I blogged about getting into the garden in April and it’s taken until now to make a little progress. We’re trying to get it back to (almost) zero so that it’s low maintenance; I have fence painting pencilled in for August and once that’s completed we can start to do little jobs inside the house.

We haven’t decided on a definite plan for our house yet, but we do like the idea of renting it out in the future.

Moneywise we’re still living frugally and saving as much as we can every month; I’m trying not to think about money all the time but it’s a big part of this journey. I’ve been reading the archives of this (UK) blog as it has some excellent (easy to understand) advice on investing and growing your money.

What have you been up to this week?

{photo credit:Ifaisco}

Yay it’s Sunday! Today I woke up at 9.30am for the first time since about 1987. It may not have been that long ago, but it sure feels like it. Today is going to be a nice simple day spent in the garden.

Thank you for all your thoughts and comments on my last post, it’s really appreciated; it’s great to get other peoples views and ideas, it really helps our thought process. It’s funny but I’ve never really considered that I might not like it in Portugal and would want to return home. Naive I know!

At the moment we’re mulling over all our options. Not selling, renting in Portugal and renting out our house here in the UK seems like a good option, especially if the housing market doesn’t recover for years. It would also give us some income after the mortgage is cleared. Anyway we now have less than 3 years to decide as the countdown clock now says 2 years, 11 months and 26 days until we move.

Have a great day

{photo credit: mar00ned}

You would laugh if you knew how many times dh and I change our mind about Portugal; not moving there, but how to go about it and where to live.

Questions we ask ourselves-

1. City, beach or country? This would all depend on work anyway.
2. Mortgage or rental?
3. Do we sell up here in the next 12 months, rent (in the UK) and buy in Portugal?
4. Do we wait until nearer 2012 to buy in Portugal and risk not selling here for ages?
5. If dh struggles to get work, how will we get a mortgage in Portugal, bearing in mind we will still need one

I like number 3 at the moment; sell next spring when the fixed mortgage rate runs out, rent a small house here, buy a house in Portugal with potential to rent out and use for holidays.

What would you do? If we go with number three I’ll be extremely busy for the next 12 months!

{photo credit: hugo esteves}

It’s been a typical work week, over sixty hours, and the thing I was most looking forward to all week, cleaning and tidying the house. Having a tidy, clutter free house relaxes me. I couldn’t wait to sweep floors, dust surfaces and hang out washing. Now that it’s all done I feel better.

Dh and I are in the ‘heads down, keep on working’ part of our escape. We are both doing every thing we can to keep working towards our dream. When dh changed jobs earlier in the year, to gain experience in a different area, it put extra pressure on me, as I now have to do all the school runs etc. It’s put extra pressure on him as he’s away a lot, but needs to return home midweek to attend his Portuguese class, which he refuses to miss, and then leave really early the next morning to get back to work. Both of us are working harder, but after I resolved to go with the flow and not try to do much else during the week it’s been easier. I really miss blogging though

There are some good bits to it. I’m getting to spend some more time one on one with my youngest daughter. I realised this week, probably a little late, that my eldest daughter is never going to be living at home again and it made me a little sad. She’s away at University in London anyway and this week rented a flat with some friends, the realisation that she’s done living at home hit me. She is 22 though, lol. My son is also leaving home  in September to live away at Uni, all my little chicks are leaving home. Gosh where did those 20+ years go! Moving to Portugal is really the next chapter in my life.

{photo credit: jsarcadia}

I’ve made a conscious effort over the last few months not to spend any money out of the joint account. My aim has been to save up spare money from our budget, to put into our big trip fund. 

When I’ve come in under budget on anything, I’ve saved the money for the fund. For example, We’d budgeted £500 for a new window, but it ended up only costing £379, so that £121 is going in the trip fund. I reduced the cost of our contents insurance by looking around for the best deal, and saved £48 on last years cost, so that money is going in the fund. I’ve also resisted spending. There are some items that I would love for the house, but we don’t need them, so I haven’t bought them, I would rather have the money for the trip.

Overall I’ve managed to save £500, which I’ve already transferred to the ING account. This motivates me, making savings on things to fund a dream. It keeps me going.

What do you do to keep you motivated?

{photo credit: the amanda}

I’m a little late with these this month, and I’m not the only one, but I’m trying really hard to slow down. I’m aiming for a month of really easy living outside of work. Sometimes it’s just easier to go with the flow and if I have to work lots then giving myself too much to do outside of work just makes things difficult. Does that make sense?

Anyway June is the month for simple flowers, simple food and simple living.

Goals:

• Get in the garden
• Eat non processed food
• Read a book

My mind is already drifting toward our next holiday, which comes up in August,  and although we’re not going to Paris this blog makes me want to go there soon.

{photo credit: cybertoad}

As our move to Portugal get a little closer {!} I’m becoming increasingly aware of all the lovely places in the UK that I’ve not visited. I know that once we’ve moved abroad visits back home will be to see our families and not to sight see.

So I’m looking for ideas; places to go for a weekend trip. I already have Edinburgh and Brighton on my list as I’ve never been to either, but what other locations would you recommend?

{photo credit: sho33ys}

I did a fairly basic budget, which still has a little wiggle room in it, to work out how much we needed to save. Obviously the mortgage payments could go back up, in which case the digital tv would be dropped and the miscellaneous fund would be severely reduced.

It’s recommended that you keep your emergency funds in an accessible account, so we keep a certain amount in our e-saver, linked to our checking for a short term emergency and the rest in cash isa’s. It’s not ideal to use an ISA, but I really hope that we won’t have to touch the funds.

I’m a late subscriber to having an emergency fund, but now, having realised the peace of mind it brings, I don’t think I would want to live any other way.

Do you have an Emergency Fund?

We set out at the start of the year with an aim of saving a years basic living expenses; 12x£1,500 {£18,000}. So far we have £10,225. To reach our target we will be saving £1,450  every month, for the next six months, with a revue in December. £7,200 will go into cash ISA’s, and £1,500 into a Direct saver, this will enable us to reach our target of £18k. I will not consider leaving my current job until this money is saved, so this is an added incentive. More on how we came to a figure for our basic budget in a separate post.

Big Trip Fund:The balance of this currently stands at £101, however I want to make sure this is up to £1k by the end of the year. This may involve some extra frugality.

Mortgage Balance: £123,783. Just ticking along.

{photo credit: hans s}

I did a lot of thought processing in Lisbon and I’ve realised that the main reason I’ve been feeling so down is all my own fault. Having this dream, and knowing that to achieve this dream, staying in my current job will make it easier to achieve, is making me unhappy every day. I feel pressured, by my own dreams, to do a job that I really dislike so that I can start living my life in 2012!?. This can’t be right can it?

I’ve made a decision to change things and if this puts the dream back a while, which it probably shouldn’t, than so be it. As a Lisbon taxi driver said to me yesterday ‘Life’s too short’

Thank you for listening to my whining the last few weeks; it stops now. I’ll be back tomorrow with happy upbeat monetary progress

{photo credit: ian hsu}