greent's mfw journey

Have now added BTL to my sig. Have some other stuff to pay for along the way (such as OH's car loan....) but at least this way I can hopefully motivate myself to attack it a bit. Only expenses for the foreseeable future for BTL are monthly mortgage interest, monthly buildings insurance (renewal due in Dec so will look to get this reduced as it currently costs more than our combined buildings & contents!), ground rent (due end of March) and the electrical inspection (and some remedial work on a duff socket) Oh - and the gutters will need clearing at some point but is split between the 4 flats so will only be around £30. That means that I should be able to make a payment of min c 3k from rental income next year and leave myself a couple of K as BTL emergency fund. I hereby also pledge to make min payment of £1k before Xmas (small fry, I know - but every little helps. Actually, on that basis I pledge to clear the one sub acct by 12/2017 - as it's only £5k that should be relatively easily achievable....! )

Other news - OH had another interview last Weds (he's getting a few, but not getting any further) On Thurs they said it was between him and one other. As he hasn't heard anything since I suspect the other candidate was the successful one I am quite happy if he only does 3-6 months work a year, as we can happily survive on that - but others seem to wonder why at 47 he wants to do that (uh - because we're MF is a big part of it!)

Had all of our gutters cleared out yesterday - 2 long runs across front and back of house, the bay around dining room doors and windows, a small run across part of the back of the kitchen, a double garage width across front of house (family room and office) and both sides of the garage. He also threw in cleaning all the windows (inc garage ones) and doors. Total cost £150, which I though was pretty reasonable and well worth it to clear out the plants we could see growing in the top gutters!!! :rotfl::rotfl: Not budgeted for, and not a brilliant time to decide to get it done, being a week before pay day - but such is life!

I really should do some housework now, I suppose.....


xx

Another 2 week gap in my postings - really must try harder!!

Well we had domestic drama here twice on Thursday - when I opened the lounge curtains on Thurs morning there was water running down the front windows - turned out that one of the fittings in the wall for DS1's radiator was loose - cue DS1 being woken up by OH whacking lumps out of his wall to get to the pipe work - which released the fitting even more and water was gushing out both in DS1's room and literally pouring out downstairs - soggy curtains, a damp tv and a lot of very wet towels! Sorted relatively quickly.

When OH was out at swimming with DS2 at around 6.20 I could hear a tapping/ dripping sound when I was in the dining room - walked through to the living room - it got louder and then quieter so I started looking for the source - I happened to be standing in between the 2 rooms - the doorway has a wooden bottom piece dividing the 2 rooms - water was dripping from the architrave onto this - hence the noise I could hear. I turned the heating off and mopped up and left a towel there as OH was due home in less than 10 minutes. We couldn't find the source (nothing to do with DS1's room - that's at the front and this was at the back) but the wall was sodden enough to just poke your hand through and the ceilings were getting damp . Flipping insurance co were useless - took around 90 minutes to arrange an emergency plumber - if we hadn't have slowed it right down we'd have been floating away by then!!! OH then had the bright idea of checking one pipe (process of working out which rad was closest above the leak) - found a seal in a joint had perished/ split and that was the issue. Cancelled emergency plumber (saving policy excess of £350) Went to B&Q in the morning (they were closed by this point on THurs night) - £6.50 for joint parts :T:money: Meant we had no CH/ hot water Thurs night (was thankfully milder and we have 3 plug in heaters in garage from camping which we used throughout house along with lounge fire) and hole in the walls of 3 rooms but soooooo much cheaper!! We are leaving the ceilings to dry out for a few weeks before stainblocking and repainting. One hole (double fist sized) already has new plasterboard in, has been lightly skimmed and just needs rubbing down (and possibly another small skim over) and then that can be repainted. Other holes will be sorted over the next week. We're looking at this as an opportunity to do some touching up on paintwork before Xmas! :rotfl:

In other news we made a dash to see DD the previous Fri night - her app1e brand phone had stopped working (after 14 months) - the contract is through our business account and she is not named on it (was 17 at the time taken out) network providers absolutely useless both on phone and online and said the best they could suggest was taking it to app1e shop or one of their shops - the first would just try and sell her a new one, the 2nd we've had poor service from in store as business customers on several occasions, staff having little knowledge of the business sector and more concerned with retail sales. We therefore jumped in the car and headed to Cardiff to sort it - thankfully we had a fantastic Guru in the shop who got it all sorted (went above and beyond her job to do so) and DD only ended up losing a few pics once she's restored it all. We then bought her a takeaway (it was late and we were very hungry) before dropping her back at halls (with the instructions to get some iron tablets and more rest!) and took a quick trip to ikea to get a mattress for DS1's new bed (it having been oos in Bristol at the start of the week) - made it through checkout as they were closing - phew! and got home at 10.30pm (having left at 4pm - DS1 was a star in looking after and sorting out the smaller 2) Then on Saturday morning we saw a post on facebook tagging DD as having a bf - something she'd neglected to tell us on the FRi night!! DS1 immediately sent him a f/r (accepted) and stalked out his profile! :D It's very sweet - although he has the same name as DS2 We did suspect that she was either interested in this one or another, as they got mentioned a LOT!

Oooh - and we have new sofas on order! We were checking out bedding for DS1 and found some sofas we liked - changed our mind on the colour last minute (from deep royal purple to a paler almost lilac) Order says delivery date 24th Dec - but we're not convinced! Whilst it would be amazing to have them for Xmas (our current ones are only fit for the tip - furniture recycling won't have them) we are not convinced it will happen! We have stuck them on IF credit for 6 months - purely because we had a small discount if we did!:T Also got TCB (of course!)

I'm in a position to pay my first £1k off the BTL this week, still leaving me with a decent EF for that property of around £1500 - which means I'll have achieved my pledge for the BTL this year. I have pledged to clear one sub acct by 12/2017 - which will mean £4k payments to it next year - sounds easy, but there's a lot of stuff I still want to do here and ideally I want to pay it just from rental income excess - which means I need no additional costs on the BTL next year (although I still plan on maintaining £1500 EF for it, so should be ok in theory)

I seem very unprepared for Xmas this year - can't seem to get motivated

Beautiful blue sky outside - cold, though - around 3degrees. I want to vacuum up the leaves again today - most have fallen now other than one (always the last) tree and a few stragglers - will make the garden look much tidier. Will wait until the frost has gone from the lawns, though

x

newgirly wrote: »

Thanks for the reminder to donate greent, I have a memory like a sieve and the collection basket is always on the way out by the exit at Tesco, they need a sign when entering for forgetful people like me

Kittenkirst wrote: »

Totally agree, my gf and I had this very conversation leaving sainsburys!

I think that's a fab idea!


Just a very quick post - have paid £1250 off the BTL mtge:j - so £250 more than I planned to I have a feeling it could become addictive - I miss OPing.......:rotfl: