Our Previous House is Sold !

Yesterday we finally exchanged contracts on the sale of our previous home, after it being on-and-off the market for the last three years, so I suppose some sort of celebration is in order - or is it ?

The buyers first viewed the property on 22 February, so it will have been a fourteen-week long process from start to finish, i.e. at completion next Friday....

Even though the market has supposedly been rising recently, we eventually agreed to sell it for only 81% of what we paid at the top of the market in the summer of 2006 (you'll already have guessed that this house isn't in London if we're selling for a much lower price than eight years ago !).    We'd had previous offers, but they were generally very speculative and derisory and we weren't distressed sellers, we always had a positive equity-to-loan value even at the depths of the fall, and so were prepared to hold out until we could get what we thought was a reasonable price.

Solar Panel Performance - two years on

It's that time again...  

As of this evening, we now have exactly two full years' worth of data from our experimental 540 Wp solar array.  So, here are the graphs of the same parameters as previously reported - clicking on them shows larger images, and they can be compared with last year's figures here :-

Total AC energy production this year was 243 kWhr, i.e. just 2 more than last year !  At least the numbers are consistent.

The longest ten minutes of my life....

Been having a bit of a problem with my shoulder recently, that's been going on for a few months now.  Pain in the neck (literally) and also all down my right arm and regular pins-and-needles from shoulder to fingertips.

So after a steroid injection directly into the tendon proved worthless, the quack decided I should go a for a scan....

Now, I've been with the wife for many an ultrasound examination etc before, and it's all been very jolly, stress-free and painless (for me at least !), so I thought I knew what I was letting myself in for.

However, I was scheduled for a MRI scan (magnetic resonance imaging).  Even the 1,000 word guidance leaflet they sent out with the appointment letter seemed ominous.

So I racked up at the hospital today.  Just as I was about to go in, they brought an old lady out of the scanner room in a wheelchair.    "Ninety years old and marvellous for her age", said the radiologist breezily - talk about putting the pressure on....  

Unusual visitor to the garden...

I spotted this butterfly in the garden early this morning.  I went inside to grab the camera thinking he'd probably fly away before I returned, but he was still there.

Maybe he'd just emerged and was still half-asleep, because he allowed me to get very close and to even snap off the leaf on which he was sitting, so I could get a better shot.

Click on the photos for larger images....

I've never seen a butterfly like this before in my life, and so I thought it must be quite rare.  However, according to authoritative references on the web, it's a male 'Orange Tip' and they're quite common & widespread throughout the UK....

Teaching kids about finance.....

I see from the MSM that teaching kids about '...personal finance...' will become part of the UK National Curriculum from September this year.

No doubt a laudable objective, but has anyone seen how this will actually be done in practice, by whom, and what specific subjects are to be covered in the curriculum ?  God forbid that sharks from the major banks are allowed to be visiting lecturers....

I'm really looking forward to the day 10 or 15 years hence when someone sues the State because their teacher happened to mention to an eight-year old that he/she has an account, investment fund or holds shares in any particular company, which then goes tits-up soon after the first students from this new regime manage to get enough money together to invest in it.

Watch this space....

Financial Planning - 2014 Review

Towards the end of the previous tax year, I set up several Excel worksheets and established a 10-year plan for our savings, investments and pensions.   A bit like the old Soviet Union, I know, although theirs was always a moving five-year plan !

Although we've been saving and investing for many years, it was decided to create a more formal plan to focus our efforts to match our goals, and establish annual targets against which to review the performance each year.  

Like a roadmap to a destination, if you don't where you want to go, or the route you're taking to get there, then it's difficult to know where you are at any point in time, or if and when you've actually arrived.   

Many blog commentators monitor their similar plans at the start of each new year but for several reasons I prefer the end of March, at which time I can also better predict our income tax liabilities for the following year.

In-sourcing as a way of life...

In my formative years, firstly as an apprentice and then a junior engineer in a large engineering company in the late 1970s and early 80s, I did the usual things like regularly drinking to excess and wasting money on useless expensive toys, but in those days I wasn't earning too much and so looking back I can see my wages were heavily supplemented simply by doing things myself.

Many's the hour I would spend under the car bonnet (that is, the 'hood' to those across the pond), or stripping motorbike engines or doing DIY improvements to the first house I bought.   Also, Saturday mornings spent in the local scrapyard climbing on piles of old cars stacked four high, with tools between my teeth and also hanging out of every available pocket, just to get at that elusive water pump or starter motor I needed.  Funny how the models I was after always seemed to be at the top of the pile, but that's life... 

For younger readers, this is how second-hand car parts were to be had in the good old days, long before the breakers started stripping parts themselves and offering them off-the-shelf, at hugely inflated prices of course because they now have to factor in their own labour costs.

I think the now all-pervasive 'Health & Safety' culture must share some of the blame, although it's also fair to say that these old scrapyards were potentially dangerous places to be if you didn't have your wits about you.