Making the future happen - museumworker's MFW diary Pt 2

museumworker

Spoke too soon - have had the rest of paint removed around the porch. Looks shocking - there's a wash applied to the brick which won't come off. Gutted.

Options are to abandon paint stripping and repaint bottom half of house - will cost same as this job OR spend an extra £1200 having the brick belt sanded (?sand belted) to remove top layer of brick and repointed.

Need to decide by tomorrow.

Aargh!

greent

Argh!!! How annoying!!! (probably a considerable understatement!)


If it were me, it would depend on how much I wanted a brick bit at the bottom of the house (ie - do I really dislike the paint that much? am I prepared to get the whole house repainted every so often?) and how much I like the house and how long I was staying there.


If I were planning on staying there and really preferred brick to paint I'd probably go for the more expensive work to have a home how I wanted it.


If I wasn't planning on staying, and it wouldn't affect selling when the time came, I'd probably go for repainting


Not much help, I know! xx

museumworker

That is really helpful, thank you. We've been thinking similarly, mainly the cost of repainting every 7 years or so. We're not planning to move for quite some time and the OH really prefers the brick to paint. He thinks it'll add to the resale value, I'm not so sure as I think it's personal preference.

We're having a test patch done tomorrow and will decide then.

I was in a pretty dark place yesterday but feeling more positive today. Whatever we have done will be a major improvement on how it was, and we're fortunate to have the money to hand to make these choices.

£1444.01 OP made today - within spitting distance of the £15K. I think our savings will need some attention, so expecting a nominal OP next year!

CathT

museumworker wrote: »

Ooh, CathT, where are you thinking of? OH had Greece in mind - but when costed up roughly a holiday in August he went off the idea! Am hoping to get house tidied up by March and look at house swapping. Anyone here done that?









The comping is going very well, just won 4 tix to W!nd in the Willows in the new year - worth £240 :eek:! Taking DD and sister who is visiting - either brother or DD's friend as our fourth guest. It'll be my first time out without DD2.

museumworker wrote: »

That is really helpful, thank you. We've been thinking similarly, mainly the cost of repainting every 7 years or so. We're not planning to move for quite some time and the OH really prefers the brick to paint. He thinks it'll add to the resale value, I'm not so sure as I think it's personal preference.

We're having a test patch done tomorrow and will decide then.

I was in a pretty dark place yesterday but feeling more positive today. Whatever we have done will be a major improvement on how it was, and we're fortunate to have the money to hand to make these choices.

£1444.01 OP made today - within spitting distance of the £15K. I think our savings will need some attention, so expecting a nominal OP next year!

Hi MW, holiday wise would probably be somewhere like menorca as not too far, we all need passports though as mine and DH expire soon so might need to save for them first. I've seen a really good holiday website with mega cheap deals but part of me thinks it's too good to be true!

Hope you are feeling brighter, big decisions and uncertainty can send us spiralling down at times. Look at what you have achieved so far, this is just a hurdle you will get over and look at that fab recent OP!

Well done on your competition wins, that's fantastic. I've entered one today for a free carpet and fitting form a local company so cross your fingers for me!

museumworker

Just a quick update - I've been planning one of my epic long end of year posts but realised that's stopping me from just writing any old thing!

* The great news is with the final payment of £359.94 we've overpaid £15K in 2014! Yay!
* We welcomed a beautiful little girl to our family.
* We got through one of the hardest years we've had emotionally.
* We had a (free) family holiday to California, a sunny caravan weekend away for DS's 2nd birthday, and a weekend at a theme park. We went to two festivals, and numerous visitor attractions, museums, wildlife parks, heritage sites, parks etc. All adding lots of happy times to the kids memory banks.
* I was an extremely lucky comper and loved winning special things for the family
* We funded getting our repointing done and having work to the front of the house.
* I started a work related blog that has been well received
* I saved and paid for a trip to Australia
* Saved £1200 for OH's bike fund

Aims for 2015
These are pretty hard to quantify as I don't really know what's happening work/moneywise yet. But as some plan is better than no plan, here's my thoughts (with the caveat that these will probably need revisiting):
* Get savings back up to £10K - about £3.5K needed
* Save £1800 towards car upgrade fund. We're squished in to our 5 seater so will need funds to buy a 7 seater in a few years time
* Save about another £700 for OHs bike fund - then let him buy it!
* Save £1200 for holiday fund - we loved getting abroad and want to do a big US holiday in a few years time - will want the money already set aside
* Pay for final works to front of house - c£1400
* Pay for new bathroom :eek:! Ours was horrible when we moved in, but has got worse and needs replacing. Estimated £4K?? Have no idea about these things.
* Overpay £6K from mortgage

This is a lot less of an OP but with all the necessary works, and trying to find the balance between MSE living and enjoying our family, I think it's more realistic. We'll also have two lots of childcare to pay for!

