In a couple of months, my salary will go up substantially as I will be working full time, my husband is receiving a small pension with health insurance and in November of 2020 he will start collecting early social security benefits. I'll be 51 soon and my husband 62 in October. I am already contributing 15% of my income between a 403B, Roth IRA and Teacher's state pension. We thought about our next move financially and decided to aggressively try to payoff our primary home in 5-7 years (hoping for 5 years). We also want to travel every year and make a major trip each year starting 2021. COVID haulted our plans this year but that's okay. I rather be safe than sorry. We have no debt other than our mortgages and we're paying cash for all home renovations and repairs. My children are grown with good jobs and making it on their own, our cars are new (ish) and basically it's just my husband, my fur baby and I. I am formulating a money plan to make this happen.

On another note, the central AC is done and paid in full. It feels nice not to depend on fans and window units to keep cool. The highest estimate for our porch deck repair came at $6K (materials and labor), the second one came in at $4,800 and we are waiting on the third estimate to make a decision.

We are officially installing central AC in our house. We have talked about this since we bought the house in 2014. The cost? $10K I'm not sure if this will enhance the resale value of our house and honestly I don't really care. This is our forever home (I hope) and we just want to be comfortable during the summer months. We expect to spend about $20K this summer in home projects but we've saved and will be paying cash for all of it. The last time we did major renovations to our home was in 2015. That was for two bathrooms and a second floor laundry. We are getting estimates for our porch deck repair tomorrow.

We are officially living on my husband's small pension and rental property income for the summer months. We have been and will be spending some money on home projects; tree removal, porch deck replacement and installing central air. The latter is still pending, but summers are very humid here in NJ and I truly dislike window units. It's been in our bucket list of home projects for a while now and I think we will finally pull the plug on it.

On another note, it looks like I'll be opting out of health insurance benefits come September. My husband has really good insurance through his state pension. By doing an opt out, not only will I save about $400 a month, but I'll also get $5K from the school district at the end of the fiscal year minus taxes. We plan to use that money to go on vacation next summer. We are not making any vacation plans this summer because of COVID. Speaking of COVID, our numbers are going down significantly and that makes me very happy. I dream of the day when COVID is a thing of the past. I hope you are all well.

Do you think that people who are employed have the ability to save money even in smaller amounts no matter how deep in debt they are? I'd like to read your take on this.

Payday update:

----We paid July's mortgage payment today and hope to pay August mortgage payment by mid June.

----Transferred $300 to the savings account

----Contributed $100 to my Roth IRA. I'm hoping to contribute another $200 by mid June. I'm a bit behind because of some financial setbacks due to the pandemic, but I am determined to fully fund for 2020.

I have two more paychecks to go as the school year ends pretty soon. July and August will be tough with just my husband's pension check and whatever income we get from the rental properties. This is the reason we prepaid July and August mortgage payments. On the bright side, there will be no house heating oil bill or car insurance to pay during the summer. Come September, I'll start working again and things will ease up (hopefully).

I hope all of you are safe and well.