New House, new MFW goal

Queen_of_the_Hive

Good advice Dimbo...i'll have a look...

Oh no! Worked out we wont have any spare cash from the bills account to go towards the refurbishment savings account this month, however waiting to find out if OH will get his annual bonus. Hoping to have 1k to put into the pot. Pinkies crossed!

Queen_of_the_Hive

Well its now sunday and having a weekend with hubby up visiting the family and catching up with friends. Not spend too much this weekend although after last weekends shopping blow out anything which is now spent between now and 14th of month is over budget! eeekkk!! Friday was payday so monthly bills account, credit card etc was paid. Unfortunately as we had to buy the curtains and paper shredder there's no spare cash for renovation fund. On monday however we'll find out if hubby is getting annual bonus so pinkies crossed for that!! I've also updated action list.

Update action list:

*[STRIKE]Establish how much we have in starter savings pot.[/STRIKE] £400 starter / £20,000 inital target :j
* [STRIKE]Front bedroom needs curtains, look around for best prices.[/STRIKE] £30 B&Q (can now use the room for visitors!!)
* Monitor gas/elec current tariff - is it the cheapest?
* Contact mortgage company and find out latest balance.
* Is there a cheaper way of my guilty pleasure? Weekly sunday times.
* [STRIKE]Purchase mini laptop[/STRIKE] - just in time for national novel writing month!! Opted for netbook with good reviews instead of ipad2 (£299). Loved ipad however its bloomin expensive as would need to buy keyboard and other accessories. Now looking for a good priced bag for it!! This is a treat from my savings pot. Sold my old dell laptop last year when it was starting to fade for £80 so its been a purchase in waiting!!
* King sized bed (and mattress) for spare bedroom (this will be our room when renovated).

Looking forward to National Novel writing month which starts on tuesday 1st Nov, attempting to write a 50,000 word story. Its been a few years since done anything like this!! I was sucked in after watching the BBC breakfast story on it. Was at school was last time attempted anything like this!!

CathT

clarissa62 wrote: »

Hi Cath, must admit that is also our problem as well but guess its about striking the right balance. Hopefully your home improvements are not too expensive. Ours is quite a big project however the house is fine to live in as it is at the mo which is definately helpful.

Depends how realistic we are about what we can afford. We 'need' a kitchen diner and a bigger 3rd bedroom or create a 4th so it's going to involve a 2 storey extension. Had to empty my renovation savings recently to survive the first month of maternity leave!

Novel writing sounds very inspirational!

Hurdler

Great diary - and I can appreciate the whole "project house" perspective - having cashed in Share Options and used some money for an inheritance to modernise the house throughout. The only one left to tackle is the double-glazing, but I am also considering a much lesser paid job as part of a career move so at the moment I am now sitting on a stash of money that would tide me over a bit.

Will read your progress with interest.

Queen_of_the_Hive

Hello Hurdler and thanks for reading, also if you've got any tips also greatly recieved. Hubby and I are defo novices with housey stuff. When we had our flat, its wasnt quite the same as management company looked after the main bits and nothing really needed doing in there. The project house is a bigger beast.

Just updated my signature with a bit more detail on our goal - also worked out we should be putting in an extra 400 per month to reasonably stand a chance at reaching the Dec 2020 goal. Going to look into doing some surveys and ebay stuff to bring in a bit of extra cash for overpayment pot and renovation fund.

Queen_of_the_Hive

We had half good news this morning, hubby has been told he is getting the bonus as expected. So that will be paid in two weeks - so will bump up the renovation fund by 1k! and we'll have some extra cash for christmas pressies. However his pay not going up as we'd like it too (he recently passed his exams in his industry) so it confirms he's going to have to leave.

Not had a good start with the novel - 2 false starts. Tonight is third time lucky (2 false starts!)

Queen_of_the_Hive

Checked online this morning and pleased to report being careful with the gas and elect for 1 month has really paid off, our bill was less than £35! which isnt bad for a good sized 3 bed house. Maybe the energy monitor has helped a bit? Wondering what will happen when we have to use the heating, hmmm me thinks its worth layering up for a bit longer. We should be able to put a bit into the renovation pot along with hubby bonus.

CathT

clarissa62 wrote: »

Checked online this morning and pleased to report being careful with the gas and elect for 1 month has really paid off, our bill was less than £35! which isnt bad for a good sized 3 bed house. Maybe the energy monitor has helped a bit? Wondering what will happen when we have to use the heating, hmmm me thinks its worth layering up for a bit longer. We should be able to put a bit into the renovation pot along with hubby bonus.

It's small changes like that which add to the overpayments pot. I have to confess that I first put our heating on a few weeks ago!

Queen_of_the_Hive

Cath , yes it is funny how the little changes can save big bucks in the long run. Must say though this week have actually found it cold. The inside temperature has been 15 degrees and I have resorted to wearing more layers and wished we had the heating on!! The motivation for this is difficult but determined to keep going! Going on "summer holidays" soon, so thats helping with motiviation.

My local council ward has an energy saving scheme going on. Had read about this before but now got my appointment booked, so on 24th November they'll be a lovely lady call Sue going to perform this energy miracle on the house! Its free so hoping something good comes from it.

Realised the other day will need to sort car insurance out - expires on christmas day! Crumbs.

Queen_of_the_Hive

I've been feeling down in the dumps this week which came to ahead on friday night. Didnt realise it was affecting hubby too, he said i was being really quiet and not really talking to him. Anyway after quite a few tears told him my probs. Wont go into it here, however part of it was money related. Guess I am finding it a bit of a struggle at the mo. The new mortgage is a lot more than the old one (with overpayment) and my salary is not great for london. However talking has made me feel a bit better about everything. At the mo I know its really tight, but can see the benefits and will continue to purge ahead. I think until January Im going to be a situation where im going to have to borrow a bit from hubby to cover certain annual bills eg the car insurance and pay him back but will be ok.

Yesterday we went shopping for a winter duvet as got bro and his girlfriend staying with us this week. The spare duvet we had was really a summer one and we were really worried they would get cold. When we were checking the heating system last week, the radiator in spare room is not working - not sure if it needs bleeding? So we are going to take the new duvet for ourselves and give the one we have been using as the warm spare one for bro. Okay so yesterday we were hoping to use some of the vouchers we had (Debenhams & House of Fraser), however by shopping around we actually got a better price from BHS. They had 20% off all home items so we got a goose feather and down duvet for £56 instead of £70. In Debenhams and House of Fraser we were looking at £100+!

We also had 3 spare keys cut for £13 which also didn't think this was too bad

Tomorrow is mortgage day and 2nd month of over payment of £250, so while I feel im going a bit backwards this is still good. Hubby also gets paid his bonus on tuesday so we'll have 1k into renovation fund. Will update signature then.