Kolakube is bBack on the MFW bandwagon!

KolaKube

ammonite wrote: »

Lol @ your OH and your sleeping habits. We aren't doing too badly but in the heat of the summer I could only get comfortable with a pillow on either side and one between my legs. OH gave up on the bed and found the floor and couch to be preferable. Thank god I wasn't heavily pregnant in the summer, would have been utterly unbearable, never been so hot as I am at the moment and found mid-pregnancy very uncomfortable in the heat. I'm very glad of the cold at the moment, plus my in built central heating system is keeping the gas bill down

I might have to join Swagbucks I love Amazon vouchers!

Isn't the built in central heating awesome! I'm sat here toasty and warm in my PJs and robe (and this flat is generally FREEZING I'm told), with no heating on - I literally have to stick it on an hour before OH gets home as he seems to be feeling the cold a lot this year. I always thought me being at home all day would send our gas / electric sky high, but so far so good I think. Will have to rethink things for mini-Kube obviously as cant have the poor wee man cold during the day, but I imagine I'll have cooled down a bit by then

KolaKube

Evening all!

Well yesterday turned out to be a spend day rather than a NSD... bought some *beautiful* fat quarters for my new patchwork quilt project from a fabric shop in town, I couldn't resist And a bag of cola cubes just to live up to the name...

Today I've been cleaning the house and getting on with some laundry.

Hit my first amazon fiver in swagbucks, it's pretty labour intensive!

Had to put in £20 of petrol but I'm aiming for that to last the rest of the month. £4ish spent on bread and milk etc, and a little strawberry milkshake as a treat for OH.

Picked up my lovely new floral bedding from tesco direct.

Tomorrow I start coating the chest of drawers in varnish, exciting!

In house news, survey has been done and estate agent says the chap from the bank seemed happy enough. Waiting to hear from them now

Kola x

KolaKube

Hiya everyone!

Sorry I've been a bit AWOL - things haven't been going great with the house purchase (we were due to sign this week but it looks as if it might be quite delayed / if it happens at all due to some technicalities which the estate agent knew about but didn't disclose!) :mad:

We ended last month well having been very good with money and budgets. OH has impressed me no end This month will be another tight one (unless we find out the house has fallen through, in which case I think a minor splurge is in order!) but so far so good! I'm glad we have our christmas presents all bought etc, that's a weight off, and today we went out and got the last of the essentials needed for mini-Kubes impending arrival lol. :rotfl: We also have 5 birthdays coming up this month and all the gifts are bought. The good news is as I get bigger I'm less tempted to go out and wander round the shops...

I used a £10 argos voucher free from O2 priority moments to buy mini-Kube some moses basket bedding for free so I was chuffed with that. Also have a £30 Dunelm mill voucher to use. Earned £15 amazon vouchers on swagbucks and then closed the account, it just wasn't worth the time and effort! Did get an invite to nectar adpoints though so I've started that.

Aside from bills and the odd christmas party, there shouldn't be too much spending required between now and the big day. Ideally we'd like to break even this month if possible (having set £1500 aside from our wages to cover lawyers fees and the first months larger mortgage payment).

We were going to go out and buy a real tree and new decorations this year.. but have decided to stick to the stuff mum and dad lent us last year which is currently residing up in their loft

OHs car passed it's MOT but we had another £106 bill from his mechanic for the pre-MOT check and a few bits, which I wasn't too pleased about as we had spent over £240 with him the month before. My car is due her MOT on Monday, and my pre-MOT check and work came to only £90 with a mechanic my dad uses so I think we'll go to him in future. Fingers crossed she passes as we could do without a repair bill this month (car tax for both cars looming in January, and we pay our insurance annually in early Feb, plus £300 owed to OHs parents towards the site rental for their caravan for the year).

Will need to flesh out a careful Dec / Jan / Feb budget methinks.

Hope everyones well!

Kola xx

KolaKube

Hello all! Hope everyone is well and continuing to make nice big OPs!

We're no further forward on the house front - have had communication from the solicitor that the vendor (which is a bank as it's a repossession) still hasn't got their hands on some important documents / certificates, and the sale can't go ahead until they're in place. Could be a week, could be 6 months, could be never :eek: So OH and I are sort of left in a limbo at the moment. Still continuing to be extra careful with money just in case it does all move forward quickly. I have a horrible feeling we'll complete the day I go into labour with mini-Kube (or some time equally frustrating!)

Unfortunately in the mean time we've discovered that there may be future plans to build in the field next to the house (which is kind of what sold us on the place, the beautiful view) so that's kind of put a dampner on whether we still even want the place or not! <sigh>

Could do with somebody making the decision of whether or not to just cut our losses and pull for us - any ideas?

xx

KolaKube

Ps on the money saving front, we've really spent this past few weeks getting organised more than being particularly frugal..

All xmas presents and birthdays this month - already sorted.

House decorated - were going to buy a fresh tree / new decorations but dug out the old ones and added a few new baubles - spent about a tenner and the place is looking lovely and festive.

Have spent a good few days deep cleaning and dealing with the mould in our current rented accommodation - all shiny and clean, and I'm much happier bringing mini-Kube home here if needs be!

Christmas cakes are in the process of being made (slightly late, but nobody will be any the wiser). Mum and I adapted delias recipe by using MrT value mixed fruit etc - looks lush already!