Other things:
* continue blogging
* continue comping
* keep up the big family days out (x1 a month)
* declutter the house
* register for houseswap website
* redecorate the kids bedrooms and get DD2 in her own room

There's more, but I think that's where we're at at the minute!

ljaneyr

You have made so much progress over the last year :T I really like the way you are focusing on balancing saving with enjoying life. It's something we want to achieve in the future

Good luck for the year ahead

museumworker

*sweeps into empty room*

hello all - another long overdue update from me.

Just made first OP of year - £1720.30 - yay! It's taken a while as FD changed the way you log on and it took me forever to call them to get my new mobile recognised to generate a secure log on. Grr!

In terms of targets, we've reached the right amount for OH's bike fund, which he's delighted about, so a purchase is imminent. Our savings are back up to £10K too.

I've literally just chased up the builder about the works to the front of the house. Talk about making me accountable, you guys!

We're going to keep squeezing into our 5 seater so not really put any money aside for that or the holiday. We've had a major purchase - an inflatable tent with 4 bedrooms :eek: and the laptop is on its last legs still so we're feeling at capacity in terms of outgoings. We've decided to repaint bathroom and redo properly next year.

Money has taken a back seat to get through the last few months - we've redecorated and swapped DS and DD1 bedrooms around, but still need to get DD2 sleeping in her own bed.

I discovered Konmari and have been 'tidying' or decluttering like a mad woman when I get a chance. We've got rid of about 7 boot loads of stuff to charity, as well as recycling and binning. I probably could have sold some of this stuff but I've put my sanity and my house above the few quid I might get if and when people actually buy something from me!

I've blogged a little, but given myself some leniency. I've mainly been getting into my competitions - I've won over £8.5K of prizes this year, the best being a family holiday to Lanzarote which we'll take in October! We've had lots of great family time together - days out at theme parks, food festivals, museums, bug hunts etc - and I think that part is really working.

I've now reached a point where I feel I need to rebalance a bit, so am taking a break from comping. I'm back to work 2 days a week from the week after next - settling DD2 into nursery next week :eek:!

My aims for the next few months are:
* settle DD in own bedroom
* continue with Konmari-ing
* Meditate for 10 mins a day (on a 12 day streak at the minute!)
* do some sit-ups/exercise every day
* write 2 blog posts a month

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Lovely to hear from you again. I can't believe your maternity leave is nearly over!

museumworker

Hello all - is it too late to wish you all a new year?! Lots has changed in the museumworker household. The headline news is that I've landed the job of my dreams and have just finished my first week at work FULL TIME:eek:! The hours are more than I wanted with the kids being young still, but I'm really enjoying it and definitely made the right move professionally. Luckily the kids love nursery and are really settled there, so that helps a lot with the maternal guilt.

To make it work, we've had to find ways of buying us more time - we have a cleaner four hours a week, have bought a year of MrT deliveries for our groceries, and are Amaz0n prime members so we can get things delivered as soon as we need them. Any other tips from working parents out there?

In terms of MFW work I'm focusing on the remortgage, due in March. Our OPs in the last five years (around £40k) have put us in a really good place - we've slashed the mortgage to £118,000, saving around £50K in interest and cutting over 7 years off our mortgage! Go us!

After lots of bashing of calculator buttons, I'm about to secure a fee free deal of a 5 year fixed at 2.39%, bringing our mortgage down to £619 a month. We will keep our mortgage payments at £1200 (the amount of our first mortgage when we bought the house), meaning we will definitely be MF in a smidge over 9 years! Naturally, we're more ambitious than that - a £1k OP a month would cut it to 7 years, whilst £1,400 pm OP would take it to 5 years!! *daydreams for a while*

Back to reality - we've just shocked ourselves with how little money we have after we've paid our tax bill, childcare debts, Christmas credit card bill, and annual travelcard! Bigger thinking about finances is definitely required... just let me enjoy some family time first please

smallholdingsister

Hmmmnn tips for working parents...

Have a stash of presents/cards/wrapping age appropriate for your kids' little friends.

Just this week we have had an invitation on Weds to a saturday kids' party.