Cottage Countdown

Tahlullah.H

Thought I would give you an indication of what you can buy. 
In London, this is the cheapest property on the market  at £1,790,000.00 - 
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/139451468#/?channel=RES_BUY

Looking in the North East, one of the cheaper areas in the country, this is the cheapest thing you can buy at present, at £4,500.00. Look at the size of the plot.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/136839899#/?channel=COM_BUY

I hope you can see these links and really appreciate what you can get over there.

LeighofMar

Wow, Tahlullah. Those prices are mind-boggling. The house is beautiful, no doubt, but my goodness, 1.8M?? $10,000 monthly payments? Cue me fainting. And the land plot did make me laugh. Just enough for a small garage or garden. Wow. I definitely have an appreciation for the houses here, even in the much higher cost-of-living states because most houses, on almost every economic level, have standard features that we take for granted like dishwashers, en suites, built-in or walk-in closets, and laundry closets/rooms. Most of those are a given even in what people consider "starter homes". All my previous homes, from my first to the current, have had all of these things as standard plus central heating/air. And the homes we are planning to build will of course have these things as well with a little vintage appeal thrown in. I am super excited now and can't wait to see what we end up with. 

LeighofMar

Payday shuffle done. I was right. After everything, I will be down to a mere $140.00 left for the next 2 weeks. But the good thing is everything that I was behind on is caught up. Now I can get back to paying off the last $2900.00 for my bath remodel and rebuilding back the EF. 

$2500.00 payment from the EF was made today to the mortgage bringing my balance to $11,215.00. This puts me at the payment for September of 2042. Mortgage ends December of 2045, so nearly there. 40 payments away from the end! 

Still managed to add to my general savings and the house savings funds so an extra 100.00 each. House fund is at $430.00. General savings at $7800.00. I won't cash in my I-Bonds until March of 2024. I shouldn't have to cash them before then unless something happens with the mortgage payoff. The goal is use the general savings to pay off the balance and then when I cash in the I-Bonds, that will replenish the general savings and reinvest into high-yield CDs and the like. So on paper, if everything goes perfect, ha, then I will have a paid-off house and about 10-11k still in the bank. I'll take it. If my health is better by that time, our celebratory plans will be an epic road trip where we're not going to stress about gasoline, tourist attractions, restaurant prices, or souvenirs. We'll pack up our mini camper and hit the road for parts unknown. I can't wait. 

On the painful side that I know a lot of us can appreciate wherever we are in the world, just 32 items in my grocery cart order is at $158.00. That's for all the stuff I can't get at Aldi at a better price or for my GF needs. Aldi has a lot of GF goods, but they still have sugar which I also cannot have, so I have to pay the higher prices for my specialty items that I can only get at my grocery store. But it definitely hurts to pay $5.80 for my bread, $5.80 for nondairy creamer, $10.00 for a small bag of one of the very few cereals I can eat, and $9.00 for 8 almond flour tortillas as examples. Aldi has been great though for my pantry staples of honey, coconut oil, almond flour, and uncured bacon. I've been very happy with their meat selection too. Maybe one of the first things I'll do when I pay off this house is take the mortgage payment money and do a massive shop for food and household goods. That might be a great way to get ahead of some of these prices if I'm stocked up for a few months. 

savingholmes

Good you have savings to help you out while things settle with your business account.

Nearly there on the mortgage.

Tahlullah.H

$10 for a small bag of cereal!  Absolutely outrageous.  But, you have to eat.

Love the camper trip plan.  Just go off or a period and see where you end up.  Your national Parks are spectacular so enjoy, wherever you go.  I will be going to the French Alps in March, so I will do the same and treat it as a celebration of the end of the Mortgage.

Fantastic plan!

LeighofMar

Thanks, SH. Getting closer every day.

Oh my, Tahlullah, the French Alps sounds absolutely divine! What a wonderful way to celebrate. Makes all the sacrifices and hard work worth it. And you're spot on about our National Parks. I think on a past thread you mentioned Lake Tahoe and I've never been so maybe a trip to the Redwood National Forest and circling back through Lake Tahoe might be in order 

savingholmes

LeighofMar said:

 And you're spot on about our National Parks. I think on a past thread you mentioned Lake Tahoe and I've never been so maybe a trip to the Redwood National Forest and circling back through Lake Tahoe might be in order 

That does sound like you would be living the dream

LeighofMar

Surgery done. Went in at 5:30AM, wheeled in about 7:30AM and done by 9:00AM. Slept for an hour in recovery and then wheeled to my room to spend the night. Fibrotic uterus had to go and I'm so thankful that it's done, over with, and now I can just focus on healing. I'm sleeping in Mr. LoM's recliner in my room as my bed is not set up yet and my old king mattress is sitting on the old box spring too low to the ground making it hard to roll in and out of bed to standing. The recliner works like a dream though and I can sleep through the night, especially with the help of the tramadol 

I had to pay $200.00 deposit for the doctor and $250.00 for the surgery and it looks like I can pay that off with the next paycheck coming this Friday, so I'm happy about that. Mr. LoM had a good project that was finished in 2.5 days and got us almost caught back up again with the chaos caused by postponed/canceled jobs, late invoices, etc. I've been resting a lot but still able to pull permits and work on the budgets from my recliner and laptop so I guess I'm living the WFH dream. We took a look at a lot that was the perfect size in a nice neighborhood but in a flood plain. Now we're looking at another one that's on the corner of a nice neighborhood and if we can get the plot boundaries emailed to us, we might consider that one.

I swept $15.00 into the mortgage to get it to an even $11,200.00 and hope to OP something this paycheck as well but will see as I also want to focus on getting rid of the bath remodel on my CC. 

I felt good enough last night to make mint coconut chocolate chip cookies and have been enjoying them this morning. I'm going to have to figure out a way to exercise at least my upper body because 6+ weeks of no exercise will make me crazy. There are some seated upper body workouts that I will do in a couple of days to at least stay limber and active until I get the all-clear to work my entire body again. For now though I don't mind being a bit spoiled and having Mr. LoM do the cooking and baking while I binge on terrible Lifetime movies and playing my hidden objects game. 

savingholmes

Hopefully having the fibroids gone will improve your quality of life. Wishing you a speedy recovery. Definitely take it easy and follow the guidance. I pushed a small trolley too early in the recovery period and it put me back 4 weeks. Don't do it!

LeighofMar

Ooh, thanks SH. I will follow the guidelines. I want to be ready when the time comes to get back to my life.