Boarding the Bus of Positivity (for 24 months of travels!)

debtfreesomeday

I'm not sure how long I'll keep this up either chocs, but it has life a bit easier these past few weeks, so I'm going to try my hardest to keep at it! (of course, certain tasks like cleaning the bathrooms must simply not be included on the lists, then I won't have to do them)...

I'm up alone whilst DH and Ds are snoring in our bed! We all slept ok until 3.30am, but then the dreaded coughing started, so Ds ended up in between us and I got up about half an hour ago as the cough is always easier when you're up. Think I've pulled a muscle across my chest from coughing so hard, as it hurts when I breathe deeply. Marvellous.

The valuations just reminded me why I dislike estate agents so much. They breezed through the house, one pushed past me several times, one occasionally grunted and then left. They wouldn't give me an idea of price as they were 'working for the builder, not me'. I found them both rude! the part ex builder lady also visited and thankfully she was a lot nicer and able to hold a conversation. She said we would hear from her with an offer yesterday afternoon, but 2nd estate agent more or less told me she wasn't going to contact part ex lady in a hurry, so I wasn't holding my breath. Will wait what becomes of it today. Looking on local sites though, I reckon ours would be put up for around £169K if selling privately as all similar properties seem to be marked at that price or slightly
higher. No idea what we'd get offered though, do you think around £155K + if we listed it at £169K? I have no idea about selling a house really, my dad took care of all that before.

According to the t&c's of this company's part ex scheme, the most they'll 'usually' offer is 65% of the value of the house which takes us to a little over £136K. I'm hoping they will make an exception in this case as that's not going up be enough really :0(

Going to see mr mortgage this morning too to update him on what's going on and take some pay slips in as need him to move fast if and when we get the green light on the house price. It's a shame I don't have the figures for part ex to tell him as that would've saved another meeting, oh well.

Whilst in town, I also need to return an item which will be £100 credited back to the credit card and £20 onto a gift card. The cc balance is coming down now, will update the figures in my signature when I get chance to check them.

Have a good day all
Dfsd x

Chocforever

Has anyone local sold their house in the last 6 months so you can see what price they got?

If I put my house on for £169k, I would expect to get at least £160k and hope to be offered £165k or more. I wouldn't expect someone to discount by more than 5% unless there was a very good reason or it was deliberately overpriced.

I hope you all start to feel better soon. Awful having stomach muscles aching from coughing.

I got one small task done today - completed and sent off the dental insurance claim form. The treatment cost £150. I only get a proportion of that back, maybe £60 or so, but it is still money coming in towards the credit card bill.

I have my first proper organised run on Sunday. There must be a lot of us because I am number 2740! I am just going to run steadily because although it is only 5 miles, I haven't actually been going that far. Also, shock horror, there is a hill for the first couple of miles (there are no hills where I live). I have been assured the rest is downhill.

Have a lovely weekend x

debtfreesomeday

Ooh, good luck with the run chocs, hope the weather's good for you. Let us know how you get on, I'll be thinking of you!

Good you can claim some of the dental treatment money back. Like you said, any is better than none at all.

As for house, we had a pretty awful day yesterday, I got so angry I thought my head might pop! To cut a very long story short, dodgy estate agent told developers our house was in the Bronx and you have to pay people to live here (it's a small village setting, with a village green and friendly little post office with some ex-council and social housing in the area). It's not rough and we've never had any trouble here. He went on to give them a ridiculous figure for part ex and then miraculously added £30k to that figure when I pretended we would Market it through them instead. Basically, he must be in to make more money if we Market it privately with him. I caught him out though and the developer was then really interested to receive valuations of £150k from two other e.a.'s who valued our property a year ago. Thankfully they realised what dodgy E.A. Was up to and have gone back to head office to request a better part ex figure based in the new information. Whether head office will agree to change the offer or not remains to be seen.

I can't talk about it much more as it makes me so angry. I've calmed down a but now, but more than let the guy know we were onto him and so were the developers. We're going to make a formal complaint to the estate agent ombudsman if there is such a thing.

So, we're still waiting after rejecting the first p/x offer of £112 based on his lies!

