While quarantined at home due to the governor’s stay-at-home, shelter-in-place order due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided to take some time and update my numbers: in less than two years, we’ve progressed about 10% on our total debt repayment (just the mortgage is left), but I’m starting to think we can ramp our payments back up to get it paid off in 10 years or less. I know, I thought the payoff was going to be in 2026, but somehow I lost my way for a little while there.
Weirdest Easter Ever
I spent two hours detailing my kitchen windows and french doors, and they’re still not sparkling. Instead of buying eggs at the store at a steep discount, they are three times more expensive due to people panic-buying from the pandemic, so we’re painting duck and chicken eggs from our own animals. We may not even be able to hunt them Sunday because of tornadoes and hail. Instead of baking ham and mashing potatoes, we’re all supposed to be social distancing and sheltering in place in groups of no more than 10, per the governor. The neighbors can’t invite us over to their annual Easter shindig that they aren’t throwing this year. People in our town are organizing drive-thru-Easter egg hunts, instead of getting together with their families. It’s all so weird.Change is weird.
We are definitely in a Season of Change.
Last month, for my routine password change at work, I put a new thought into the universe believing that our mortgage is paid in full. (Remember when I changed my password to believe our townhouse and property would sell, and then they both sold within 90 days?) I know $155,598.71 is asking a lot, but I can tell you by using it at least 50 times per day to log into my various programs, it has kept paying off thehouse straight-up on-my-mind.
At first, I kind of regretted making the change, but was too lazy to come up with a new password. Then it felt like a gut punch every time I entered it, thinking “How on Earth is this even possible?” But now, it feels like, “YESSS! We will pay this off well before we retire!” I’m bombarded with ideas of how to put a little extra on the principal, and even swayed out of making small frivolous purchases (talking to you, Dollar General) that don’t help us toward that goal.
For the past six months, I’ve been scribbling down expenditures in my planner’s monthly spread. In reviewing those pages, I see where my trips to the Dollar General are costing me sometimes ten or fifteen dollars a week–we can reduce or eliminate that by having healthy food at work already. I can also see where our many trips to the grocery store are adding up to more than our monthly grocery budget of $400, so we need to get back to once weekly grocery trips to drill that back down. We can accomplish this by sticking to Aldi for most of our grocery needs. Small changes, no pressure, but should yield results.
In the interest of shoring up my mental health, I’ve decided to make this a No Pressure Summer. I’m just going to let myself do a little bit, where normally, I’m over-ambitious and then get burned out.
Here’s what I plan to do differently this season:
1. I’m telling myself I only have to work in the garden 10-15 minutes at a time, rather than try to schedule marathon weed-pulling sessions. Maybe that will make it so that I don’t dread being out there, and I won’t have to talk myself into working in the garden. Also, it’s not too much gardening to do in a swimsuit. Definitely going to be in the pool more this year.
2. For the spring and summer months, I’m going to shorten my lunch by thirty minutes, so hopefully, I can leave work thirty minutes earlier, and get home to my family sooner.
3. I want to spend more time with my kids, but not on our devices. We need to read daily, so I’m hoping to institute a reading hour in the evening instead of watching my kids watch YouTube on the tv.
4. Meal Planning and Meal Prep. I want to make it easier for us to get dinner on the table faster every night, without heating up the house so much this summer. I want more relaxed dinners at Club Back Porch. What are your favorite summer dinners? Also, did you know I documented a year’s worth of school lunches for my boys last year on my Instagram page @burtons_bites? Then I guess I got overwhelmed with life, because I didn’t post anything for six months after that, and then COVID19 happened and I stopped making their lunches altogether, much less digitally recording any of them, but oh, well. Next year. No pressure.
5. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, our ball season has been canceled, so I will take this as an obligation-free spring. The kids are out of school two months early (with the exception of a little computer schoolwork), and now they don’t have anywhere else they have to be all day, so our schedule is wide open for just being kids. And I’m not going to grumble about the $50 I already spent on little cleats that won’t fit next year–Let it go! Let it go!
6. So now that our schedule is decluttered, I also want to declutter our lives. I’ve made some positive strides toward decrappifying, but there is so much more that needs to get out of our lives. I’m selling what I can, donating some things, and throwing away whatever is cluttering my life. I always fret over the money I’ve spent on the things I’m donating, but now I’m of the mindset, that money is SUNK, and I won’t get it back, but I can still get my space back, so LET IT GO!
Why am I hanging on to those two heavy wall-hangings that no longer fit my aesthetics? Gone. Why have I kept these boxes of children’s Valentines that we got for 10 cents each at the Dollar General? It’s taking up valuable real estate in my home and for what? To save a few bucks? No, next year, we will just let the kids pick out their own Valentines and pay the three dollars. Why did we have two rolling pins? Will we ever have a Pie Crust-Off? Duelling Dough Rolling? Out! Out! Mini Muffin Tins? Why do these exist? It’s just more to clean. Seriously.
So there you have it, I’m just not going to get all torn up over the things that I think need to be done. No Pressure Summer. Summer of Chill. Laid Back Summer. Best. Summer. Ever.
How’s your spring shaping up this year?
Erica
Net Worth and Debt Update
| Assets | Value | Owed | Totals |
| Farmhouse | $230,529.00 | $154,978.10 | $75,550.90 |
| Credit Cards | $0.00 | $172.80 | -$172.80 |
| Family Car | $2,000.00 | $0.00 | $2,000.00 |
| Truck | $1,500.00 | $0.00 | $1,500.00 |
| Savings | $25,014.19 | $0.00 | $25,014.19 |
| $259,043.19 | $155,150.90 | $103,892.29 | |
| Assets | Liabilities | Net Worth | |
| Total Debt Payoff Percentage: | 43.83% | ||
| 04/11/20 |
Though we may have a break in paying off our mortgage and credit card dues, we can’t still get help but to think of how we are able to pay them when this pandemic is over. It is such a pain in the ass thinking where on earth would we get money and earn when the economy is on its lowest point right now and we can’t do something about it but rather stay at home.