My five year plan, from ten years ago.

When my daughter was born nearly ten years ago I felt very motivated and naturally was looking forward to the future and making plans. I made a five year plan and had various goals written down. I have the plan somewhere so will dig it out , but one of the goals was to move house. We have been in our house for 16 years and never imagined that we would still be here now. Emotionally we were ready to move on ten years ago but with having a baby and loss of income we decided to stay put. Then we pondered for a few years but never really made a decision. Then we finally decided to put the house on the market, we did this in September 2007 , just a few days before Northern Rock ran into trouble. Subsequently we had the house on the market and no viewers. We tried again about eighteen months ago but same again, no viewers and the estate agents were worse than useless. They tried to get us to reduce the house drastically to sell but the margins were so tight that we weren't going to jeopardise our financial future just to give them a quick sale to get their ( fixed price ) commission. So here we are ten years on from making the five year plan. We have taken decisive action this time around. We have almost paid the credit card debt that we had hanging round our necks, when we do move we will no longer have the debt or the associated monthly costs. We are going to do a few jobs to spruce the place up but we are not investing serious money on a new kitchen or bathrooms, just a general de clutter, clean the carpets and lick of paint. Our aim is to put it up for sale in spring next year, its sounds a long way off but it will be here before we know it. Hopefully by then the market may have picked up a little. Either way we will be ready physically, mentally and more important , financially , to make the move.