I’ve been thinking about my fitness future. As a blogger, there are many upsides I enjoy in the role. The freedom to manage my own life and not be dictated to by some numbskull manager was my main motivation. Of course, there are downsides too, as with any job.
One downside for me is that my job relies almost entirely on using my brain and the rest of my body can become easily neglected. To counter this, I regularly have to find time to attend my local gym centre. I do all the usual stuff, rowing machine, weights, cross trainer, spinning and swimming in the pool. I’m certainly no fitness fanatic but if I don’t do it, I feel sluggish and that impacts my thinking ability.
Then along came the year 2020, with all its unique challenges. Many people, sadly suffered personal tragedy but nobody was untouched, in some way. We all had to adapt our lifestyles during the lockdown.
Being stuck at home for 23 hours a day wasn’t a great starting point, for trying to stay reasonably fit. I started by doing a bit of hill walking to get me out of breath, a bit. Next, I dusted off my bike from the back of the garage and pumped up the very flat tyres. I still felt I needed to do more, so I explored even further into my garage and came across a set of weights. These became integral to my makeshift home gym, previously known as my bedroom. I also had a frame for doing sit-ups which I retrieved from under the dining room table.
So now, I had a means of maintaining some physical fitness as well as aiding my mental wellbeing. It was far from ideal… my bedroom isn’t big! I did fall over the frame on a few occasions, on the way to the bathroom at night. This got me thinking…
How badly do I really need to go to the gym? I enjoyed and missed the pool but the gym not so much and it’s expensive. Wouldn’t it be great if the next time I moved, I could have more space for my own home gym?
I decided to have a look at local property for sale, online. We were now deep into 2021 and I knew I had left it too late to benefit from the Stamp Duty holiday. So how would the loss of this perk affect the property market going forward? The fear from some was that the return of Stamp Duty would cause the market to crash. However, according to The Guardian, these fears appeared to be unfounded. I read other articles from respected sources, that broadly backed this view.
Reassured that the market was reasonably stable, I got down to some number crunching. Based on the estimated valuation of my home and the valuations of the kind of property I wanted, I worked out what I needed to find. I came up with a figure of about £110K. So now I needed to work out the cost of a mortgage.
To do this, I used an online calculator that worked out the size of the mortgage I would need and the cost of repayments, based on my figures. I played around with the numbers, such as the term and interest rate, to see how that affected it. It showed a Full Monthly Payment would cost me about £522, using the default settings. There were other calculators available, including one for remortgaging a property, which I could perhaps use in future. So now I knew the costs, what next?
Well, for now, I needed to work and save. However, now I had something to work and save for. Goal setting is a great way to focus your mind to reach those goals. I will look again in a few months to see what property is available. Not forgetting my checklist for selling my home.
Sometimes, adversity can lead to positive change and act as a reboot, in our lives. It can help us focus on what we really want and the best ways to achieve them.
