Cottage Countdown

savingholmes

Sorry you missed out on your sleep. Big bill for mammogram. I'm grateful I had mine (free) just before all this C19 malarkey hit.

LeighofMar

Grumbling today. I ordered some items from a department store and received an email from them that they had been delivered Dec 31st. I look outside my front door, and there's nothing there. I figure the holidays are here, so I'll give it a few days. Well, the post office lied and said they attempted delivery at 3:30 that afternoon and were refused entry. I was home all day as I work from home and would certainly have known if someone attempted to deliver anything. They didn't even try to redeliver items. They said they're sending it back to the sender and now no one knows where anything is. I've already contacted the post office and blasted them for lying and either not delivering my items at all or stupidly going to someone else's house where they were refused, which is still not my fault in the least. Ridiculous. So here we are January 11th and no solutions yet. I've paid $81.00 for items I have not received. We will see what the department store has to say since I sent them an email too informing them of the situation. We will see how it gets sorted out. So annoying. 

The nice news is DH is doing the beginning work on turning our current laundry room into my future walk-in pantry, which I've always wanted. I can't wait. Eventually, when we put the sunroom addition on, the laundry closet will go in the hallway leading to that, and then I will have a beloved walk-in pantry to store all my goods. So excited. And it's adorable as he's an electrician but has recently become interested in other trades so he built the wall in less than 2 hours. Only thing was, he forgot that eventually we will have to move the old washer and dryer out of there and he made the doorway too narrow. So he had to fix that and widen that for the future. But it's looking good, and the best part is it keeps him occupied. 

Off to have a nice chat with my mom whom I call every week. Hope everyone has a good day.

savingholmes

Great progress. A walk in pantry sounds great. Good luck with the refund

LeighofMar

What a crazy month, and we're not even done yet. Still no word on my missing package. The post office said they were escalating the matter. Haven't heard from them either. Useless. 

And what I feared would happen with the health insurance premiums did. They were kind enough to extend the January payment to be due on 1/31 instead of the standard 1st of the month because of COVID. But the February bill came and sure enough, it is due on 2/1 instead of 2/28. Why in the world would it be beneficial to me to extend my January due date to 1/31 and then have February due on 2/1? So I've been reworking my budgets furiously trying to make sure I can pay everyone and not put ourselves in a hole. All the while knowing there's another $500.00 bill coming my way for my stupid mammogram from the radiologists now. Sigh. Everybody wants money from me at the moment, but my income has not gone up. Oh well. Got to get to it and figure it out. I think I have the healthcare premiums figured out. Now I just have to figure out how to make March's official mortgage payment, save half of the health ins premium, and pay something to the radiologists. If all else fails, the radiologists will just have to wait. I'm not going to not pay my house and utilities to pay them. 

Speaking of house, since all of this is going on, I just made a principle only payment of $200.00 today. It still moves me up to payment 231/360 so I feel like I'm doing something but leaves me enough cash flow to deal with everything else. Mortgage is down to $32,889.50. Yay for 32k bracket!!! I should be able to tidy over $9.50 or $19.50 next week. We will see how the week goes. E-fund received $16.00, house fund received $80.00 and general savings received $80.00. Checks for the retirement account went out today, and groceries were picked up yesterday, so far about $50.00 under budget. But the gas bill will be $150.00 next month from our freezing cold snap. Transcription pot so far is up to $175.00 which I call my pandemic pennies. Every little bit helps even though it goes into the business account. It can go to business savings while all other earnings can go to overhead and our payroll. 

Laundry room is complete. DH put up a wall over a couple of days and installed the bifold doors that when you open them, the light comes on, so no need for a switch. So cool. Today is a workout day so I guess I better motivate myself, although since it's grey and dreary today, I'd rather just stay in bed and read. Have a great weekend all!

savingholmes

Sorry your parcel is still not resolved. Glad we don't have your kind of medical bills.

LeighofMar

Thanks, SH. Yes, medical bills are killer here. Even with insurance at almost $500.00 a month, our out of pocket maximum for the two of us is $17,000.00. I'm sure everyone has that laying around just in case of a medical crisis.    Oh well. I should be able to swing the new radiology bill once it gets here, and I will for sure ask if there is any discount for paying in full or paying with debit vs credit. You never know. 

