The ups, downs, and occasional sideways bits of trying to be mortgage free

Good things today:

1. We found a dog! She is from the bush and has grown up in an Aboriginal community so she's already used to kids, cats, dogs, is generally well socialised. She has to be flown down here from the outback, so she's going to cost $550 to cover that cost as well as microchipping and desexing and things, but I had most of that in the pot already so it's all good.
2. Tax return done, so I transferred $9,000 into the mortgage today. That leaves me enough to pay my tax bill with enough left over for a new phone and a few hundred dollars extra in case any of the calculations are wrong. Mr E should get about $2,000 back, and we'll probably use that to top up the savings accounts and give ourselves some breathing room.
3. Which also means I can send the remaining docs to the bank and hopefully get the refi through.

I'm not changing my sig until the end of the month when the mortgage payments come out, but it's looking healthier than it has in ages.

Viking_mfw wrote: »

My mother washes her dogs with washing up liquid or at a push cheap 2 in 1 human shampoo. Works a treat and tends to smell better than dog shampoo - usually a lot cheaper too! A tip for next time

Really? Mr E thought that human shampoos had too much scent and the wrong chemicals in them. I'll investigate further! I am usually pretty savvy, but dogs are new for me so I'm just getting sucked into the marketing. An experienced friend broke it to me today that they don't really need toothbrushes and toothpaste either, but the girls have already taken everything out of its packaging and arranged it nicely, so I can't take it back. Booo. Oh well.

Gorgeous sunny day today, the first in quite a while. I planted pumpkins, courgettes, climbing beans, winter salad mix, tomatoes, carrots, peppermint, sweet basil and some lupins because Little Girl wanted flowers. Lovely to be out in the sunshine!

This is good intel, thanks so much for posting.

Back to heavy rain and grey skies today. Elder Girl has a friend over: Little Girl is painting with her Dad.

Slightly worried about my business account this month. My general rule is to invoice at the end of each month, then the money trickles in over the next month and on the last day of the month I pay myself, put some aside for tax, and put any extra into a pot for business related expenses. I made the decision to pay myself $2500 instead of $2000 from July, which means I need to earn at least $3000/month. I averaged over that amount every month of last year, so no problem, and most of my clients are repeats - I have a baseline income and then some of them want odd jobs doing on top of that, so it fluctuates but never dips under $3K. Well, it's the 23rd of July and I have $4.43 in my business account. I think because it's end of financial year maybe, everyone's pushed their small contractors to the bottom of the to-do pile? I spent Friday sending out reminders. If the money doesn't come in this week, I'm going to have to borrow back from the amount I've put aside for last year's tax and then try and put it back before it's due. It's not due until April next year, but I don't like having liabilities hanging over my head. Grr. This is part of being a small business, but it's making me tense!