Live on £4000 for a year - part 4 (Oct - Dec 2008)

redglass_2

shaz_mum_of__2 wrote: »

Nyk - love the idea of getting you coal ,we are really a sad lot - most people hate getting useful presents for christmas!!

I've always liked useful presents - this Christmas I'm getting a log-holder for the fireside, yippeee..!!! :j (Yes we are a sad lot. :rotfl:)

I was at work last night or I would have watched the programme about Aldi and Lidl. What was on it?

Frugaldom

Good morning frunchkin friends

Sophiesmum, I LOVE the snowman soup and have only just sussed out what folks have been talking about after 'Googling' it! :rotfl: I had been imagining all sorts and didn't want to ask - SkintLynne, it's just hot chocolate with 'bits' in it - I do mine with maltesers and marshmallows and we call it chocolate broth. In all honesty, I would never even have thought of making up my own gift sets with that kind of stuff, although I've done sweets, preserves or veggie gift boxes in the past. These are great! I love the ideas you guys share on here! :T I wonder where I could find candy canes about here.

Sun's trying to shine through the clouds here after a wet start to the day and we had an excellent air display earlier! (I think I mentioned at start of the year that our area is a military low fly zone.) It's MUCH BETTER viewing from this house! I don't know how I'll get any work done in summer if I'm going to be fighter jet [strike]pilot[/strike] spotting, binoculars in one hand, freshly baked cookies in the other and sporting my best eBid purchased pinny!:rotfl:

I have a ton of work to do and, like Marru and others, have a 'to do' list that is beginning to resemble a till roll! It's endless! Work beckons and I just cannot find the inspiration or motivation needed to complete this month's! Help, inspiration needed! Must go put mince in slow cooker before I forget! I think it's a mince & tatties kind of a day - I might even throw in some doughballs, later, for extra measure - yum!

Double scratchcard day today again!

PS: Meant to ask about the Aldi/Lidl programme, we've got no TV reception here at all!

Marru

Hello everybody,

Had a goodish day yesterday. Managed to get eight things done from my list so not too bad. Aim for today is eleven - one down, ten to go. I have a feeling that I will put some washing to dry and then have a couple of hours nap before carrying on.

I got some free lightbulbs from postman today. They weren't even addressed to me so they couldn't have been from that carbon thingy website. He just said that everybody is getting them.

I had nice skittles evening. We had a game (I was rubbish) and then hot dogs and chips. Very frugal as I only paid £1.- for the food, £1.40 for coffee and £0.60 for soft drink. Babysitter was a bit more expensive. I thought that the people there would have been thirty something but they were more likely fourty something plus. So after being the oldest in the college I think I ended up being the youngest yesterday.

Sophiesmum - I envy your energy, enthusiasm and ideas. (And now I want hot chocolate with marshmallows...:p)

I am aiming for a NSD today which should be easy as I have no reasons to take purse with me when I go out later. Buy the way I found a new challenge, it is "get things done" challenge and covers all kind of stuff to do not just dfw stuff. The link is in the challenges list that is sticky in dfw forum (of which I managed to update yesterday except I think I forgot to amend one link)

Off I go now for my nap as to be able to tackle 10 more things from my list before the end of the day.

Have a good day everybody,

Marru

cw18

Marru wrote: »

I got some free lightbulbs from postman today. They weren't even addressed to me so they couldn't have been from that carbon thingy website.

Me too.

I applied in DH's name as his DLA was our qualifing criteria, but they've come addressed to a Ms Amanda Smith

lyndasharp

I got some free lightbulbs too, but they were for me... and it said on the box about the Independant offer so must have been carbon creditz!

House buying gets more complicated by the day. They can't give me a date when probate will be sorted out by, but have offered to rent me the house in the meantime, which would at least solve the 'where to live' dilemma. The problem with that is my mortgage offer expires in 4 months, if it drags on past then I'll have to start over again, and it's unlikely I'll be able to get a nice tracker like I have at the moment. So it seems like quite a big risk - after all, what if when I do finally buy the place it gets even harder to find a mortgage and I can't get another one, or if it ends up costing me a lot more in interest payments? However HSBC will move my mortgage offer to another house, as long as the mortgage amount doesn't increase. I have two house viewings booked for next week... though haven't officially pulled out of the first one yet, need a bit more time to think it over.

In other news, it seems my employers lost laptop contained rather more personal data than we were told at first. :mad:

Oh well, spending the weekend with bf, that should be fun

the_cat

lyndasharp - is this your absolute dream house? If it is I can understand hanging on in the hope of it being sorted but if not you are in such a strong position (ie renting and mortgage sorted) that you have very strong negotiating power elsewhere. This seems to have dragged on for so long that prices may well have gone down even more now giving you more options.

lyndasharp

I do really like the house, it needs a lot of work inside, but that was really what I was looking for, as most of the places I've looked at that have already been refurbished aren't how I'd do them. However if I'm renting it I'd have to hold off doing the work, just in case I did it up, and they threw me out and sold it for more money. That would mean no shower and iffy electrics for however long it took... So it's a very nice house, but there are probably others out there that are as nice.

These are the two I'm planning to look at: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-11011332.rsp?pa_n=10&tr_t=buy&mam_disp=true
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-23942234.rsp?pa_n=9&tr_t=buy&mam_disp=true

Maybe I'll decide that one of them is my dream home!

MrDT

The three bed semi looks nice - garage, drive, decent sized rooms, space enough for an office in bed3 etc. I'd run a mile from buying a flat though!!!

Hope it all works out for you Lynda

Skint_Lynne

I like the house as well Lynda, it means that you would defo be settled for a long time. It's a better bet methinks!!

the_cat

I agree, the 3 bed semi looks great. Also with a double garage on the side there would be potential if you ever needed it in the future to extend and should make the garden a decent size even if it's not very long. Looks like a repossession too, so room to negotiate on the price........