Other news, just paid another £100 or so off the credit card. Combined balance now at £4442 - more than the loan!

debtfreesomeday

Forgot to mention my bargain in boots yesterday - some posh bubble bath for my Mum for Mother's day, £12.99 but had 1/3rd off price offer, then printed out a 25% off coupon from the advantage card point, making it £5.40 in total + double points with a second coupon printed! The grumpy old woman on the till was less than happy when I produced the vouchers, read them meticulously for ages then scowled at me as if I was robbing her! It's a funny old world sometimes full of funny people!

debtfreesomeday

Also received a replacement cheque from the post office yesterday for non-delivery of a parcel last year. I received the first cheque in january but it was made it out to the wrong name first time round. That's £22.40 going into the bank which I'll probably use as an extra payment off the cc.

A lady is coming round this morning, to pick up bulky item sold locally, so that's another £50 which we'll allocate to the possible stamp duty fund IF this move happens, although I have requested that the developers also pay the stamp duty within their new offer, so we'll see what they say to that!

debtfreesomeday

Another £22.40 off the credit card and £50 cash to put in the bank :0)

Chocforever

I can't believe the cheek of the estate agent. Or maybe I can. There appears to be little integrity found in the property business. Good for you in shopping them to the developer.

When I bought my last flat, the developers made out they were doing me a favour offering a £2k discount or free carpets. At that time, the property market waw buoyant and there was no difficulty in them selling the flats. I was buying the cheapest one because it was all I could afford. The couple that bought the (nicer) flat upstairs from mine somehow managed to get a £25k discount. Admittedly, that was exceptional for the development and I know the neighbour involved would have driven a hard bargain, but even so. I felt like I was ripped off and it brought the price of their flat down to almost what mine went for.

The run didn't quite go as I expected. I am finding it hard to judge what pace I am running at. Well, I have a fancy watch which tells me, but it doesn't tell me whether I could or should be going faster :rotfl:. Anyway, today felt like really hard work. There was a mile and a half of hill, some of which was pretty steep, and I had to walk some of it. There are virtually no hills where I live so it came as quite a shock and showed that I wasn't as fit as I thought . Even after the hill, I felt very tired and had a stitch for about a mile. I thought my time was going to be awful. Then I checked my watch near the end and my time wasn't bad at all which was a lovely surprise.

I have another organised run booked for next month. I am told it is a flat course so looking forward to that

I hope the house situation improves this week. Don't give up hope with it.

debtfreesomeday

My goodness, what a difference between 25K and 2K + carpets! I think I would have been livid if that was me. I hope it was good carpet!!!

It sounds like your run turned out ok in the end, but was a bit of a slog. At least you've now had experience of 'event running' and know what to expect. I'm sure it'll only get better from now on. At least you're going back for more, I didn't run again after my first (and last) half marathon!!!

We're (still) waiting for the developers to get back to us to see if they'll improve the P/X offer. I've chased the sales office this morning, but still no news yet. I really hope we hear either way in the next few hours as it's driving me crazy. At least if it's a 'no' we can move on and look at other options. We will be gutted if they won't reconsider though, we will be gutted. We've tried taking the 'it doesn't really matter' outlook, but if we're totally honest, we're pinning a lot of hope on this move.

Fingers crossed, will update when I hear.

debtfreesomeday

Still waiting...

debtfreesomeday

Today I chased a £180 return on the credit card which was posted back to debenhams nearly 10 working days ago, have to wait 2 more days and then phone back to arrange a refund.

Both DH and I are feeling pretty rubbish today, I think the poor sleep of late has caught up with us somewhat. I'm hoping tonight will be a better night. I'm in bed already and will put my head down shortly as my eyes are heavy already!

Dinner was lovely, made with yesterday's roast leftovers, turned into sweet and sour pork, made from the takeaway secret's sauce recipe. We love those books, although only really use the recipes that aren't deep fried! There's even a large portion left over for DH's lunch tomorrow which he is more than happy about.

I'm really hoping tomorrow brings us the news we want to hear about the part exchange, but if not, I need to tidy the house tomorrow night in readiness for an estate agent to come wednesday morning and take photos to put our house on the Market. Fingers crossed it won't come to this though and we can p/x and save the stress!
Dfsd
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