This will be the first of an ongoing series of posts which, whilst not directly concerned with Erbas herself, record for posterity our efforts to break free from the rat race and make a bid for freedom upon the high seas. Oh, OK! Maybe not the high seas 'cos we're wimps! We'll settle for spending our summers pottering around the coast of the UK and Northern Europe
Inevitably, I'll be repeating myself in places catching up to where we're at now so if you have been keeping up at the back, my apologies!
To summarise, the cunning plan is..
Step 1. Sell the house
Step 2. Buy a flat up in the Kettering area with our eldest son
Step 3. Buy a larger yacht more suitable for long term live-aboard use
Step 4. Refit the new yacht as necessary
Step 5. Make sure our finances are in order and then ...
Step 6. Jane "retires" from full time work
(The flat will give us a base near where we currently live in an area where temporary work is plentiful in case we need to top up the financial coffers. It also gives us a base near to family and friends, somewhere to retreat to in the depths of winter or if the boat needs major work, the long term security of having somewhere ashore to live if something goes amiss and, crucially, a legal residential address)
When steps 1 and 2 have been achieved, we'll be mortgage free and we'll have a modest sum of money to spend on a new bigger boat. Hopefully we'll have a budget of between £30k and £40k to buy and refit a suitable vessel so we're going to be talking something older. Probably a 1980s Westerly or Moody but we're keeping a very open mind on that
So that catches up on and consolidates stuff I've previously posted but what progress have we made?
I have to admit that it's getting off to a slow start! The house and garden are a complete mess and it is a frankly daunting task to sort out which I've been struggling to find any motivation or enthusiasm for.
It's also proving tricky to try and co-ordinate my time and workload trying to develop my marine electrical engineering business with the demands of taking Jane and Carl to work and actually getting to see something of each other, we are leaking cash at a gradual but mildly (at this stage) worrying rate and what little has been done around the house has not yet achieved a great deal!
We have, though, had the leaky roof repaired and the plasterer is booked to come and deal with the resulting damaged ceilings. And last Friday a skip landed on the drive as we start the key process of getting rid of all the accumulated junk that is everywhere.
There's the remains of all the stuff we no longer need from the festival days, loads of worthless boat junk, old electrics and electronics, dead tools, surplus materials and general crap because we hardly ever throw anything out!
Well we're making a start now! Not only is all this "stuff" in the way of putting the house to rights, we can't take most of it with us. So it's time to be utterly ruthless and ditch anything that is not of immediate use and/or which we won't be able to take with us to the flat or on board Bigger Boat.
There's some stuff that is worth passing on or flogging off but I'm not planning on wasting too much time worrying about that. If it's going to waste any time at all, in the skip it goes.
So far, I've cleared various cupboard around the house, the big under stairs cupboard and made a start on the loft. Carl and I are about to tackle some of the heavier stuff that's up in the loft in a few minutes
Inevitably, I'll be repeating myself in places catching up to where we're at now so if you have been keeping up at the back, my apologies!
To summarise, the cunning plan is..
Step 1. Sell the house
Step 2. Buy a flat up in the Kettering area with our eldest son
Step 3. Buy a larger yacht more suitable for long term live-aboard use
Step 4. Refit the new yacht as necessary
Step 5. Make sure our finances are in order and then ...
Step 6. Jane "retires" from full time work
(The flat will give us a base near where we currently live in an area where temporary work is plentiful in case we need to top up the financial coffers. It also gives us a base near to family and friends, somewhere to retreat to in the depths of winter or if the boat needs major work, the long term security of having somewhere ashore to live if something goes amiss and, crucially, a legal residential address)
When steps 1 and 2 have been achieved, we'll be mortgage free and we'll have a modest sum of money to spend on a new bigger boat. Hopefully we'll have a budget of between £30k and £40k to buy and refit a suitable vessel so we're going to be talking something older. Probably a 1980s Westerly or Moody but we're keeping a very open mind on that
So that catches up on and consolidates stuff I've previously posted but what progress have we made?
I have to admit that it's getting off to a slow start! The house and garden are a complete mess and it is a frankly daunting task to sort out which I've been struggling to find any motivation or enthusiasm for.
It's also proving tricky to try and co-ordinate my time and workload trying to develop my marine electrical engineering business with the demands of taking Jane and Carl to work and actually getting to see something of each other, we are leaking cash at a gradual but mildly (at this stage) worrying rate and what little has been done around the house has not yet achieved a great deal!
 |
| Ready and waiting ... |
There's the remains of all the stuff we no longer need from the festival days, loads of worthless boat junk, old electrics and electronics, dead tools, surplus materials and general crap because we hardly ever throw anything out!
Well we're making a start now! Not only is all this "stuff" in the way of putting the house to rights, we can't take most of it with us. So it's time to be utterly ruthless and ditch anything that is not of immediate use and/or which we won't be able to take with us to the flat or on board Bigger Boat.
There's some stuff that is worth passing on or flogging off but I'm not planning on wasting too much time worrying about that. If it's going to waste any time at all, in the skip it goes.
So far, I've cleared various cupboard around the house, the big under stairs cupboard and made a start on the loft. Carl and I are about to tackle some of the heavier stuff that's up in the loft in a few minutes
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