6 grand in 6 months - my personal challenge!

cottage_retreatist

andrar wrote: »

Don't speak so soon - I just got accepted by a letting agent and I'm on a DMP! It was a total surprise like but I was upfront about my debt and how I was paying it so maybe this was why.

I think the number thing sounds like a great idea, it'll disappear in no time!

Thanks Igamogam!!!

Reading about the F&F back it sounds a bit harsher that I maybe expected it to so sorry if it sounded like that!!


Hey Andrar!

Yes - I love doing countdowns/crossing off things etc - it's a part of my mindset! Since I started counting I can already cross that off and write 357!!! Yay!!

letting agents are strange people aren't they? Sometimes they ask you for a guarantor (which they did for us at our last place and then we had to give 6 months rent upfront cause we didn't have one - the start of all our problems! Should have walked away there and then!!!) - and sometimes they don't care - I think where we are now the agent didn't even do a credit check but just took the agency fee!! London agents - they play by their own rules!!!!

Just scared for our next step - eek!!!! Fingers crossed it won't be till those defaults are settled!!!!

Well - yesterday we forced ourselves to have a SFD by eating from the cupboards and stockpiles - i think i might call these our 'prepper' days after watching 'doomsday preppers' yesterday and their food stockpiles that they would eat after the collapse of society!!! And because we only had one egg (for the yorkshire pud) I had a crack at making an eggless chocolate cake - wowee!!!!! I'm hooked! And it must have literally been pence to make!! I even felt a bit flush and put homemade buttercream chocolate icing on it!

I think I can see a moneysaving trend commencing! . . . .

I'm writing a list to winter-proof the flat at the moment but it may require an initial outlay - today will be spent shopping around for the best deals!!!

ps - is everyone else having troubles changing their signatures at the moment? I get a server error when i go to save an adapted signature . . . . .hmm . . . .

cottage_retreatist

HOK3Y wrote: »

Hi C-R and great news on your first F&F - I have my fingers crossed they will come down that extra £100 for you. X. I am sure it would be good to be totally rid of one debt!

We had mice in a house in the Netherlands and put down traps which were very effective but we did find it was worth putting them out every few months. Occasionally we would catch the odd one after we dealt with the original problem. It think the traps we used were called 'Easycat' and I'm pretty sure they killed the mice very quickly. Now, my friend had rats. Eek. Put down a trap. Checked the next day. Trap gone and a trail of blood. 3 days later, the bloodied trap reappeared in the same spot, minus any dead rat. Seriously. I'd have moved house at that point!

Hey Hok3y!!

Thank you! I'm keeping my fingers crossed too!!!

Thank you for your mouse advice! We're getting cheapo wooden traps (moneysaving!!!!) - OH makes me set them!!!!! :eek: and those new sensors OH's parents are posting us.

Now rats - we would deffo move out tomorrow if we had rats!!! We watched 'infested' yesterday on sky about families with vermin in their house and one house had rats - OMG!!!! It was just when they were talking about how they will wee everywhere!! Thing is - this is the same for mice too isn't it? But then OH just had to mention that while I was prepping supper - i did ask him if it was a ploy to get me to throw it all away!!!!

It makes me feel all funny just thinking about little creatures scurrying around when I'm not watching!!!!

hehe! thanks for popping in!! xx

HOK3Y

Yeppers, rats and mice pee everywhere and carry some nasty stuff so you need them out! A friend of mine yesterday was telling me about properties that have been condemned because the waste pipes used throughout were too narrow and that allow rats to climb them and come into people's homes through their toilets!!!!! :eek:

I work for a property company and I know where you are coming from with the credit checks and fees - I have regularly had arguments with the partners about it. Personally I think it should be an expense that the owner absorbs, not the tenant. I have lived in various countries and never paid an application fee to rent a home - i was pretty disgusted when I moved back here! We also got hit with paying rent up front as we had no credit history - never been told that either! Couldn't believe it! But, if it counts for anything, I am but a lone and rather vocal voice working from the inside and letting it be known that it's disgusting!

andrar

Ooh what's the eggless chocolate cake recipe?

