VelvetFreak's Investing Adventures

Cherryfudge

Fantastic progress with the apartment, I can feel the energy change from here! How soon can you expect to get tenants?

Re: variable incomes and budgeting, of course if you have a base line below which your budget can't fall, a fairly-well-guaranteed income, then the question becomes what to do with any excess. You will have your necessary allocations for the guaranteed part of your income, which in an ideal world includes something saved or invested and something to give away. If you don't have a guaranteed minimum, I'd suggest allocating by what in the UK are known as 'priority bills' - the things that can't be avoided without losing something, such as use of utilities or your liberty - and any excess is then parcelled out, perhaps first by importance then by percentages.

I think you are talking about excess though? My thoughts are fairly predictable I think!

• Apartment costs: I think you still have a mortgage for the apartment, so that needs to come top of the list so the apartment pays for itself, but you know that . If you already have enough for day to day from your non-apartment income, I'll parrot the old received wisdom to keep living at your current levels and put the extra into savings or investment. It sounds as though apartment costs are taken off at source, but are there any circumstances in which you might have to find extra for it that you'd need to set aside?
• I'd look into setting an amount aside for long-term investment, the sort that pays more if you leave it in longer. Think of it as the 'pay yourself first' aspect. I think you already have something like this in place?
• Don't forget to give some away! In whatever form works for you.
• The offset mortgage is a very useful thing so I'd cream off anything left after the above, into that.

You also need to look at planning so you aren't thrown in the deep end if you and your b/f don't for whatever reason stay together. Not that this is about to happen, by the plans you have for the house and garden!

If you'll forgive a comment on this, I noticed you have a joint decision to cut back on the takeaways, but they are all coming out of his income. He's got this cooking system which sounds a little unusual and he can't see why it doesn't work for you (I'm not sure it would work for me, either). Neither of you really wants to do conventional cooking so it's back to ordering out. Now if you each paid for your own take-out meals, you couldn't get into the position of blaming him for your choices, which I think is a possibility if things go on as they are. It's more effort to buy and cook healthy food of course - but in the end each of you is responsible for what you eat. Paying for your own gives leverage to choosing for your long-term health. In the end this is more important than the money because you don't want to hit early retirement without the physical fitness to enjoy it - and as someone who's not too far off retirement now, I see several friends with chronic health conditions and others who are in radiant health, and long-term diet can play a big part in that. (Not necessarily, of course: there are plenty of conditions that you can't avoid through diet, just as there are plenty that you can make much less likely).

It's hard to stand back from the minutiae and look at the big picture, something I'm going to have to do for my finances in the not-too-distant future. My income is somewhat varied but my circumstances are very different: mortgage paid off, not brilliantly paid job etc. The options are different in Australia, too, so you will be a better judge of what's available to you.

VelvetFreak

Hi Cherry, thanks for dropping in. Your observations are all fairly accurate. It's unfortunate that the one point of contention in mine and the BF's relationship is anything related to cooking/domestic chores because we seem to have such different expectations and skill levels 😕. I suppose I am digging my heels in because he works next door to a grocery store and I'm refusing to let food shopping and cooking become fully my responsibility on top of everything else that I have to do at the moment. I do think things will improve now that the apartment will be finished and we will have more free time on the weekends. The stress of the apartment and my studies makes me an absolute horror to deal with and I feel like I haven't had a single guilt-free weekend since the moment I decided I'd be moving in with him because in the back of my head I've always got that responsibility looming and it makes me completely unable to relax and it ruins our weekends because we always have to do something related to the apartment.


I have talked to the BF this morning about us getting in a better routine and spending more time together doing "normal" things and not just sitting around being lazy and doing nothing. The fact that we met during a pandemic has made things interesting with our relationship dynamic as we never really got to do many of those fun couple-y things that make you feel happy. I'm hoping for nice weather this weekend so we can get out and do something. 

Anyways, I'm off to get ready for work. TGIF. 

VelvetFreak

Well I've had quite a productive/interesting Saturday. I got up bright an early and went over to the apartment and slapped some paint on the repaired bit of the ceiling and loaded up all of my spare tiles, paint cans and various other junk into the car. I did get a little bit sad leaving, but not as much as I thought I would. It may be the last time I see it for a very long time  

As soon as I got home I started receiving a barrage of text messages from my depraved ex-boyfriend. Somehow he managed to circumvent me blocking his number by using some kind of texting app because the texts came from some weird username and not an actual phone number 🤨. I won't go into too much detail because it's all very cringeworthy but it was a whole lot of rubbish about how much he misses me, how I'm his soulmate and it's a cruel world, blah blah blah. We broke up 2 years ago and I wish he'd just get over it. I get these types of messages every few months and at this point it's just utterly annoying and it puts me in a foul mood every time. He is a true narcissist and was really horrible to me our entire relationship. I am borderline ready to go the police about it but not sure whether they will take it seriously or able to do anything considering the messages aren't "threatening" and I haven't actually told him to go away, I just ignore him because any kind of reply or attention at all will give him the satisfaction that he wants. I am 90% sure he drove past the apartment this morning and saw me hauling stuff to the car and that's what's brought this on considering he texted so early in the morning, it'd be a weird coincidence if that wasn't the case.

