the maccas Debt Free Diary - 20K to pay in 18 months

Snaggles

I agree with Imp - what's done is done, stop fretting about it and enjoy your new things! Then get back on the wagon with a vengeance. You're doing fantastically, you only have to look at your sig to see that. Your debt free date really isn't so far away now.

Verbatim

I think for me it's a case of feeling "I've done it" and "I'm there" as I'm so close to dfness compared to my starting point.

I've kind of lost the urgency and fear I had at the beginning. I want to enjoy things more now even if it takes a little longer to pay off everything. :beer:

But having said that I'd feel differently if I were paying interest! As it is I should be able to repay everything before my current cards lose their 0% rate. I have not yet paid even a BT fee let alone interest and as I'm so close to paying it off I don't intend to if I can help it.:p

themaccas

I guess sometimes I feel a bit disappointed, I mean in January I thought we would clear our debtsby the end of the year and we were really excited at the prospect but things have changed, OH got signed on for further service in the forces so the rush to clear our debts faded a little, I miscalculated (by £2000) our holiday costs and DS's school expedition costs and now we have to make a decision about our house whether to let it out again or sell. We have decided to use the £3000 of savings we have coming to us next month to tidy the house up. The outside will get painted (£980), new carpets (£?) and redecoration which we will do, some shrubs which have grown over 10 feet tall need to be removed and we may need some professional help for those so (£?). I can see almost all the money going on these repairs, at the moment the letting market is flooded with similar properties to ours but houses like ours are selling very well so we will let the market dictate what we do I think.

On another note I have been to DS2's nursery, he starts school in September and have had to go and buy him his school uniform bits. I am still getting over the cost!!! He is only 4 and I have had to buy him a blazer for goodness sake!!! Did buy it from the second hand school shop though:T

dreams_R_free

themaccas wrote: »

He is only 4 and I have had to buy him a blazer for goodness sake!!!T

Awww, bless!

themaccas

Well we have chosen our EA today, we think we will be able to get our EA fees paid for by OH work otherwise we would probably have gone with housenetwork. Today I am off to homebase to get some DIY things for OH. So far I have done all the decorating jobs, well painted some ceilings and OH is going to go to the house tonight and paint the rest of them (3) ceilings then fill in all the holes made with wall fixings. He could be all night..........

BTW Why is sandpaper so expensive??????

piglet6

Hi themaccas

Have just caught up on your thread and wanted to say how appalled I am that your tenants left your home in such a disgusting condition :mad: - some people should be shot...how can they justify treating someone else's home with such disrespect :eek: (when Mr P and I rented, if anything we were more careful with the property, just because it didn't belong to us - the walls weren't ours to pull the plaster/paint off with bluetak, the oven had to be cleaned regularly because we didn't own it, etc, etc - if anything, we became more lax once we bought...oops!:o ).

I hope that you and your husband get your money out of the LA - they are being paid to carry out a service and clearly they have been shirking their responsibilities for the last few years, therefore they should see their payment adjusted accordingly!;) Stick with it and make a nuisance of yourselves - I'm sure they will probably try to fob you off with an excuse or six - stick to your guns...you have every right to expect the service you paid for!

Piglet

P.S. I have no idea about the price of sandpaper - sorry! :rolleyes::rotfl:

themaccas

Thanks Piglet, we had a nightmare of a day on Friday. The LA refused to give us the money owed and said they had told the tennents our complaints (had emailed our list to them) and they (tennants) were threatening court action. The most they would give was a measily £50 to cover the cleaning - for a 4 bed 3 reception room house! OH was so fed up and stressed he said yes:mad: . I am furious that the LA and tennants have got away with it and I don't see where we can go really. Guess we have to accept it, one thing is for sure NEVER AGAIN WILL I RENT OUR FAMILY HOME OUT!!!!!!!!!!!

themaccas

Well we're up to our necks in dust and dirt trying to get the house ready. Money is rapidly and alarmingly slipping out of our bank account and the 3K that we had saved is all but gone:eek: . The expense on getting the house ready to put on the market has been worryingly going up and the final cost is looking like £7.5K not the £3K we had earmarked. I am sooooo scared. However if we are going to get the best price then we need to get the work done, OH applied and got a Barclaycard 0% 12 month CC so we are going to use £4.5 on this to get the work completed. I know it is a backward step but can't see any other way. We are up at the house most days decorating and preparing the house for the plumber and tiler to come in later this week, I am knackered. I am at work 28.5 hours a week, am a mum of 3, am trying to complete my post graduate certificate (needs to be in to Uni on 10th August) and now every spare minute is spent up at the house. We are so skint at the moment, we have our wedding anniversary on Wednesday but can't afford to go out, so I've sent off my Tesco clubcard vouchers for a meal and as soon as we get them we'll have a belated anniversary meal out - wish I'd thought of that last week!

Oh, and on top of all that I got caught speeding this morning - a policeman with his little speedgun caught me :mad: :mad: :mad: will look forward to my fine in the post soon..........NOT.

hypno06

Hi Themaccas - I'm not surprised you are knackered. How much longer do you think before the house is fit to sell.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, but in the meantime, make sure that you do not wear yourself out.

Also, regarding the anniversary - there are some things you can do that don't require money spending :kisses3:

themaccas

Hi Hypno, the plumber has agreed to a completion date of 10th August so he has 5 weeks to complete all the work, once this is done there will just be the carpets and vinyl flooring to lay and that will be done in a day. The EA has been up to the house and measured all the rooms and he will be fully marketing the property from the 23rd July, by then we should have nearly all the rooms painted, the new kitchen appliances and sink in, the outside painted, the garden sorted and the tiling should be nearly completed. The plumber has loads of work on at the moment and he will be fitting our job in between others he is doing so it will be a day here and there. However we can't put in the carpets until he has finished, so it won't look finished until the very end.