Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

I don’t think my head was engaged last night - forgot to start the dishwasher (retrieved our favourite mugs to hand wash them and started it this morning … 🙄) but also forgot to turn off the hose after various watering jobs and it popped off the outside tap at 2.30am - cue me staggering around in the dark to turn it off and not being able to get back to sleep for at least an hour … 😢 (and I was actually comfortable, without pain in my hip or buttock for the first time in a week … sigh …).

Anyhoo …

Got out first thing and did more watering before Mr KK needed the hose for mixing slab adhesive. My greenhouse is really dying off now. Tomatoes are doing well though. Cut the edges of all the beds - that needs picking up now. Hope to mow the edges later to at least neaten the garden up. 

I have many brownie points from Mr KK for going and buying two fresh trout for him (horrible job as far as I am concerned, as it means being at the fish counter for quite a while whilst they gut and dehead them … ugh …) and a new box of continental baby beer bottles. 😊

Wrangled the Toscos shop when I got home and after the cuppa I am currently quaffing, I shall go and bake a batch of scones to have with clotted cream and MiL’s jam made from this year’s plums from our garden. A BH weekend treat 😊

KK

greenbee

I've neglected my garden somewhat recently, but I'm hoping to make progress this weekend... after I've taken my mum over to check up on her house (she's staying with me for what seems like aeons as she goes through a series of operations). Tomatoes haven't been hugely successful - possibly due to the compost, but overall I'm getting a decent amount of food out of the veg plot. 

KajiKita

greenbee said:

I've neglected my garden somewhat recently, but I'm hoping to make progress this weekend... after I've taken my mum over to check up on her house (she's staying with me for what seems like aeons as she goes through a series of operations). Tomatoes haven't been hugely successful - possibly due to the compost, but overall I'm getting a decent amount of food out of the veg plot. 

I’ve had some successes this year but also some abject failures. We still haven’t really had any rain since late March … 😳 
I’m enjoying the cooler, cloudier conditions today and hope to do lots interspersed with chilling and pootling at other things 😊

KK 

KajiKita

Scones made 😊

Kitchen floor swept.

Chloe’s food tray washed - she is such a messy eater! 😉❤️

KK

savingholmes

Baking looks tasty.  Enjoy your bank holiday weekend.  I think k jobs are like snakes and ladders. Sometimes you have to go down and sideways before you go back up. I did that 15 years ago and it set me up for later success. You don't know what future doors this step could lead to.

Mental health is well worth it.

SandyShores

Nice scones!  I'd really like to grow some tomatoes next year - I'm paying 50p each for the ones I like (sort of beefsteak texture but smaller) and using at least 5 a week.  

KajiKita

savingholmes said:

Baking looks tasty.  Enjoy your bank holiday weekend.  I think k jobs are like snakes and ladders. Sometimes you have to go down and sideways before you go back up. I did that 15 years ago and it set me up for later success. You don't know what future doors this step could lead to.

Mr KK’s was impressed too 😉😊
Tbh, I’d really like to stay put to the end of my working life if possible (company that is, I’d be open to a further role change 😊).

savingholmes said:

Mental health is well worth it.

This! All day long!! 😊❤️

SandyShores said:

Nice scones!  I'd really like to grow some tomatoes next year - I'm paying 50p each for the ones I like (sort of beefsteak texture but smaller) and using at least 5 a week.  

I’ve not managed to grow those yet, might try next year. I am doing very well for baby tomatoes though 😊

Been trying to work out what my current pension forecasts are (without any lump sums) and wanted my state pension numbers. Apparently it’s so long since I last used my government gateway account they’d shut it down. I re-accessed it via my passport. There was a bit in this process where you literally put the physical passport on the physical phone and somehow the phone ‘reads’ (scans) the passport. I honestly found it a bit unnerving 😳

Annoyingly the website seems to have a glitch and I kept being sent to a page that told me I couldn’t access my ‘personal tax records from this page’ … but I wasn’t trying to do that …?? 🤷‍♀️ It then told me that I could access the information from the HRMC App, so I downloaded that but seemed to get stuck in the same loop … I sent an error message and then just used ‘typical figures’ for full contributions. 

Overall I’m on target for c. £21K pa (so far) which I guess isn’t too bad for age 54? There is a further small pension in the Gaelic widows that might net a couple of K pa but they haven’t actually sent me a forecast as yet … 🙄🤷‍♀️

I have prodded Mr KK to get a forecast from his pension too (I am NOT expecting anything thrilling from that, sadly …). 

The next step will be to look at today’s outgoings less the monthly mortgage payment (I can’t retire until that’s gone) and see how big the gap is … 😉

I think I’m quite slow. I’m sure most people would have got their head around this a loooong time ago, but I’m getting there 😊

Also, whilst poking about in our little wall safe to retrieve my passport, I found an envelope addressed to me from MiL with ‘For the bathroom’ written on it. It had £50 cash in it! 😊 It’s not doing much good in there, so I have whipped it from there and will use it as an OP next month (I will take less cash out for my monthly pocket money.) 😊 Thank you Universe 😊

KK
 

badmemory

You would be surprised how many people do not seem to ask questions about their pensions until they are about to take them.  The fiasco of the missing years that has had them ground to a halt for the last 4 years now just shows that.

greenbee

I've been ignoring pensions for a while now - I put quite a bit off effort in about 15 years' ago, but life has got in the way. I did consolidate some work pensions, but didn't consolidate the funds which really needs doing. So at the moment I have two 'big' personal pensions that I still pay into, my old SERPS opt-out pension, my last employer's pension and my current employer's pension. I'm seriously considering finding a financial advisor to help me sort it all out. 

KajiKita

greenbee said:

I've been ignoring pensions for a while now - I put quite a bit off effort in about 15 years' ago, but life has got in the way. I did consolidate some work pensions, but didn't consolidate the funds which really needs doing. So at the moment I have two 'big' personal pensions that I still pay into, my old SERPS opt-out pension, my last employer's pension and my current employer's pension. I'm seriously considering finding a financial advisor to help me sort it all out. 

I can send you the details of the chap I used if you like? He made it quite straightforward for me to understand. 

KK