And yeah I hhaven't been able to change my signature since Friday! I've sent an email in saying its broken so we'll see if it gets fixed - annoying because my signature should look way better than it does!

cottage_retreatist

Hey andrar! The eggless choc cake recipe can be found here: (second one down on google!! haha!!! I'm not fussy!!) http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8423/eggless-chocolate-cake.aspx - i put a picture of it on Ninja Saving Kat's Facebook page!!

Hey Hok3y! Big cheer for trying to break the moneygrabbers done from the inside!!! My way of doing it is to try and get a private rental next time!! Probably won't happen but it would be my best way! Did some dream searches in our preferred area - Forest of Dean - where we want to move in 18 months - some lovely places - rental and for sale (no chance in 18 months!!!!). my question is why do people hate pets so much Just makes needing to buy a house so much more of a necessity!!!

Spent my afternoon dreaming of a debt-free day as you might be able to see!!! But no - 357 days to go before that becomes more of a reality!

Until then - we have our final lasagne from my giant food batch cook left we're going to have for supper with some yellow stickered tomatoes and avocado and left-over salad ingredients oh, and chips for the OH!!!!

PS - OH reduced his o2 contract from 48 per month to 11 per month last night! whoop!!!!!!!

HOK3Y

Lots of people going with private landlords for that very reason C-R. Don't blame you. If you do go that route, just make sure that you get proof from them within 30 days that your deposit is being held in one of the approved deposit funds. By law they have to prove this to you. X

And yay for reducing the o2 bill - I can't wait for our contracts to be up!

andrar

Thanks for the recipe, I'll look at the faceyb page later.

I tried finding a private landlord but couldn't find any in area I had to move to - hence the letting agent.

cottage_retreatist

no worries andrar! can't promise Great British Bake off style decorations with my buttercream! haha! more of a splodge of brown on top on the cake but i highly recommend the recipe - must have cost only pennies per slice and it's HUUUUGE!!! :rotfl:

I did some research on google searching for private lettings/landlords and found one or two but not with the thing we have in mind - we want to go super rural!!! we have found a smallholders website where people post up smallholdings to rent so I'm going to keep an eye on that!!! and fingers crossed it'll be us, 10 dogs, 17 cats, 5 alpacas and 40 hens in no time! :rotfl: only kidding - just want to have our dog live with us rather than her 'lodging' with my grandmother while we rent a tiny, eye-wateringly expensive pit in London

cottage_retreatist

OK so it's me and the OH sitting in the living room - he's playing GTA 4 (no - he's not going to the 12 midnight release for GTA5 we will be waiting for it to come down in price/shop around for the best deal - it'll be part of his xmas present!!!) and I'm on the internet while we watch a programme about alien mysteries (he won't let me watch Most Haunted if he's within a 5 mile radius of the property!!!:rotfl:)

It's amazing! What would we do without electricity?

Tomorrow is the market shop in the morning, its really frustrating this is such a long month - i'll be paid on Monday 30th which means I need to cover 2 more weekends within our food budget for this month - which has about 30 quid left if I stick to my budget though I have got a contingency 20 quid on top. (I hate 5-week months!!!).

We've only got 3 meals left from my massive batch cook - 2 beef and green lentil stews and 1 bolognese so I have to do some serious thinking about planning our next month's worht of grub. I seriously need to start thinking about losing weight as I have an extra stone that I could do with dropping to return to my 'natural' silhouette - a few too many bulges at the moment! :eek:

So I've got to do some research before prepping the monthly meat shop - if I even decide to do one! And also work out whether I need to do one of my large 'staples' online grocery shops - these are usually around 200 quid but last minimum 3 months - usually closer to 5 months. But we've got water rates, car tax and MOT coming up in the next few months so I might just have to get inventive! Watch out people! :rotfl: I'll keep you updated!!!

Tonight - a feta, avocado and tomato salad with a bacon (yellow stickered) and tomato sauce and wholewheat spaghetti!

OH also wants chips :eek: but i'll steer clear!!!!

debtfreewannabe321

Oooh that website sounds good for finding rural! I soooo want to live in the middle of nowhere right now. Not quite sure id have that many dogs would love hens and ducks and a goat though. DH thinks I'm crackers

As for the no electricity I reckon we'd all have dozens of kids if that were the case thank god for electricity!! Haha xx