museumworker's quest to consign mortgage to history!

custardy

museumworker wrote: »

Quick update:

• £2.90 received in tfl refunds
• Ordered on body shop glitch yesterday - £11.30 for 3 vit c radiance mixes (normally £13 each), 1 £5 love your body card, buriti baby massage gel, bar of shea soup and a total energy uplifting spritz. details on the grabbit form, but should get 5 presents, or parts of presents out of this, and £5 voucher to spend! My sister loves the vit c stuff.
• Spent £15 from pocket money on night out.
• have joined the london welsh centre - £55 pa
• have dropped off £125 cheque for year's welsh classes

OH looking to buy a bike for me for my bday next month, budget about £350. Thinking of the specialized vita, if anyone knows anything about bikes please feel free to comment! Is a ladies hybrid bike, quite lightweight but well made.

this one?

its pretty poorly speced for its price new!

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/specialized/vita-elite-2012-womens-hybrid-bike-ec030147?query=specialized%20vita%20bike


eg for the same price new compare it to what i commute on

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_777849_langId_-1_categoryId_165534#dtab

bargains on eBay if you keep an eye out

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/boardman-f1-hybrid-comp-bike-/170688755365?pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item27bdd7b6a5

newgirly

Hi mw, I feel for you wanting to move to wales much sooner, In the early days when the kids were tiny I wanted to move to devon and dh was dead against it. I have mellowed out a bit now and holidays and maybe a holiday home in the future is fine by me as we have strong roots here.

I know it would slow down the mf dream , but have you considered a holiday caravan/chalet in wales instead? I know they are a massive drain on finances but perhaps weekdays in london with lots of weekends in wales might be a compromise for the time being. Probably a daft idea, just a thought

museumworker

tyo - first welsh class is 2 weeks on wednesday. Am listening to the welsh cd I bought in wales on my i-pod, and am currently learning to ask where places in town are. Have finally learnt how to pronounce museum in welsh - maybe I should change my user name to amgueddfaworker :rotfl::rotfl:! You assume correctly, in part it is probably not 'london', but more the working full time, the commuting into work, the rushing, how built up the centre is. I do love London in many ways - the history, the heritage, the diversity - but I do not have the time to always enjoy these aspects. Perhaps if I could afford to work PT or change my working practices I would be able to get more out of it?
This leads on to newgirly's post - yes, a holiday home would be amazing. I think we would not get a caravan or similar though due to the fact that OH hates them (I know, some strange inverted snobbishness I think - he loves camping but hates caravans!), and also the expense of things like site fees. If we could afford a second home we would get one, and spend more time there with the view to retiring there in the next 10-20 years. Having done the calculations for THAT house, I know we can't afford to purchase outright, and we would not be given a mortgage either. On top of that we would struggle with the running costs. But hopefully in 5-10 years we will be in a different position - especially if MF here. In the meantime, we do have a piece of canvas that acts as our holiday home :rotfl:! Not a daft idea at all, I think next year I will try and get some more camping away weekends, we have only had the main one this year.

custardy - thanks so much for commenting! The link you posted was for one of the higher end vitas, this is more the one I was thinking:
http://www.specialized.com/gb/gb/bc/SBCProduct.jsp?spid=52914&scid=1001&scname=Road
It sells for £350 new.
But that bike you posted looks amazing, and if we could get one for that price would be well chuffed. Are you happy with it?
We did try bidding on a bike yesterday on fleabay, but were outbid by £5 . Will keep an eye out the next few weeks for new ones to be listed.

Have had very social few days - out in the daytime to the barbican to hang out with New Zealand friend and baby. Saw the animation exhibition at the barbican, very good, would recommend. Although be warned if take children, there are some adult themed animations, so had to make sure DD didn't explore too much on her own! I get in free with my museum card, so only spend was about £8 on lunch for us. Had friend's 30th party in the evening, £10 spent on drink to take, and got them a bonsai as a gift! Met some really nice people, and only a short stumble home!

Today, my plans are:

• [STRIKE]tidy house for housemate's parents coming down[/STRIKE]
• put clothes away in room
• do yoga relaxation dvd
• Read through first chapter of relaxation workbook with OH
• list some stuff on e bay to make use of free listing weekend
• [STRIKE]mccains website for vouchers[/STRIKE] need to do OH tomorrow
• watch a few episodes of the killing (the non american version!)

