Learning to Live on Less!

Mara_uk7

Just let the dust settle, be your normal charming self if you encounter them, They were probably just having a bad day and you happened to be in the firing line. Its not worth moving just for the sake of it, wait till you find the new home you really want & can afford. Things always look better from a distance, and come the weekend, you will be wondering why you let it stress you so much x

White_Iris

Mara_uk7 wrote: »

Just let the dust settle, be your normal charming self if you encounter them, They were probably just having a bad day and you happened to be in the firing line. Its not worth moving just for the sake of it, wait till you find the new home you really want & can afford. Things always look better from a distance, and come the weekend, you will be wondering why you let it stress you so much x

You are absolutely right about letting things settle and not moving. Things have been all quiet since Monday evening and my anxiety levels are slowly dropping. I think I have some mild anxiety issues which I may need to address, I often let things build up in my head and I'll dwell on something, going over and over it until it's built up out of all proportion. What I really need to do is take a deep breath, face the problem (i.e. get out their and get the garden project finished) and move on. Oh and concentrate on making/saving as much money as possible towards the new house!

debtfreewannabe321

I had some neighbours like this once. We clashed over everything it never got any better really but we did learn to tolerate one another and kind of avoided each other. Awkward. And not how I like to be, I like to be the friendly considerate neighbour (as it sounds you also are) and when others are the opposite it grates on my nerves!

As for cheaper shopping how about doing some stock-piling if you don't already. Try AF for cheap tins and pasta, snacks and drinks. Also amazon do some great bulk discounts (you have to keep your eye open for the drops in price though and they don't last long) but if i know the shampoo is running low i will start to look and wait for a good price on bulk purchasing (sorry you probably know all this anyway) and i'm sure you said meal planning you do too? Hmmm..what about going veggie for a few days a week. I've done that this month, 3/7 days at least now we eat veggie meals and it's saved a fortune! No more ideas sorry lol xx

White_Iris

Another £11 claimed from surveys added to the savings pot!

White_Iris

debtfreewannabe321 wrote: »

I had some neighbours like this once. We clashed over everything it never got any better really but we did learn to tolerate one another and kind of avoided each other. Awkward. And not how I like to be, I like to be the friendly considerate neighbour (as it sounds you also are) and when others are the opposite it grates on my nerves!

I'm more than happy to be a ""polite-nod-say-hello-and-that's-it" kind of neighbour. Even just judging by appearances, it's obvious we'd never be best friends or have anything in common. I'm more than happy with avoidance to be honest, as long as they keep their bloomin' music down!

Deep, calming breath...and relax

debtfreewannabe321 wrote: »

As for cheaper shopping how about doing some stock-piling if you don't already. Try AF for cheap tins and pasta, snacks and drinks. Also amazon do some great bulk discounts (you have to keep your eye open for the drops in price though and they don't last long) but if i know the shampoo is running low i will start to look and wait for a good price on bulk purchasing (sorry you probably know all this anyway) and i'm sure you said meal planning you do too? Hmmm..what about going veggie for a few days a week. I've done that this month, 3/7 days at least now we eat veggie meals and it's saved a fortune! No more ideas sorry lol xx

Thanks for the suggestions. I've looked at the AF website but never with anything specific in mind to buy, need to have a good look through and see what's on offer. In our old house I had quite a good store cupboard going and could have stock-piled and bulk purchased easily. Unfortunately this house is much smaller and every available storage space is filled (under beds, in cupboards, in the downstairs loo!). We don't have any outside storage either, which is a bit of a nightmare (and which led us to think that we may need to move somewhere else, even before the neighbour issues). I do need to keep up the menu planning and try to make it more detailed and go for maybe two weeks at a time. Going veggie is a great idea though, I'm sure DH would be ok with this and the children are too young to have an opinion (it's all either "yuck" or "nom-nom!" at the moment).

White_Iris

Feeling much better today, anxiety levels almost back to normal and appetite slowly returning. Yesterday I made a start sorting out the next batch of things to eBay and I've washed all the covers and removable fabric bits from our monster pram ready for selling. I also have new motivation for de-cluttering and organising the limited storage spaces we have, to try and make life run a bit more smoothly.

Had a call from our letting agent to tell us our tenants have a few little niggles with the house, so we're sending someone out to get it sorted for them. Hopefully it won't be too expensive to get everything fixed but they are good tenants and I want to keep them happy.

White_Iris

Had to go out on some errands earlier and ended up having a little drive around the local villages while the children had a snooze. It reminded me that moving house was the best thing to do, overall we are much happier here. Nearer friends and family and things and places we know. I started dreaming about small lottery wins, surprise PPI claims or other windfalls or even our tenants asking to buy the house from us! It put me in a really positive frame of mind and got me thinking about how much we need to save to buy our forever house. I wonder if we could save £2.5k towards it by the end of the year? We're already at £1.3k and we'll get another £350 from our rental income, so that's only £850 to save in 6 months - could be achievable!

White_Iris

After reading Martins Facebook post about people being offered money to keep their Barclaycard open, I pounced on DH as soon as he got in (poor man, no rest for the wicked/in debt) and got him to ring them. This is one of the cards we recently paid off and needed cancelling anyway (along with one other which I also got him to do) but sadly there was no offer of cash :-(

lucielle

MY OH got £50 for keeping his open. Every little helps. Glad you're feeling more settled in your home.
L

debtfreewannabe321

We've got a BC but it's defaulted guess we'll be paying them and not the other way round lol