Yesterday was exhausting. We didn't get enough sleep from going out on Monday night and it was hot again. Instead of working on the house I attended Hewitt's first swimming carnival. I was really nervous for him as he's not a strong swimmer and I thought diving in the deep end and even swimming the 25m short course was above his ability. But I was completely surprised. There were quite a few boys who didn't make it but Hewitt swam beautiful freestyle the whole way and ended up 4th! Very proud mum!
Amanda completed the last coat of paint on the front of the house. It's now true black. That's right, completely pitch black. It's really beautiful as the whole house disappears into the surrounding trees - a very theatrical trick, I know. 2 years ago we began painting it and chose a timid blue/grey. After the second coat we agreed it was too pale but the darkest we could get in an exterior paint was charcoal. Recently Taubmans produced a true black, so take 3, we've finally got it right.
This morning we faced our first major block...monnnnneeeeeeey! Our mortgage broker came over and the short story is that because we are both self employed and (I hate to have to admit!) have defaulted on our mortgage more than a few times we are stuffed. We both have maxed out credit cards used to finance the reno so far, and I have a personal loan which was originally borrowed to top up the deposit for the house - we needed 20% deposit and only had 12%. The personal loan is the only statement that doesn't default and we have paid off $25K, but everything else looks pretty sad. The problem is servicing our current financial situation and carrying out the reno is what's putting us behind. If we could re-finance, pay off the laon, credit cards and complete the reno we would be able to sink all our money into the mortgage and get ahead but first we need to get a clear run on the existing mortgage to get any conforming lender to take us seriously. It's a downward spiral and it left me feeling pretty hopeless. Our mortgage broker is going to give it a whirl but doesn't like our chances. We should hear something in the next 24 hours...
So we dragged ourselves out into the never ending pile of rocks, dirt, weeds and cat shit - lovely. As we were digging away Amanda pointed out that Bear from Man v's Wild (SBS 8:30 Monday nights) say's when you are rock climbing you need 3 firm footings to continue up the mountain. So what are our financial footings? 1. We have a house that will exceed it's original purchase price by an estimated 50% when it's completed. 2. We both have decent earning capacities. 3. I'm struggling to think of a third right now. Neither of us have much respect for money. We earn it and we spend it. I have a terrible habit of filing the bills away and forgetting about them, I then think the money we have is disposable, spend it and panic when the reminder notices come in. All this has got to change, it's time to look my fear and disrespect of money in the face. No. 3 needs to be our commitment to pay off what we have borrowed.
The other revelation I had was that the area of the back garden we are working in is our feng shui money corner. Right now it's in exactly the same state as our finances. But we're putting in the foundations and clearing through the mess. It's certainly an inspiration to complete this area and if the reno has to be put on hold because we can't finance it at least we can clear up this corner of our lives.
L x
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