I am reluctant to report it as I don't want to anger him and his criminal entourage and give him a reason to try and track me down but my friend has just convinced me so I will try and do it online later and collate my screenshots. At least I won't be at the apartment anymore so if he shows up there he won't be achieving anything. I am just so sick of it and even though it shouldn't get to me, it really does because he pretty much acted like he hated me the entire time we were together and said some really bizarre and deeply hurtful things to me yet now two years later he's saying it's so cruel that we aren't together as if the universe magically decided to break us up and it had nothing to do with his own actions 🙄. 

Anyway, after all of that was over the BF and I decided to pop to the shops where I forced him to buy some jeans and long sleeve shirts so he actually has something to wear 😂. We went out for lunch and then had lazy afternoon and went for a walk later even though it was foggy and raining, at least it wasn't too cold. 

I'm hoping for some nice weather tomorrow so I can do some gardening. It's such a nice feeling to not have to think about the apartment anymore.

greenbee

It's worth doing some research on the harassment by your ex - I don't know what the laws are in Australia, but here they are pretty hot on online harassment. A few years ago I had some issues with an ex and arrived at a yoga class very shaken - a lady in the class who is a social worker realised something was wrong and got the details out of me. She insisted that I call the police who were extremely helpful - they tracked the ex down based on the info I had (I didn't know where he was living at the time), gave me a crime number, offered to send someone round there and then to give him a warning (I declined in case it made things worse), explained what the options were and that it was all up to me, provided lots of advice and put the domestic violence team in touch with me within a matter of hours. Just talking to them and realising that while I'd been downplaying it they (and the social worker friend) took it seriously helped (although it was also a bit of a shock). I'd suggest looking for online resources and finding someone who can advise as to the best way forward. 

Cherryfudge

I would imagine handing the information over to the Police could be done without them having to follow up. That was you have a trail if it persists.

Look after yourself.

VelvetFreak

Hello diary  
I am having a rather stressful and busy couple of days trying to get the apartment sorted. I had to go out in my lunch break yesterday and buy a small plug whatsy for the pipe under the laundry sink (long story) and then went to the apartment after work and had to use my car keys to screw it on as I didn’t have a screw driver! 😩 I just had to go over and retrieve my spare key that I’d hidden under the front door mat went to get some extra keys cut, had a terrible time sorting out all my keys and got super confused and then as I was leaving the shops some weirdo came tearing past me on the escalator and almost knocked me over. I had winter boots on so really lost my footing. When I got to the car I realised I was missing one set of keys so had to retrace my steps and was having a complete panic attack as i’d lost every copy of that particular key. Luckily I found them in the bottom of my shopping bag. I also seem to have misplaced two garage door remotes but I suppose they’ll turn up somewhere. Thankfully I’ve got one to give to the tenant. 

Am off to the real estate office this afternoon to sign all the paperwork and hand over the keys. I will be so glad when this process is over as it has been so stressful! Ahh! 

Am getting next to nothing done at work as have too many silly things to worry about! 

Cherryfudge

That sounds massively stressful - can you plan yourself a bit of a get-away or at least a treat to help you relax? You've more than earned it!

VelvetFreak

Hello diary

I am happy to report that the apartment is now finally advertised with the real estate! Fingers crossed it will rent quickly. The saga with the keys continued as the agent forgot to ask me for them so I'd handed the place over and signed all the paperwork but not given them the keys! So she had to come to my work yesterday to collect them.

I have taken today off as a mental health day as am just so tired and haven't been sleeping well the past week. One of the cats decided to scratch at the door and keep me awake last night so I decided to call in sick and try and get some rest as am feeling so rubbish and wouldn't be able to concentrate at work anyway. 

I've spent the morning doing some tidying around the house and have put some washing on. Later if I get bored I might go through some of the boxes of junk in the garage and put things away but for now I am just going to sit down at the computer and do nothing. 

@Cherryfudge I would love to go away for a weekend but there have been some recent community transmitted C0vid cases here and there have been lockdowns in the surrounding area so we are reluctant to book anything (and we are not vaccinated!). The BF and I have a week of annual leave at the end of the month so we might try and go somewhere then for a couple of nights. 

I am once again finding that the looming responsibility of my assignments has rendered me unable to relax, even though I have specifically booked days off for my study . I really wish I wasn't like this and could just calm down and forget about it until I actually need to do it!

Cherryfudge

Well done on getting the apartment advertised! What a relief. Hope it finds a tenant very quickly.

It's a shame Covid is limiting whether you can go away. It's much the same here despite most people being double vaccinated: that doesn't necessarily stop you from getting it (though hospitalisations have dropped and of course younger people, who are most of the Covid numbers now, are less vulnerable). People have taken to camping or renting motorhomes in a huge way. We will be borrowing my sister's UK cottage when they can get back home (they live abroad) which is about as safe as we can make it.

ElmoR

On dealing with the nutty ex - if he phones, let him go to voicemail if you can. Collect them as evidence.

If it doesn't stop after a few months (I was once in a similar situation), you could hire a solicitor to write a letter on your behalf. Costs money but puts a firm boundary in place. The letter content along the lines of...the relationship ended, I do not want to hear from you, your behaviour is upsetting me, please stop or I will contact the police' etc. Written by a solicitor = a very formal "go away" message.

Hopefully it won't come to that. But my own experience was that the solicitor letter did the trick, no more contact. Later found out he ended up with a conviction - I think some people are wired slightly wrong and if they aren't fixated on you, it becomes someone else unfortunately