would love to be mortgage free!

Peonie

I'm really sorry about your neighbours. We used to have some like that. We loved it when they went out and we could enjoy the garden in piece and quiet. In the end we knew it was not our forever house and we were happy when we sold it.

We've all had bad months. But good on you for posting your confession.

Are you on a mobile phone contract? When you are out of contract it Mr T packages look quite good.

coldcazzie

Yes we are both in contract. I wouldn't have bothered - my old sim only contract price was fantastic and I was going to just go on to a rolling one - but my old phone stopped being useful for what I need it for (ie, work emails etc) so I got a new one.

We knew when we moved here that this was not our forever home, but this has been quite strongly driven home over the past few months! We did find a bungalow for sale which adjoins some friends of ours... and had a happy fantasy of living next door to them for about 18 hours until the estate agent informed us that the vendor was taking it off the market again *sigh*rolls eyes*

coldcazzie

Not entirely sure what the purpose of my post might be today... but I am making one anyway! Didn't sleep very well and am really feeling the effects so far today. Was hoping to go out for a walk with the sprogs and take some bottles to the bottle bank and go play in the park, but it is wet and gloomy outside so I may postpone that until Friday. Speaking of Friday... I have a big pile of library books to return to the van on Friday which were due back before Christmas (yes, I really am THAT crap!) so will have some hefty fines to pay there... :eek:

Have been rather lapse recently with keeping track of what I've spent on what... so am going to spend a bit of time today trying to update my spreadsheet so it better reflects what we've recently spent. It's hard to keep track of where we've overspent with an empty/half filled spreadsheet.

I also have a rather large collection of clothing which has been grown out of by the boy, so I need to finish buying him some larger tops but then sell on his outgrown stuff, and decide what I'm going to do with the funds from it (ie, OP or save or both? Think possibly both?)

Am also bobbing backwards and forwards with the kids doing more on our spring topic... we have a 3x4 foot piece of perspex at the bottom of our stairs now which we are using as a display board and we are also doing spring lapbooks in conjunction, but we've started a bunch of stuff and not finished any of it yet so I'm trying to get a few things finished before we start new things

coldcazzie

Cashback received so everything is back to being square again first DD goes out on the 28th.. am setting myself a little challenge to make my first OP before then won't be much but I want to be able to say I made one!

Was hoping to go back to basics on spending this month, but manwife has announced he wants to do as much tiling as possible today and therefore we need a tile cutter. He has a point, we do need one (the one we borrowed is not very good) but I was hoping to put him off a bit, as the one he has his eye on is about £35.

0% cc is due to be cleared at the end of this month, so I logged into their website and changed the DD to be "full balance" instead of "minimum payment" so I don't need to be worrying about remembering dates.

Peonie

My dad says you should always invest in good tools as they will last. Otherwise you will only end up buying it again.

Enjoy your tiles (while you still live there).

coldcazzie

Thanks P. They're lovely tiles. Hopefully they will help us sell when it comes to it!

Tile cutter purchased. Will be worth it in the long run hoping that's it now. Basics only for the rest of the month, including some nsds.

coldcazzie

Payday has been and gone... +£200 ish on overtime this month. The giant cc bill is due to be paid on Monday, and all other bills are progressing as usual

Don't think I mentioned... after being informally offered an opportunity to get some extra work on top of his usual job role, manwife's company decided to move him and some of his colleagues onto a new team with only 4 days notice and no option to refuse. So now he's doing a job he knows nothing about and has complained that they didn't really think this move through. His old boss made him aware that his old position was being advertised for so he's applied for it again. Which is crackers, but there you go. Got all fingers crossed etc.

I had an interview with a potential client on Thursday, which has turned into a booking :T :T it's expenses only but every bit of experience counts at this point, and at least I won't be out of pocket hopefully more clients are on the way... (hint hint universe!)

A few weeks back I planted some seeds and wrapped them to germinate. Unfortunately I left them too long and some of them germinated and then died back again as they'd been wrapped for so long. Tut tut. Not a great start to a growing season! I've moved the more healthy looking ones onto the window ledge. Hopefully the cats won't sit on them and kill them off! Am off to plant some more today if I can motivate myself. I'm so tired at the moment - I've actually booked myself in for blood tests on Monday morning because I'm so tired.

This weekend is a free listing weekend on eBay... so I'm considering listing some of the summer kids clothes I have available, and my fishtank. 2 free listing weekends have already passed while it has been ready for listing, and so far I haven't plucked up the courage (if courage is the right word?) to be able to list it for sale. Really need a kick up the backside to get it sold so we can shuffle the living room around and I can perhaps pay for my IPEN course, but... but.. it's my baby is that fishtank, I've had it 8.5 years and I'm finding it really difficult to part with, even though I definitely do not want to keep fish at the moment, and I definitely don't have anywhere I can store it. Sigh.

Hope everyone is enjoying the small bits of sunshine we are being treated to today!

coldcazzie

Hello all. Been a very long time (so much for posting more often!).

Our mfw dreams have taken a back seat for the moment. We have made the decision that we will be selling our house. Although we are happy in the house, the area is completely wrong for us for many reasons, and the neighbour problems are the icing on the cake. We went to view a house on Monday which is just down the road from our old rented house. We would be taking a hit on garden space and no garage in exchange for fewer neighbours and being back in an area that we liked.

We spoke with Nationwide who informed us they would be happy to port our mortgage, and if additional funds were needed we would apply for a smaller second mortgage etc. So we are now in the position of doing various improvements to our house that need doing so that we can get it up to scratch to sell, and hoping that we can sell reasonably quickly.

Work things are going well. My being self-employed is slowly but surely getting off the ground. And the manwife has a different job now within the same company and seems much happier. However, he had another bike accident. The bike has been written off. He was not serious hurt but hurt enough that he has decided enough is enough. So the insurance company is making a payment into our account for the bike price any day now, and for the moment he is stuck with either car sharing with his flaky colleague or working from home.

We managed to acquire a greenhouse for free :T which I was thrilled about. Most of the seedlings I messed up didn't survive so I started again. We don't have much but I have managed to get raspberries, strawberries, blackcurrants, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, squash, broccoli, herbs and various salad leaves going with varying rates of success. Obviously we will take the greenhouse with us when we move

Hope everyone is doing ok

Peonie

Hi CC, it's good to see you are back. I really think it's worth finishing off all those little jobs and decluttering before you put your house on the market. We did before the photos were taken. It worked, we had an offer in a week. Good luck selling your house. I recall your neighbours are not the best.

coldcazzie

Thanks P today I made the most of the free listing weekend on ebay and listed almost 30 things I had collected together that needed decluttering. I will keep going and see what I can get rid of. Anything that doesn't sell is going immediately to a charity shop I think.

I finally got a cashback payout from last year (!!!!) which I opted for TCB to send as Amazon vouchers, and has meant I can buy some equipment for work for only a few pennies on top of the voucher.

I have booked a local guy to come and do some flooring in the hall and bathroom on Friday, so before then need to hardboard the floors in those rooms myself. We have a list of things that is as long as my arm that we want/need to get done. Hopefully we will manage to actually do them.