My parents sent me a smart indoor grill and while I am so grateful, I feel bad because they live on Social Security alone and I don't want them spending their little money on me, especially when I have no need for more kitchen gadgets. And since this is a heavy piece of equipment, I know I will not be taking it in and out of the cabinets, so I will need to leave it out, but I don't have counter space. Since we will be redoing the kitchen in the future, we will scrap an area that we were going to have a kitchen bench and use that area for additional counter/cabinet space. Love my parents, but DH really wanted a built-in bench in the kitchen. I will use it today though. I've got some pork chops and a sweet potato I need to do something with. 

Package will never be resolved as the USPS is completely useless. We stopped the letter carrier on Saturday and told her we were receiving bad service. She started with, "First of all," I interrupted and was like, "First of all nothing. There is no excuse for someone to drive by my mailbox with my flag up and not pick up important mail that I have to send out." Disgusting how incompetent people can be and then want to argue to justify their incompetence. Twice in two weeks, they've sped on by without picking up the mail when the flag was clearly up. Brand new mailbox too, large flag. No excuses. Now I guess I have to do a chargeback on my credit card for the items I never received, but I'm pretty sure I won't win as the department store sent out everything I ordered. It's USPS that failed to deliver and lost my package and how could I ever prove that? Sigh. 

Hopefully, after all the craziness of lost packages and surprise medical bills are behind me, I can get back to OPing the mortgage with more than just a principle payment. I am so ready to be done with this. Looks like I will have enough cashback on my CC to make an OP either late this week or early next. I'm always excited for any extra that can go on the mortgage. 

Time to get cracking on work on this dreary Monday morning. Hope it's a beautiful day wherever you all are. 

savingholmes

You sound quite frustrated. Hope you find your peace soon.

LeighofMar

Thanks SH. The workout did me good and today was sunny and warmer so I took a nice walk around the neighborhood to lift my mood. I've reached out to the dept store and we will see what their answer is regarding my lost items. And some good news is the smart grill my parents bought me works like a dream. I had my chops and sweet potato grilled in 15 minutes with no smoke. DH was impressed too. Now to try to figure what other things it can do. 

LeighofMar

$89.50 OP to the mortgage today bring the balance to $32,800.00. I will have an additional $25.00 for this month from the cashback on my CC. They had an awesome coupon where you get 10% back on your first grocery store purchase after activation. Since I do my groceries every 2 weeks, the bill was $140.00, and they just deposited the $14.00 into the cashback account. Yay!! Plus I've been paying all the monthly bills on this CC and pay it off at the end of the month, so I hope I will have enough for a mortgage OP next month as well of $25.00. Every little bit helps. 

Dept store is working on my issues. I hope to get refunded sometime this quarter if the package ever makes it back to the warehouse.

Transcription pot is up to $220.00. I could cash in today, but they still haven't approved the last $13.00, so I will just wait until next Thursday to cash out and hopefully get the earnings up to $250 or more by then. 

It is so pretty even though it's cold today, so I will probably take a nice walk. DH is working 2 blocks away on a house that he's helping labor-wise to flip with our construction friend. DH the electrician is putting up walls, stripping and sanding wood siding and painting. He loves it. I told him if I walked past them at the house today that I would catcall him. He challenged me to pinch him while he's on the ladder in front of everybody. He doesn't think I will. Hee hee hee. Anyway, all teasing aside, he is having so much fun learning different trades and I figure if this is how he wants to spend his semiretirement, who am I to say otherwise? I will keep plodding along trying to get this mortgage paid so he can truly enjoy what he's doing and I love that I'll get the benefit of being MF by the time I'm 45 in 2 years.  Here's hoping I can make it happen. 

family355

Hi leighofmar, 
I feel like I have only just organised myself to pay out general house/car/life insurance, I couldn’t imagine having to find/account $xxxxx for medical care too! We have friends in Ireland that pay 40 euros for a doctor’s appointment. I definitely appreciate our NHS Should I need it 🙏🏼

Hope you get to the bottom of parcel-so annoying! 

Great work On the mortgage-If I can knock 6.5ish years off the mortgage, I’m hoping I can be MF by 45 too...only 10 years to go 👀😂