Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

Had an interesting awareness moment this morning about going back to work tomorrow morning. A feeling of being trapped, restricted, hemmed in. This week off has been all about living how I want to. I’ve done lots of cooking, reading, bit and pieces on the house some of which have been ‘looking at me’ for ages, a little gardening (it’s been too cold to do much more) and I am actually quite shocked at how much I have got done, whilst still feeling rested. 

Whereas tomorrow I go back to the ‘daily grind’ - which is exhausting and I have no spare energy to do anything but the bare minimum in the evenings, which is all centred around food - dinner for both of us, cleaning up after, prepping food for my breakfast and lunch at work the following day and a shower. That’s pretty much it. Once that lot is done, I am shattered. 

The net effect is that that *everything* else gets shoved into the weekend, which then feels pressured and rushed and not relaxed. There is no easy answer to this. We are committed to a huge mortgage and we don’t want to leave here, we love it 😊 

But, I am wondering if I can do all of the above less intensively? Watching myself this week, I can see that I am in a much lower state of arousal (as in less wired). I wonder if I can carry that back into work? Still *do* the work but with less redundant energy / effort, iyswim. I have been described as a whirlwind by one of my reports so it might even be that reducing my intensity would be appreciated by my team? 

I’m hoping this would leave me the energy of the dreaming and the planning that I have been able to do at home this week that I haven’t been able to do for a long time. 

Any thoughts on this or how to achieve it, would be appreciated.

KK

Suffolk_lass

Is there any possibility of doing a periodic day working from home? I used to work compressed hours - 9 in ten with day five at home (without children!) so that I interspersed domestic tasks in my work breaks, and found the mind-numbing routine of cleaning and washing, drying, folding and so on, gave me time to think about work, rather than running headlong at it.

It gives your team a chance to take a breath too, and I found there was no drop in productivity. Asking them how we could work smarter, more effectively and less intensively resulted in some staff-driven changes that they were happier with. It was only with a little feedback from the changes that I found out I terrified some and unintentionally intimidated others (not all...)

KajiKita

Thanks @Suffolk_lass - I was hoping you might comment. Someone else has suggested a 9 day fortnight. I’d be interested to know more about how the working hours would work out to ‘earn’ that day off. 

I’m about to go through a 360 review with all my team (and others), so perhaps that will give me some insights too 😊

KK

KajiKita

I have had a win this morning! 😊

Mr KK had a visit this morning from two friends he is going to France with (with the Jeeps etc) in June. They owed him some ££ as he’d paid for the boat for all of them. £140 in fact. 

I overheard this conversation as I was making my breakfast in the kitchen where they were, so suggested to Mr KK after they left, that I have £50 of this money to send to the mortgage…. He leafed through the money and, because there were only £20 notes, gave me £60! I have put that £60 cash aside for my ‘pocket money’ in April and sent £60 across to the mortgage from my low interest savings account 😊 He has finally made his first OP! 

Excellent! 😊

KK

SandyShores

Woohoo to the overpayment @KajiKita.  

I feel you with the work-life balance situation, I don't know if hearing about my experience will help.  I found it eased once I'd been in my job almost two years, I think knowing the job a bit more helped, and I felt able to do a 'good enough' job rather than stressing to impress, so I'm happy to leave on time now and/or take back some of the extra time I may work at times.  I haven't done the 9 day week, but I do start late one morning a week and leave early one afternoon - it just allows me a bit of extra time to focus on home things and makes me feel that there is more of a balance between work and home.

I also used to do a big shop at the weekend, which really ate into my weekend, so I've started doing my big shop during the week (and hopefully once a month) - its so much better than shopping with the hordes and my weekend feels more spacious.  Also helpful is that we have a meal delivery account set up, so if we have a busy week coming up, we'll order a box and then all the meal planning and shopping is taken care of - we just have to cook it, and Mr Shores is much more likely to cook that way so its a double win.  It might cost a little more but I feel its worth it to free up my time.

Don't forget as well, that with spring/summer approaching we will soon have longer days.  Winter always seems to be work, eat, sleep.  But I'm sure you'll find a balance for you Kajikita, it just might take a bit of trial and error.

KajiKita

Thanks @SandyShores - it does help. Is that late morning start and early afternoon start agreed with work, or do you just plan your meetings that way? You are right about the two years thing - this is c. 1/6 of the way through my second year - it’s like expectations of me have increased but I don’t have any of the shortcuts yet, or not many. 

We aim to never do a big shop at a supermarket (we don’t enjoy the experience and don’t like the time it robs from us), so always have a groceries delivery, every weekend. I think me food shopping, mid week, after work would be a disaster! 😂 Meal delivery options don’t really work for us with me me being vegan and hubby being omni, sadly. 

I think you are right about the season too. It occurred to me over lunch just now, that one of the differences about the last week, is that I have seen a lot more daylight - my desk is a looooong way from the windows in work, so perhaps getting out for one round of the site a day at lunchtime might also help?

Still so chuffed to get that money from hubby and off the mortgage! 😉😊

KK

South_coast

I love the concept of "stressing to impress" - not come across the term before, but I can certainly relate 🤦‍♀️!

KajiKita

Had a constructive day. 

As well as the significant OP, I have:
- cleared the downstairs loo alcove of all meds and makeup (into a box for now - I will sort through them when reloading them back into whatever storage we end up with), wiped down the shelf so it’s nice and clean for Mr KK to make filthy when knocking the aperture through for the window! 😂

- cleaned bathroom and downstairs loo - least pleasurable task I ever do. 

- knocked a hole in the groceries costs tracking sheet - all the Mr T costs are in there, about half away through Mr Sainsbugs. Then need to move onto other comparisons - I’ve highlighted some high cost items already to start on. The other thing I notice is how expensive dried herbs are - £42 per kilo for dried rosemary!! 😳 I am sooo growing AND drying more herbs this year. 

- Finally! Finished the path through the Border of Doom! 👏👍💪😊 So pleased - I had this idea (of a gap in the wall and path / sight line down to the pond) last summer and we started it at Christmas - this bed is SUCH hard work, but this feels like a real step forward 😊



KK

Tescodealqueen

Re compressed hours . I did them as a civil servant. 37 hour standard working week could be worked over 4 days giving one day off. You had to take at least a 30 minute lunch break on top of that. So I worked 9 and a quarter hours each day plus the 30 minute break which meant being in the office 9 hours 45 minutes each day. With a two hour round trip commute by train it made for a long day but I appreciated the 3 day weekend. Hope that helps

Merlin's_Beard

I do a 36 hour week compressed over 4 days (with extra hours for weekends in my case) and I wouldn't go back to a 5 day week. That weekday is so useful for getting stuff done! The downside is that I still haven't figured out not being exhausted after work and needing some weekend time to recover, but I think that 's me rather than the hours.