. DH says he will do it for me, as I absolutely hate any kind of saw with a passion. But he figures he can make me a 3-tiered planter for my front garden. Considering the ones I've seen on Wayfair for sale are $150.00 and up, I will be thrilled if he can do this for me. 

I am busy this weekend with Zoom meetings all weekend, so I guess I will have to mentally prepare to make myself quasi-presentable on screen. 

savingholmes

Glad the roof is fixed and the plants survived. Your plans sound lovely. Well done on the continued OPs.

LeighofMar

Thanks, SH. I only have $200.00 remaining of the roof project to pay, so I'm very pleased and already starting to rebuild my little house fund. I added $100.00 to it so now it is at $165.00 instead of a pitiful $65.00   

My planter came out wonderful. Actually it's more of a three-tiered potting bench so I can put containers over it and add some beautiful color to that side of the garden. So proud of DH and it only took him 30 minutes from start to finish. 

Payday today. Money shuffle completed. I paid the official mortgage payment for October 2020 so our 3-month buffer is in place. Mortgage balance $36,645.00. We are at payment 212 on the amortization schedule. 148 payments to go. The plan was to use the 3 paychecks we will get in September to finish paying off the year's mortgage payments for November, December, and January. But we just got news that our main client may be slowing down to a crawl. We have some local work of 3 houses coming up, which will hold us, but we don't know when or if he will be able to get revved again. Lousy contractors go directly to the help, which they are NOT supposed to do, and offer the project to them at a lower price. Of course, they promise them that they will take care of all insurance needs and stuff, but whenever something goes wrong, they will swear they never had that conversation. So frustrating when our client DOES have the proper insurance, the business license, the credentials, the transportation which of course is why he has to charge a higher but fair price. People are just even greedier during COVID, I imagine. Oh well. DH and I will discuss what we need to do in case our main client goes out of business. The investment property still hasn't sold. I figured if it sells and we can get that influx of cash right when our client is stopping the workflow, we would be all right while we figure out what else we want to do. This whole situation definitely makes me want this mortgage gone yesterday!. 

Added $16.00 to the emergency savings and $60.00 to the general savings. Grocery shop for the next two weeks is $185.00 so still under my $200.00 budget, although I expect with DH's snacks we will hit $200.00. I did buy ribs though, so hopefully, we can have a nice BBQ this weekend where he will grill them and I'll make the sauce and the sides. When I wasn't feeling good last week, DH made the cookies and some candy with me shouting the instructions to him from the sofa. They came out so good. The best desserts are the ones I don't have to cook myself. 

Money earned by transcription so far this month is $100.00. If work slows down, I can devote some more time to it provided by wrists don't start screaming at me. Also expecting about $11.00 from Rakuten cashback which will go to savings to OP on the mortgage later. It will be interesting to see what the rest of the year brings. I can't believe we're in August already with fall staring us in the face. 

savingholmes

Good luck with the business side of things. Worrying times for a lot of people. Sounds like hubby could have a side business in planters though. They were really popular over here and in short supply. Wooden bin covers and covered compost bins also sold out over here as so many people decided to do up their homes and plant veg. Cold frames... 

Moneyfordreams

the roof sounds a bargain. Great to swap trades.