Breaking Through, Travelling On

A question about : Breaking Through, Travelling On

Hello

I think a few people on this board know me already, from the dfw board

I really need the focus of an mse diary - debts are all paid off, except for about 40% of a French mortgage - but income has been declining, and is currently pitiful. And without a diary, I've lost focus on getting the best deal for the things I *do* need to spend out on, like insurance, and Christmas train tickets, that sort of stuff. So I've come back properly after pootling about on other people's threads, and on general threads too, to be fair

The focus is so that I can replace lost income - so that I can have a holiday of my choosing, for instance - and stopping digging into my savings for ordinary living expenses would be nice too Its also so that I can get my pension up beyond miserable penury - its kind of urgent, as under the system that lasted till about 15 years ago, I'd be retiring at the end of this year But I'm not, sadly. The aim is to retire in July 2016, when my younger sister retires, with a reasonable pension.

One complication in earning more is that between arthritis, energy issues and the need to stay available to what clients I have, I can't / don't want to, take a second job. So more income has to be through other work - patchwork, portfolio, call it what you like (I know I do ).

Best answers:

• And that was my post 17,300! Oh my word!
  Anyway, here's the list, this is what can make me the income and pension I'm aiming for:
  - house and garden maintenance! Its always unexpected to me, but its always there I need it for my standard of living, and to maintain and increase the value of my investment. Growing veg and fruit will help things too, and I'm learning about foraging, which is amazing. And when I retire I want to rent out the house, buy a van and pootle around Europe admiring the scenery.
  - check my outgoings - I've gradually got worse and worse at this since I finished my last dfw diary. Must do better.
  - maintain ability to do current paid work. I'm a counsellor, sure - but this bit is more about getting the tax declaration in and the tax payment made, the professional re-accreditation work done, next year's reaccreditation started, professional insurance at the right level, that sort of thing. The behind the scenes stuff.
  - the French apartment - it'll be paid off in about 4.5 years - its never, ever paid for itself, and was possibly the worst financial decision I ever made, but its done now, and when I do pay it off, I can choose to take long holidays there (its near Chamonix ) as well as rent it out.
  - I'm starting up a website - its taking much longer than I thought, and I'm wary of mentioning it in case I break rules, but friends have said that the rule on here is about not touting for business - and I'm certainly not, I'm working on the content - still - its taking much longer than I thought it would.
  - One of the really fun things about the website is thinking about what to sell - a dear friend wants to buy a scroll saw, what kind of stuff can he make thats relevant to my themes? What can I make that people would want to buy? How can I make it in quantity, given the arthritis?
  - How can I attract people into the website? Seasonal giveaways, maybe - so I've been having great fun designing a colouring in page, one version for children, and another much more detailed one for grownups. I love that.
  - I'm writing a novel I intend to be the next John Wyndham (famous SF author, famous in the SF world, anyway).
  - I'm **still** hoping to trade - but I'm not going to mention that regularly, anybody who knows me will know that I've been rabbiting on about the blasted trading for years, literally years. I can't seem to get it going yet, but its the only real failure I've ever had in terms of achieving what I really want to achieve, so I'm going to keep going. But quietly.
  That'll do. Details later.
• Welcome to MFW
  Best of luck with your plans
  MWCx
• Thank you MWC!
• Karma's got a new diary!
  Welcome Back!!!
• Good luck Karma, good to see you here .
• **beams happily**
  Its good to be back!
  One really good piece of news already this evening is that I've done much more than I thought of the accounts work for the submission thats coming up in a fortnight's time. V happy about that
  Night'night all
• Happy new diary KC, I hope all your plans come together and July 2016 doesn't seem that far away really so not too long to go now!
• First victory to report
  My house insurance is due this week ... I've stuck with a very small firm up in Yorkshire for about 4 years, since it was recommended by my professional organisation - it had been really hard to get a good premium because I have counselling clients at home. This year, it was time to bite the bullet, so I went through Martin's linkie to confused.com - mid range policy from Admiral (a FTSE 100 company, so *fairly* safe ) came up a lot less; talking to them upped the price a bit - I believe strongly in full disclosure with insurers, so I told them about the fence blowing down last year, and installing a 2nd toilet upstairs (the bathroom is downstairs) ... and about several clients being in the house (one at a time).
  Result! A saving of just over Ј90! I'm really chuffed it was that simple, but horrified I hadn't done it before
• Hey KC! a' la Benny The Ball
  I am so glad you have a diary again - i liked popping into your old one
  Your post really struck a chord with me - I started my thread on here for the focus this would give me - i felt after clearing the debt i needed the new challenge and target
  I have subscribed to your thread too - just today i had a mild panic about providing for my retirement - My plans may be slightly different to yours and by the time i get to being able to do something about them i.e having the money to do them i am worried it'll all be a bit late in the day I want to move into our 'forever until retirement home' And have 3 btl and 1 holiday home for income & hols I don't have a good pension - i changed jobs a few times when i was much younger and lost all my pension money as it just went into fees as there was no ability to access the funds or transfer to my new company pension After losing out a couple of times i then decided not to bother with a pension and do that when i was in a job / company i knew i wanted to stick with - got to that point and was thinking about what contributions to make in order to 'catch up' and i was made redundant. I definitely don't want to stay in the job i'm in now either and having an income when we are older does concern me.
  I'd also like to find out more and invest in stocks and shares too
  John Wyndham fan
  I am also in the position of wanting to maintain and improve our home too
  With your apartment in france i am sorry you said it wasn't a good investment but it is over half way to being all yours now Is this the mortgage you are focusing on paying off
  And please tell me that its a lovely camper van you are going to get
  And well done on the Ј90 too
• Ay up Karma - found ya!
  Greying
• Just delurking so say hi and well done on the insurance ~ my personal MFW challenge this year is to not let any of them just automatically renew but to check that they're the best value option and if not, to swap, so your success has inspired me to stick to my guns on that one, so thank you
• Pops by tips a nod, fluffs up the cushions, settles in.
  You're back - yay!
  Well done love on the savings - great start!
• Shiny new diary
• Found you *subscribes*
• Hi folks! RT, Greying, Pippi you're lovely for finding me without me actually telling you, I feel quite hidden away here because dfw has been home for so long, but obviously I'm not
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