Will probably have to incorporate some child friendly activity as otherwise DD will get bored with a day at home.

custardy

the boardman comp i have is a good bike
it has a nice spec(its the lowest spec of my bikes but its nice to ride)
its very fast. knocked 10 minutes off my commute
its gearing is more road bike based than off road
I cant recommend Halfords to buy from but can recommend the bikes
I'm considering buying a boardman road bike too,though like yourself it will be an eBay 2nd hander

earthgirl

Sounds like you are really getting loads of things sorted! Hope you enjoy your busy day and good luck for Welsh. I too am trying to learn and will have a look through the North Wales version I got hold of!

newgirly

Its so tricky, especially with kids. I would love to move away in the future to devon, but I know that if it does happen it will be more of a holiday home type scenario rather than a permanant move as our kids will be adults and its too far away, its very unlikely that all three would come with us, and as much as they drive me round the twist I do like seeing them :rotfl:

I guess you will just have to wait and see, but it sounds like you are doing everything in your power at the moment to make your dream happen, most people daydream and do nothing to work towards it.
Plus with all of these welsh lessons you will be fluent by the time you have cleared your mortgage and got your dream home! Best of luck

museumworker

Thanks custardy, I will keep an eye out for one of those bikes now too. I see you are an ex-postie - how long were you one for?

Had a good day. Took dd to the library on her bike, and hung out there for a bit. Got soaked on the way back! Tried the new yoga dvd - it is VERY different to what I expected, much more focus on breathing and mantras than I've done before. I was hoping for more stretching but I did enjoy it and will give it a go. I tend to do more exercise yoga, but then again I am stressed as hell, so maybe I need to look elsewhere for my relaxation :rotfl:!

Did a bit of ebaying - couldn't list a lipsy dress as need to get my account verified. Really annoyed as it could have told me that BEFORE I started faffing round with the listing! :mad::mad: It will take a few days to do that, so have got 3 things listed. Not great, but a start at least. I did look at other stuff, but noticed things wrong with them (crudely adapted hem, sleeve coming apart, ironing needed), so couldn't list. And CBA now. Should really prep one item a day for listing, that way I would get through the pile.

House looked a lot better by time housemate's parents had arrived. Had a bit of bedroom tidying, and a couple of washloads done. Still a pile to be put away in the bedroom, but at least it is reducing!

eg - we will have to egg each other on in welsh. The cd I got was a very good intro, and I can say the basic intros now, and know that I'm getting the pronunciation right.

Off to watch an episode of the killing. Nos da everyone!

museumworker

Well, I am in a shocking mood this morning!

OH grumpy as hell, complained about clothes mountain in bedroom. I said 'yes, we've been too busy to get on top of it', and that was about the sum total of our conversation! He was clearly grumpy, and could barely bring himself to give me a peck on the lips before he went. DD got upset earlier about her dad shouting at her and said he wouldn't want her to talk to me about it :(. This was after I was short with her myself this morning.

Old childminder having DD today, and hopefully tomorrow as no school til Wednesday :eek:!

At museum store now - due to be here til about 9pm (plus 1 1/2 hour journey home after), the IT was shocking so took 40 mins to get onto computer and now can't get to documents I hoped to work on!

Have packed running stuff so going to have a lunchtime run and hope I cheer up. I hope it is just lack of sleep, monday morning blues, and the fact that I am coming off my migraine medication (which is also an antidepressant).

I am cheered slighltly by the fact that one of my ebay listings already has a bid on it, listed at £20. It is a bag I bought for £2 a few years ago and have never used it, so am pleased to gain some space and get more than my money's worth back on it!

tootallulah

Blooming heck that's a long day among the racking, hope you get a run and everything moves back to normal.

I have just noticed that we will have V V similar mortgage totals on 1 January 2012, let's race! I will be down to just the mortgage by then so bring it on.

CathT

museumworker wrote: »

Well, I am in a shocking mood this morning!





I am cheered slighltly by the fact that one of my ebay listings already has a bid on it, listed at £20. It is a bag I bought for £2 a few years ago and have never used it, so am pleased to gain some space and get more than my money's worth back on it!

I've been naggy too - something in the air?

If you keep making ebay sales like that you'll soon get addicted!

I think it's great you're learning Cymraeg, it's not an easy language at all. I know some basics but would like to learn more and also become confident using it. It would come in handy with my line of work.