greent's mfw journey

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

greent wrote: »

I love the peace when there's no-one around

Some peace and quiet for me tonight (MrMRN has an evening work thingie)... just me, some sewing time and some documentaries on the telly! Bliss.

greent

£15 OP made from ebay. More items ending this weekend - no bidders as yet, but lots of watchers

-5lb on week one of SW

CathT

Well done on SW! I too enjoy an hour or two of quietness at home, it rarely happens though!

greent

Another £15 OP from ebay (Very!) Slowly getting there!

We have now bought some new plain wooden fire doors for the middle floor bedrooms and matching new doors for the 2 bathrooms there. And new hinges and door furniture. Fitter sourced - just need him to revisit and book dates to do the work. Then we can finish decorating down the stairs and start the masses of work on the ground floor (just some minor touching up of paintwork required on top flooor)

We've spent much of the weekend in the garden. Have been edging the new lawn, planting bulbs and pansies and some other plants and sifting the potato bags soil for missed potatoes And some general tidying up. Not yet finished, but looking better And we sold a Little Tikes twin slide/ climber on ebay (children split the money for that)

SW still going ok. Weigh in again on Tues morning. Would ideally like -3lb, but that's quite a big ask

Got some bargain bread products in M&S today and some huge double choc muffins in Sainsbugs (30p for 4, bought 12) which I'll use in packed lunches. Must menu plan from the fridge tomorrow for the next few days, as it's rather full - and there's NO room at all in the freezers!

greent

Thanks to Peonie (and Tilly where I then read it in Peonie's diary) I've checked the mortgage vs savings debate. DH is a HR taxpayer and I'm lower. Generally it makes more sense for us to be OPing. I do use ISAs (I tend to fill one in my name each year and DH might get one if we're flush!) and try and run day to day savings through an account in my name (so not subect to DH's HR tax)

Have breakfasted on falafels this morning! I blame Hester and FrugalQueen!

Tidying kitchen and understairs cupboard today - so shall get a move on with it now!

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

It seems to be popular at the moment to check whether OPs or savings are more beneficial! I used to fill my ISA when I was a PhD student but now I have a mortgage and all the other housey-responsibilities and renovations I haven't managed to meet my annual quotas!

Hope the under stairs cupboard gets a good tidy!

Greent is sounds like you're in full swing with the decorating - we're also upping the anti on the house renovations this year. There's a new smell each weak - silicone sealant, emulsion, gloss, carpet, furniture wax! New smells = renovation progress!

greent

-2lb at SW this week. And a couple of days since of binge eating Must get back under control. One of my friends is going to come to classes with me, so I'm hoping we can turn it into a friendly mini-competition

£55 OP made today from cashback Not expecting any more this month now - although it's a FLW on ebay tomorrow/ Sunday, so I shall be relisting some of my [STRIKE]tat[/STRIKE] lovely unwanted stuff on there and hopefully make a bob or two!

Fitter for new fire doors for upstairs booked (2nd and 3rd of Oct) He's also doing some painting. And ordered a new bed for DS3 last night - being delivered 1st October. He's 3 1/2 (almost) and in the bed bit of a cot bed (used by all 4 of my children and was given to us by my uncle, so was gratis - very MSE!:D:money: Will look to sell it at NCT NNS at the beginning of November, along with a load of toys (have started pre-Xmas clear out!) and the cot blankets and sheets. That'll free up some space in my airing cupboard!

newgirly

Hi greent, well done on the weight loss

greent

Nothing to report OP wise. But another 2.5lb off at SW this week Didn't deserve it - had 2 days where I went mad and ate loads of chocolate and then on Saturday we went to Newbury races in a corporate box with corporate hospitality - loads of lovely food, some Pimms and then 1 1/2 portions of pannacotta and 3 cream cakes!!! And then nabbed some chips when we got back!

I want to have a positive week this week to make sure that that doesn't catch up on me next week!!

Have about 30 items on e bay - no bids as yet, though Still, new month next week which means our regular OP will go through That'll being us under £56K - yeay!!

greent

Regular OP of £905 went in Monday and today I've OPd £60 from ebay sales Also donated a bag of stuff to charity shop - there's only so much stuff I can hold on to to sell!

Regular reader may remember the HUGE list of stuff DH wanted to get done/ do in the house. Part of this involved replacing our manky fire doors in the middle floor (bottom floor ones to be replaced also, but when we tackle ground floor jobs next year) I ordered some lovely plain solid wood doors (will not be painted) at £££:eek: along with some new lovely solid brass handles etc and asked for recommendations for a tradesman for fitting. A friend independently highly recommended the husband of a school friend (of mine, not hers). He came and priced up and all was well (fitting of 6 doors/ furniture, some new architraves and stops and some painting of door frames)

Booked in for this week. Fitted one door on Tues (changing which door he was fitting as he fitted hinges to wrong side) Started to fit a second and cut space for hinge out in wrong place on new ££ door. As hinges don't show externally it wasn't a huge issue (I'm not really a perfectionist control freak!) and he agreed to remove and replace door lining at his cost to rectify matter. Left early, vacuumed up some of mess, left garage in mess.

Day two arrived. Fitted door lining and door. Slightly bigger gap under door than I'd ideally like but within acceptable limits. Other two bedroom doors had HUGE gaps under - could fit my hand under. Bathroom door didn't line up with lock, couldn't fully open (stuck on floor) and handle was fitted wonkily. NO clearing up done in house and garage a huge mess. Texted him about the huge gaps under bedroom doors.

Day 3 - he says largest gap is ok as same size as previous door! I pointed out that the room had previously had (hideous) fluffy carpet in, hence gap and that part of the reasoning for changing was to get rid of this and that he shouldn't have used old door as template (basic rookie DIY error, not a tradesman error!). Also said I wasn't happy with other gappy bedroom door, nor wonky bathroom handle. He immediately offered to buy 3 new doors, finish fitting the architrave and stops outstanding and walk away with no charge. He then said that was the difference between him fitting them and a carpenter - well he shouldn't have accepted the job if he wasn't capable of it!!:mad::mad: I'd happily pay double to have it done properly - otherwise what's the point of spending money on lovely doors to have them badly fitted!!:mad: Duly done - I discovered that one of the acceptable doors has been damaged by him but couldn't be bothered to deal with that. The architrave fitted is approx 1cm from the skirting board - so there is a huge and unsightly gap!:mad::mad: He did clear up garage - bagging it all for me to get rid of (agreed) but did not clear up any mess in house.

Soooooo I now have to find a carpenter to fit the 3 replacement doors (hopefully arriving tomorrow) and the other bathroom door (which he thankfully hadn't touched) and probably new architrave and a new door to DS2's room as well. Grrrrrr!!!

Ate a whole packet of choc biscuits in anger and then was angry at myself for that!


DS3's new bed is here ready for DH to assemble this weekend. Delivery men refused to take it upstairs, so it's currently sitting in the dining room. There's also a new radiator to be fitted in there (DH replaced it 2 years ago, but the new bed will overlap it slightly where I want it to go in the room, so we've gone for a narrower double panel one. The old new one can replace the one in the hall which is a bit battered and too small, really. That one can then get scrapped. Have debated about finding a scrappy to sell it to, along with a brass tap, the old brass handles and some copper piping, but will probably just end up giving it all to the rag and bone man who calls around the area twice a week)

Dh's birthday next weekend - must dig under the bed and see what I've got for him. Also need to get some cards and decide on cake!