Where's Frankie?

Debt Free at Last

Finally, after 30 months of to-ing and fro-ing, negotiating and wheeler dealing we have finally sold the back garden at the shop and paid off the mortgage and all of our other loans. For the first time since I was sixteen I am now totally debt free.

But now I’ve got a strange feeling, it should be elation but it’s not. There’s a fair bit of scariness creeping into my life because there is now one less hurdle to jump. We’re about to take a very big jump and change our lives forever.

Mid September we are planning to move all of our printing equipment into one of the shops over the road and let Dave take on the day to day running of the business. Dave has been running an ink cartridge refilling shop for a couple of years and has had to fend off streams of people coming in for copies whilst we’ve had to fend off streams of people asking for cartridge refills. It seems like both businesses are made for each other.

Dave has been coming into the shop over the last month or so and familiarising himself with our machines and once we move over the road I’ll be helping him out for a month. Then it’s time to buy the ferry ticket to take us to Calais.

The shop has been advertised to let and we’re just waiting for the right person to come in and make us an offer. There should be enough money coming in from Dave to cover our expenses and the shop rental is the cream on the cake, so to speak.

We’ve been asked what the plan is and at the moment it is rather flexible. We buy a ticket to Calais and see where to go on a daily basis. We eventually aim to be in southern Spain or Portugal over the winter, we could be going to Le Mans in June and we need to be back in the UK by mid July.

We need to be in the UK for the MOT and service towards the end of August and have managed to secure 7 weeks stewarding duties for East Essex DA which means 7 weeks without paying for site fees or diesel and a decent income for East Essex. That takes us up to October next year when it all starts again.

We’ve been planning this for three years and now we are 10 or 11 weeks away from sailing and there is still so much to sort out – finger crossed it all works out.

5 thoughts on “Debt Free at Last

  1. Denzil

    Just read your letter and I have no idea why I am so excited. After all you didn’t invite me (or is that yet to come).

    Sounds like a wonderful experience you are about to start and I sincerely wish you all the luck in the world.
    If there is anything I can do just let me know

    Love to you both

    Denzil

  2. Giorgio

    Mark & Lucy,
    As regular customers for over 20 years, we are sorry to see you leave.
    You have given to us a fantastic and flexible service over the years.
    At the same time, we are delighted that you have been able to fulfil a long held dream and we look forward to reading your blogs and in that way learn a little more through your experiences.
    All the very best and travel safe.
    Giorgio

  3. Karen Oyler

    I am so pleased you have both started your fantastic adventure, I wish you a safe journey wherever you go, lots of laughs and enjoy making new memories, you are a lovely couple and you truly deserve this dream, lots of love Karen xxx

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