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 |  is paved with good intentions... |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Hi, I'm Elle. I'm based in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm the mother of two young adults, the wife of an entrepreneurial gamer and the Queen of Unfinished Projects. This blog will contain poems, short stories, possibly photos and book reviews if you're lucky, and my thoughts on a variety of topics. Hope you enjoy it. |
| Steve and I redid our budget tonight to incorporate all the new costs that come with the bach. We've had to add:  Rates Water House and contents insurance Mortgage repayments PowerI'm going to get quotes to increase our life insurances now too, but I haven't factored them in yet. It's enough at the moment that if we both die, there'll be no mortgage left, and if only one of us dies, the other will have a substantial buffer. I really need to not have a mortgage if I lose Steve, but I guess I could sell the bach if it came to that. It doesn't bear thinking about (either of us dying I mean, not just the selling of the bach) but it's important to be practical. We've cancelled these outgoings: My Ancestry.co.uk membership. I haven't made good use of this for a while. The good thing is that when I want to, I can reinstate it and I haven't lost anything. My Writing.com membership. This is paid up to March next year. Not sure what I'll do after that. Reassess I guess. At the very least I'll go down a membership bracket. Steve's WW membership. He wasn't making use of this anyway since he doesn't use the app or go to meetings. It was just wasted money.And we've reduced our grocery budget. Not terrifyingly so, but by about 25%. It was very generous. And we've kept these little luxuries: Haircuts including me getting my hair coloured every 8 weeks. Obviously Steve's haircuts are a necessity, not a luxury, but mine are more of a luxury and dyeing my hair definitely is. Netflix Sky TV (we're on a 1-year contract, but Steve is keen to keep it anyway, mostly for the rugby) My WW membership Steve's Twitch subs The family Spotify subscription My regular SPCA donation (at this stage).The biggest reduction for me will be in the spending I do on ebooks. I know, yes, clothes, but I've got loads of clothes now. Well, not loads. I literally have two pairs of pants for work, but I have LOADS of exercise gear.  But I spend a lot on ebooks. BUT I have loads and loads of ebooks. I own more than 2,700 ebooks. I've read approximately 1,400 of those. That means I have 1,300 that I own but have never read. Oh my god, that's ludicrous. I had no idea it was that bad. Surely those numbers can't be right? Surely I've read more than 1,400. Erk.  Anyway, I have a lot of unread ones still to enjoy. A bunch of those are ones that Mum bought when we were sharing an Amazon account, and some of the ones she bought don't really appeal to me, but there's plenty on there that I'll enjoy reading. And then there's all the ones I did enjoy that I would like to re-read. I do like to re-read a good book once a year or so. And I have 175 books that I've rated five stars, let alone all the good ones I enjoyed reading but rated 4 stars. I've definitely re-read four star books before. So even if I only re-read books that I had previously rated five stars, I'd still have more books than I could comfortably read in a year. How nuts is that?! So yeah, I'll be okay on my book budget. I'm not saying that it'll be easy. Because it won't be. I think I've proven that I am incredibly tempted by new books. Schnujo's Giving Away GPs  can relate, right? But it's definitely doable.I do have four books that are currently pre-ordered. One releasing in July, one in August and two in October. Anyway, our new budget is definitely doable. We need to learn how to save money so we're not living pay to pay (you'd think we could do that in our 40s, but no!). I'm glad I have my little bill accounts though, they're such a lifesaver. I have separate accounts for household bills, online subscriptions, health expenses, transport expenses, groceries and haircuts, to ensure we don't spend money that is allocated to something. It's something I learned from the financial adviser I worked with in my last job and it's been so good. So yeah. Not sure why anyone cares to read about it, but figured since I'd written this all up for my personal journal, I might as well post a version of it here. |
| So we got an independent inspection report done on the property we were keen on. We already knew it needed a new roof, and we knew there was an area of flooring under the shower that the vendor had agreed to replace. The report also highlighted a few other concerns about the weather tightness of the windows and the need for a retaining wall at the back. The next step was to get a builder's quote. Then we took my dad up to see it and get his approval. It wasn't his first choice, but he admitted that he could see the appeal, and he could tell we had our hearts set on it. So he agreed to contribute some money in return for a share of the property. We spoke to our bank, and they agreed to lend us approximately 87% of the asking price. Dad's money would be enough to get the repairs done. So we put in a cheeky offer at about 79% of the asking price. They got a bit grumpy about that, and counter-offered at 95%. We met them halfway at 87% and said that was our final offer and we couldn't go a cent higher because that was the limit of our finance, and they accepted it. The offer includes all the furnishings, but we agreed that we'd fix the shower floor ourselves, which we thought would make the offer more attractive to them, because it meant they could just walk away. The offer went unconditional today, and settlement is on 28 July. Squee! We're getting a second builder's quote, to make sure we're not being ripped off, and then we'll use Dad's funds to do all the necessary repairs. Then it's ours. And we can use it. Holy shit, we'll have a holiday home of our very own, right on the beach. I can't WAIT for summer! Dad will own 7% of the property. I'm not sure whether he'll make much use of it or not. I kind of hope he does, and that he gets some enjoyment out of taking some friends there for holidays. We couldn't have bought it without his help, and I'm crazy appreciative of his generosity. |
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