Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

Didn’t sleep well last night so was very grateful not to have to rush out into the dark and the cold as per a weekday … 😉

Couple of loads of washing thrown around 😊

Remembered to top up my car’s screen wash 👏🐳

Whilst togged up to the nines, I also emptied the kitchen bin and walked the bounds of my patch. Found a couple of jobs I want to do:
- Start topping off the ‘hedge’ I planted between us and the chapel - this set of teeny twigs I put in all those years ago haven’t grown much because they are buried under trees, but enough that their original purpose is starting to be realised 🌳

- prune hard or chop out all the brush and rubbish under the pine at the bottom of the garden as it’s a lovely tree but I can’t ‘see’ it properly atm. I will then deeply bark mulch it. 

Also, whilst walking round the garden I think I have diagnosed a fault with our boiler from, steaming-in-the-cold-air hot water, running from a copper overflow pipe on the front of the house that I have never even noticed before!  Apparently it’s likely that the pressure valve or the tank inside the boiler has failed. Mr KK has messaged his tame plumber mate, so hopefully we can get that fixed next week 🤞 Also hoping that it won’t be too many pennies to fix! 

Did look for the cashback from the mortgage company - never turned up in November last year. Dug up the final statement from the solicitor - can’t make head or tail of the numbers on it so have sent it to our broker to query it … Let’s see what he comes back with. 

Went out for a walk after lunch, slowly and steadily and enjoying the process 😊 Did a walkf1t workout, total steps today 8.5K. Not bad for an idle, hiding from the weather, day 😊 Eaten a fair bit of junk, but it’s all around me so 🤷‍♀️

Made a batch of veggie bolognese whilst Mr KK did some more on his Christmas model 😊 Dinner included parsley from the greenhouse 😊🌿

KK

KajiKita

I have been ITCHING to have a look at what we might be able to do with the leftover settlement that I got from my last employer …. So I have roughly worked out how much it is (after leaving behind an emergency fund of six months) and it looks like:

£9,785
- £500 slimline dishwasher and install 
- £500 boiler repair (hoping this will allow us to avoid dipping into the £1K that we have as the household EF to fix the current, known problem)
- £1K for the paving around the house that we want to do as the one ‘house job’ for 2025 - there will be something gloriously poetic about walking over what my old boss had to pay to get rid of me … 😉
- £2K OP to mortgage 
- £4K into either my ex-employer pension (seems to perform okay) or the SIPP I set up when I combined all my bitty bits of pensions from various jobs 

That’s a total spend of £8K which leaves £1,785 as bit of contingency …

I will sit on this overnight and reconsider / review it tomorrow. Mr KK is happy, so long as there is still six months of EF (he wouldn’t have even considered this some years ago 😊❤️)

KK

SandyShores

Sounds like a great plan, nice mortgage OP and very satisfying walking over those slabs.  And still 6 months of EF

redofromstart

I really like the idea of the walking on spend.  With a nice mat so you can wipe your feet on him too. 

KajiKita

Thanks @SandyShores 😊

redofromstart said:

I really like the idea of the walking on spend.  With a nice mat so you can wipe your feet on him too. 

@redofromstart, that made us both laugh … 😆 Thank you 🤩 

KK

beanielou

Love the idea of the slabs. 

Cheery_Daff

redofromstart said:

I really like the idea of the walking on spend.  With a nice mat so you can wipe your feet on him too. 

😂😂😂 an excellent idea! And every now and then you could perhaps give them a good scrub with a very stiff broom 😁

Brie

Agree with the rest about walking on the ex boss.....  Not so sure about £500 to repair a boiler.  We spent nearly that amount on ours and every fix made something else go sproing and so we spent a big amount to replace the whole thing.  Much more sensible in some cases.  But you probably know more about your boiler than I know about mine!!   

greenbee

If you read the energy boards, it's worth getting a heatpump quote at the moment - with the £7500 grant it could end up costing you less that the repair to the boiler (obviously there are a lot of caveats around that... I tried that and still got an extortionate quote, but I have a stupid heating setup that needs sorting out). 

KajiKita

Brie said:

Agree with the rest about walking on the ex boss.....  Not so sure about £500 to repair a boiler.  We spent nearly that amount on ours and every fix made something else go sproing and so we spent a big amount to replace the whole thing.  Much more sensible in some cases.  But you probably know more about your boiler than I know about mine!!   

I’m hoping that’s worst case scenario… Our plumber is a friend and he would tell us if we are wasting our time fixing it. 

greenbee said:

If you read the energy boards, it's worth getting a heatpump quote at the moment - with the £7500 grant it could end up costing you less that the repair to the boiler (obviously there are a lot of caveats around that... I tried that and still got an extortionate quote, but I have a stupid heating setup that needs sorting out). 

Interesting thought. I have a feeling that we are not a suitable property type though. 

KK