Blue skies & a mistake in my favour!

Yesterday was a beautiful day here! After several weeks of skies filled with red dust & smoke from the bushfires, we had a beautiful bright blue sky, the gale force winds of the night before dropped and the temperatures went down.

 It was so nice to go outside the house and not breathe dusty smoky air, and to finally open the windows. Everyone was enjoying being outside yesterday!

And it really does make you appreciate seeing the sky each day, something I've just taken for granted all my life.

Usually bushfire season in Australia is at its worst in January. This year it started in early November and its been very bad. The pollution levels have been very high which we've never had here before as we live in the country, and away from the main fire areas, but the wind is just blowing our way, along with the red dust from the drought affected areas. This morning the sky is tinged with red dust again, but no smoke thank goodness.

I had a very pleasant surprise when I checked my pay last night - and $800 extra payment! Apparently I have been underpaid on one of my work allowances for the last 3 years. So nice to have that extra this month while we're trying to reach our end of year goals! As it was extra it went straight off the mortgage.

"The sky is the daily bread of the eyes"

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Another Mortgage Milestone!

Good news! We've hit another mortgage milestone today on our mortgage amoratisation table.

Our current balance is $105,297.  This takes us to the end of Year 19 balance, and we're almost 5 years into this mortgage.

I'm not sure if we will be able to hit $100,000 before the end of the year as we have the new air/conditioner heating to be paid for and a few other big bills expected, but it feels good to be this close.

We had our 37th wedding anniversary this week - goodness time goes by so fast! So we went our for coffee and cake after work which was lovely. I'm not really one for parties but I do enjoy a coffee date now and again.

I did have a surprise for DH though. I asked him how much he thought we had increased our retirement savings by this year - his guess was $40,000. While he's aware of what I'm doing with finances, its me who does the day to day money management. I was thrilled to be able to say our retirement saving have increased this year by $100,000!  Way over what I had set as a goal for the year - thanks to a good stock market and compound interest started to really build.

So its been a bit of a good news week here financially.

I'm looking forward to having a big clean up around the house and bit more decluttering this weekend.Time to get on top of the housework and get rid of a bit more 'stuff'.

Burned out but getting back to blogging.

I've neglected posting much the last 2 months. I guess I've been avoiding posting as I did not want to just whinge about work. But a few things have happened, including several bloggers posting about 'burnout' that have prompted me to get back to blogging.

So in the last few months I've had several, serious, critical incidents to deal with that have taken a toll. On top of that I've watched another colleague go off on stress leave and one more about to. Two more staff have resigned and a third will leave at Christmas. I do feel burned out. I also understand that the burnout is a result of workplace factors, not a personal weakness.

I have made changes at work where I can and am just refusing to do work that I don't have capacity for. My manager has been supportive. I have had a few days off, which just gave me some space from the constant demands I know I can't meet. I've said no a lot and written submissions to management which have resulted in meetings and some small changes. I've taken action on what I can change and tried to let go of what I can't.

So, now I am really trying to focus on myself and my wellbeing as the #1 priority. And I am feeling better this week than I was a few weeks ago. I signed up for the 'Noom' weight loss app and that has been good. I feel like I've caught up on sleep and am ready to get back into decluttering, sewing, gardening, reading & walking in the coming weeks.

This video 'Its not burnout, its moral injury' makes some very good points about those of us who work in health professions:

October Progress Report

Another month has flown by and its time for an update!

Mortgage

• current balance $107,647
• down from $109,687
• total reduction $2,040

We had a meeting with the bank yesterday and our interest rates have been dropped. Our mortgage is now st 3.32% and our investment loans are 3.89%

Retirement

• me $148,693
• DH $329,108
• total $477,799
• total increase: $6,117

Health

I was doing well with restarting walking but the last week has been very high stress at work so haven't exercised this week. I had some dental work done after a bad toothache so it was good to get that finished. Health is definitely going to be the focus for 2020.

Work

Dealing with a serious crisis the last week at work has really driven home the point - I just want to retire. Its very stressful and I'm so tired. Another position has been cut in my team. Everyone is just waiting for more lay off announcements, hopefully before the end of the year. Thank goodness for great colleagues as we all try and keep each others spirits up.

I finished at my second job so our income will go down now. All of that income went towards debt reduction so we need to make savings elsewhere to keep reducing the debt. I really loved the work a lot and am so glad I took it on. But I need to slow down so I'm going to gracefully accept the ending of that part of my professional life.

Home

Nothing major done around the house. We are getting the air conditioning replace in the next few weeks so I'm saving up the $5,000 for that. I have been doing small bits of decluttering each weekend - making slow and steady progress!