The rest of the christmas goodies are in - just need to get whatever alcohol OH would like and we'll be sorted. Was sneaky and 'prebooked' a MrT delivery xmas slot by ordering 1 item so I can change it closer to the time - no way I'm waddling round a packed supermarket at christmas time 35 weeks pregnant!

My car failed its MOT so will be going in for a small repair this week then trying again next monday! (more £££!)

I think we'll get paid slightly early in Dec so that'll scupper Januarys budget nicely lol. Will need to have a good plan to myself.

Adpoints going well so far. I imagine it'll take a while to save up a reasonable amount of points but hey - every little helps lol.

I'm sure there's more to say but I'm knackered lol.

Kola xx

kirstypark

hi Kola, just read your dairy, sorry to hear about the house. We once bought a house from a lady only to discover the day before we moved that it belonged to her estranged brother who did not know his house was up for sale! So I know how you feel. We ended up homeless with 2 young kids for a month until it was all sorted out, did eventually buy the house, but never enjoyed it after all the stress and bad will that went with it, so ended up selling it the following year.

At least you still have a place to stay, (although there is a tradition of heavily pregnant women looking for a place to stay at this time of year - really hope you dont have to resort to a stable and manager in a couple of weeks!). :A

KolaKube

Evening all! I've just popped on for a bit of a vent really!

We saw the solicitor this afternoon, and unfortunately following our conversation we've decided to pull our offer on the house and start looking again for somewhere else (after mini-Kube is a few months old). Solicitor was lovely and very honest about things, essentially the cons of buying that particularly property now outweigh the pros (some new information about the 'management company' was the final straw unfortunately!).

So we'll not be having a mortgage to OP for a little while yet. I hope you all don't mind me hanging around as we're still very focussed on saving up for that elusive house purchase lol

Good news is solicitor eluded to not charging us for her work so far (only the searches etc) with a view to having us back when we find another property. We would definitely use her again as she was excellent. Can't say fairer than that really. Unfortunately we will have to pay a £400 booking fee on the mortgage still.

More good news is that mini-Kube and I were up having an antenatal appointment today which went really well! He's measuring a predicted (estimated!) 8lbs at birth which I'm happy with as my bump looks hugggeeee! 7 weeks to go...

Plus, it's nearly christmas! :beer: So lots of positive things to be happy about! And at least we know now where we stand, which although a little disappointing is definitely the right decision for our little family.

Will continue the saving up process (and use the MFW board / diary to focus things as I'm now officially off on maternity so wage will be dropping significantly!)

How is everybody else doing? I've been having a good lurk over the past few weeks but haven't got round to posting much. Will aim to remedy that over the next few days xx

KolaKube

Offer pulled. Nationwide didn't charge a fee but waiting to hear back from the lawyers office :money:

I'm obsessively cleaning the rented flat again in a bid to get over the disappointment lol!

Hope everyone is well x

KolaKube

Happy christmas eve eve everybody!

OH is now off work for 11 days so we're over the moon (he commutes 2 hours each way daily and is a little burnt out at the moment!). Lots of xmas goodies / beer :beer: on the go so he's a happy chappy

The :xmastree: got redecorated last night as I didn't do a good enough job with the lights / baubles etc apparently lol I've been told tinsel doesn't belong on an xmas tree... opinions?!

<Admittedly, he has done a rather spectacular job and the tree looks all classy and lovely as opposed to the gaudy mess I had engineered lol>

I've had quite a busy few days meeting friends for coffee (past 3 days running!) and finishing a few last xmas bits (OHs stocking mostly). Went to a lovely new cafe in town Thurs and Fri with 2 different groups of people. It wasn't very expensive and all lovely handmade baking I think they appreciated the repeat business as on the second day they brought me over a free cream tea whilst I was waiting for my friends as I was 'pregnant and hungry looking' lol :rotfl: Needless to say it was bloomin lovely! Yesterday I met a very old friend elsewhere (her choice!) and she insisted on buying the coffee :money:

Today we have a family birthday party to go to (a childrens one, gotta love those) and will be meeting an old friend later who's back from England for xmas. She's very MSE so I'm not sure what we'll be up to just yet lol.

Will not be going back near the shops!

Re: MFW - we had some good news in that not only is the lawyer not charging, but they are refunding a small deposit we had put down towards the searches etc. We will definitely be going back there once we find another place. And as the mortgage didn't charge either, we've essentially walked away from the house having only lost the £99 booking fee. Over the moon! So we have allowed ourselves to relax a *little* with money over xmas, then straight back on the saving up bandwagon after xmas. Having been very careful the past few months we have officially broken into savings double figures which is not much to some but we are happy lol.

Once mini-Kube arrives we'll leave it a few months and look again methinks. :cool:

OH admitted yesterday that he is a bit upset about losing the house, but can see that letting it go was the sensible decision. I think the difference is that I resigned myself to it weeks ago whereas he had been holding out significant levels of hope (he passes the area daily on the bus / in the car and was looking forward to shaving 30 mins off his commute!)

Lets hope xmas can lift his wee spirits, when he hurts I hurt xx

kirstypark

aww, there is a saying "whats for you wont go by you" Kola, there will be a reason why you didnt get that house