gingernutbizkit's dfb blog

gingernutbizkit

the first agent has come in today at £235K.

so, £1000 spent and a few weeks of work and we have added £10,000 to the asking value..... let's see what the other agent says.

So far so good!

gingernutbizkit

our house is now officially on the market for £235K.

This should leave us enough to pay a good chunk off our debts - even if we couldn't settle them all.

Either way we will have a smaller mortgage and so that will free us up to pay a bit more each month towards those debts anyway.

I'll keep blogging as things progress.....

gingernutbizkit

the agent is coming back today to take photos and measurements and our house will be in the local rag next week. Like everyone else we're hoping for a quick sale.

We went to have a second viewing of the house we want on saturday and we have decided to go for it.

Couple of questions though.....

do we wait until we have an offer on our house to put one in for that one?

how low can we offer? It's been on the market for a while and doesn't seem to have much interest. It needs some work but it's in a great location. It's on at £165,000. What would you offer?

gingernutbizkit

I've just been and done my weekly shop.

having made a list of all the food in my freezer I decided to try and use as much of it up as possible. Spent £33.36 - most of which was on fresh fruit and veg (the cost of staying healthy!)

Not a bad start but i wonder how much it would have cost if i had had to buy everything?!?!?!

I'm trying to go back to basics with food - no ready meals and pre-packaged rubbish. I think buying fresh is the right thing but maybe need to source out a cheaper place to do so - tesco's f + v isn't known for it's flavour and does tend to go off quickly too.

gingernutbizkit

not a happy bunny.

our for sale sign is up.... we asked for a pink one...... got a red one

OH has actually been on the phone to complain - love to have heard what they had to say in the estate agent office about that one!

gingernutbizkit

today is not the good day that it should have been.

Lloyds have paid up and the £1000 is in our account but there is no celebration time.

Yesterday our boiler broke down and we needed a new one and some other work done. Three quotes and the smallest is £900.

I had so much hopes to using the lloyds money to pay off a big chunk of the cahoot loan and now it's gone.

I think i could actually cry....

seriously.

gingernutbizkit

It was pay day for me yesterday and for the OH in 3 days time.

The big focus this month is on cutting our shopping bill. We went and did a big shop for the month and spent £62. We managed to get almost eveything we should need for the next four week. I spent some time looking thorough other forum posts and took on some of their ideas.

We have bought and frozen milk, bread, scones etc and got ingredients to batch cook some meals. I have a list of 28 main meals and we'll be crossing them off when we eat them.

I have been wondering if it would make financial sense to do a basics cooking course - i'm sure there would be things i could cook for cheaper if i knew what i was doing! Anyone have any views????

We were also thinking that when we move we might invest in a bigger freezer so we could be more prepared.

Anyway, if we can keep our food spending to under £100 this month then we should be able to put an extra £150 to the debts at the end of June.

gingernutbizkit

after reading some ideas from people who sell on amazon we decided to list some of our unwanted books.

In a week we have made over £50 profit from just 7 books!!!! :j

we're thinking of buying from priority and listing loads more.....

i'll keep you posted.

auntie_brenda

Shama about the boiler - still, at least you DID have the money to cover it. No way it can just be [STRIKE]bodged[/STRIKE] patched up till you sell?

As for the house sale - why did you want a pink sign :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: that really made me laugh!!!! No idea what to offer, but I'd probably tell estate agent you are interested but waiting to sell yoours - you'll be in a stronger position if ready to proceed.

Wouldn't bother with a cookery course TBH - you can easily teach yourself with a book from a charity shop or library.

Keep up the good work!!!!!

gingernutbizkit

Tustastic wrote: »

Hello gingernutbizkit, just read through your diary and wanted to congratulate you on all your progress since your LBM.
Re the boiler - remember that cheapest is not always best value and that for the purpose of selling your house at a good profit it would be best to get a condensing boiler. They are hugely efficient so you can boast to potential buyers that their utility bills will be lower than they anticipated.
Find a nice person from the Corgi website to fit it.
NB I'm not a plumber but I am related to one. In London lol so a bit too far to come and quote you for putting yours in.;)

thank you. the figues came in at £900, £920 and £950 so i don't think there will be much difference in them really. the one we went with is from the corgi website.