After a week and a half off with Christmas and some strategic vacation days, tomorrow morning it is back into the fray of working life. I don't mind going back, though I would have liked a little more time off to spend in other ways, as most of what we have done has been at home, prepping, and cleaning up after guests. The last few days have been quite nice, though with the weather so cold, we have stayed mostly indoors, as it is a hassle to go anywhere. That hassle will have to be performed tomorrow though.
The year just passed was one where we finally started to put more onto the home loan than the minimum. This was a huge milestone for us, as it means that there isn't as much going out as there was, as the renovation work on the house has taken everything we had to spare, and then some. This went up even higher in the last two years as after the stroke I had, we had to get people in to do work that I would have done myself. Now that we have completed a lot and slowed down on what we are doing, we can breathe a little financially.
Breathe doesn't mean spend.
Well, it doesn't mean spend frivolously for us. It means that we can replenish a little of our emergency fund and put extra payments on the house to shorten the repayment period. Ideally, I would like to cut it down to a ten year total, which means that there is another six years to go on it. That is incredibly ambitious, but with a lot of luck, it might be possible. It would be great to be without a mortgage when I am not too far over fifty.
What is interesting, is that if I had stayed in Australia where I was, I would be mortgage free a couple years ago, even paying back the minimum. I got into my first house when I was nineteen or so, had just started university and was working at McDonald's fulltime to pay for school, life and the mortgage. I had a second job on the side of McDonald's too, working with a tiny media company, which helped cover the bills.
I have always found it a bit interesting how people are unwilling to work like that, because they want to keep the young fun in their lives without the burden of responsibility. However, I don't think I missed on on things because I didn't have enough spending money. Students are "meant to be" poor, so it was pretty much the same as most other people, other than for about 40 extra hours a week, I was working.
In a hypothetical world where I stayed in Australia and just kept doing as I did in comparison to the majority of my friends who didn't start thinking about buying their first place until their thirties, They would likely still have twenty or so years left on their loans to pay, whilst I would be mortgage free. That would make a massive difference. It is like having kids at 20, which is a burden in many ways, but it also means that the children are older when one is looking to build a deeper career, and moved out of the home when established and working further upward.
I wish I had kids younger.
However, that counterfactual scenario didn't play out, so I ended up in Finland, selling the house after a year to help pay for some of my mother's end of life care, and starting from scratch in a new country, with no safety net. This means that my circumstances ended up being more like my friend's back home after all. I guess the main difference is, I am doing it in a very changed environment, compared to them.
And, if I am "proud" of anything I have done, it is in being able to establish myself here, in an environment that hasn't necessarily been hostile, but also hasn't always been hospitable to me. It has taken a lot to overcome some of the challenges I have faced, and situations I found myself in. A fair bit of "hustle" - though that word is well out of favor in the current culture. Now, people in their thirties and forties like I am, are looking for ways to be like carefree students twenty five years ago.
Live in the moment.
Is this "the moment" my government handout arrives?
2024 may be a pretty rough year I believe, but I also think that there are signs that toward the end of the year, things might start to turn the corner that everyone wants so badly to get around. My plan is to work as hard as I can, where and when I can, to improve my position for when that corner finally arrives, whether it be this year, next, or in five more years from now. If I can keep building, whilst chipping away at the mortgage, five years down the track isn't that long. But, we aren't engineered to think this way, we are far more immediate than that.
We want things now, because that is what our mind is on, now.
Our attention is generally drawn to making us feel good in the moment, rather than paying attention to all the moments that are to come in our lifetime, because we don't know where out lives are going to take us, or what is going to befall us on the journey. Sometimes, a year trip overseas turns into a life in another country, a family, and a house.
And a job to go to in the morning on a day that will also mark my five years in the company.
By choice, not by chain.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
