Enjoying the Sunshine whilst Saving for the Rainy Day

Eager_Elephant

Sorry to hear the house has not worked out - I think it is a sign that it was not meant to be.


What is for you will not pass you by!!


Sorry to hear DS1 is upset about his exams - as long as he tries his best then we can't expect any more of him!


Re the ants - when we used to get ants in our lounge (front door opened into lounge) I used to put talcum powder around the edges of the door. Ants hate talc so they won't cross the line plus of course suitable for kids and animals!!
Actually we have not had ants for years now - maybe they remember we had talc and they don't want to come back!!

Verbatim

kettle of boiling water several times a day if the problem is outside

debtfreewannabe321

*Robin* wrote: »

Hi DFw, :hello:

Sorry to hear you lost that house, but thank goodness you hadn't spent anything on starting the purchase! Renting in the area you want to move to sounds better and better - if nothing else, once you're in the locality making friends and contacts, you've a good chance of hearing about a suitable property before it goes on the market (we once got a cracking deal like that; noticed a house which was always empty, found the owners on the Land Registry and got talking.. They'd used it as a holiday home but Mr had had a stroke and they'd just forgotten about the place really. It was in terrible condition, we offered what we could afford - no agents' fees, no competition, I did all the running around so it was a simple transaction for Mrs Vendor who used the money to adapt their main home. Win win. But we'd never have known about the place if we hadn't been renting a farmhouse a couple of miles away, and walked the dogs past it regularly..).

Don't understand how adding a patio [an impermeable structure] will aid drainage at your rental house?
I wouldn't be allowed to do that at homehome (technically in a flood-risk area).

Sending sympathy and positive vibes to your DS1 - imho exams are the most hellish part of being a teen..

Re ants, do you know about the bicarb and icing sugar trick?

Morning, Thanks for sharing that story Robin :T it gives me hope that I will still go on to buy once we're up there . The patio at the rental....well they sort of explained to me that at the moment there is nothing out the back just soggy wet mud and I suppose the worry is subsidence (or maybe something else?) if the damp gets in under the house so a thick patio will raise the back garden (at the moment you have a big step out to the garden and then a flat bit before it goes off onto a steep slope), the structure will be solid so no more soggy wet floor which is what the tenants are moaning of and also the patio will be lowered on the one side which will run water away from the property to some sort of drainage (does this make sense?) obviously the house is in Wales, so it's pretty wet there so there is a bit of a worry with damp getting into the structure of the house. I think what they've suggested should work just not sure if i'm explaining it as well on here .

DS1 was totally stressed out yesterday, thankfully no more exams until Friday now. Then it's poetry and I think that is it until after half term. He had a poem published when he was 8 and I showed him it this morning and told him he must do well in that one as he's so good at writing poetry. :rotfl::rotfl: He just rolled his eyes at me and pointed out it was 4 lines long and about dragons :rotfl: haha.

debtfreewannabe321

Morning!

Thanks for all the ant tricks! I will try those! I don't have any talc but i'm off to aldi soon so will see if they have some cheap stuff. Think I have some bicarb left, we've deffo got icing sugar, do you mix the two?? Erm water....plenty of that so will try that one first before I go off to the shops! Main pain is that in my house reorganisation I have put my huge heated airer in the porch and it fits perfectly and the porch, when the sun is out, is like a greenhouse as there are frosted windows all the way round so it's great for drying clothes on a wet day :T However yesterday as I was taking the clothes off I had to shake the ants from the lower layer of airer thankfully they weren't hundreds of spiders, I would have just thrown the lot away ants I'm not scared off but they are a right pest! There are holes all over the porch where they've not fitted it properly and there is gaps round the bottom so they have easy access (and when it's cold it's freezing in there!) so I do need to stop them wanting to come in.

So I have just over £100 left in my bank :eek: pay day is 10 days away! I have £25 in my purse which will go in my petrol tank (money from babysitting job which thankfully was paid this morning :T) and I now need to find some cheap meals to fill the cupboards with. I get another £48.60 next Monday for child benefit, this is defintely doable for food but next week is half term and I was hoping to take the kids out at least one day hopefully some tenancy money will come in over the next few days which will top us up a little

I've been feeling very flat over the last few weeks I am just watching myself as I have particularly down days where I know I am depressed. Guess I just need to make sure the good days outweigh the bad. At the moment I think the bad are heavily outweighing the good unfortunately which isn't good. I am holding off going back on the anti d's as I think my depression stems from circumstance this time rather than chemical imbalance, but I will watch it carefully as the more knocks I get the lower I get (and i've had a fair few knocks over the last few months regarding almost every area of my life!).

I hope everyone is ok, need to write a shopping list now but will try and get around a few diaries too

debtfreewannabe321

Forgot to add I am finishing my HS tomorrow, the lady text me telling me she goes back to work the week after next but her boys start full time nursery next week so it will be my last day with her. She's asked that we stay in contact though and said she'd love for me to stay in the boys lives which is really sweet I will buy some cake to celebrate, I think she's come on a long way and she's actually been a real friend to me too which was nice and it made me leave the house once a week when most of the time I've been cancelling with friends and hiding out !

DH has fixed my bike though (had a puncture and I had no idea how to fix it even with a you tube tutorial ) so I hope to get out with that instead

*Robin*

debtfreewannabe321 wrote: »

Morning, Thanks for sharing that story Robin :T it gives me hope that I will still go on to buy once we're up there .

Funnily enough, that move of ours was for school - after hassles at previous location we wanted to get within the catchment area of a school where the headmistress was [still is] a personal friend. But the green wellie brigade had 'discovered' this particular village, which meant the local estate agent had absolutely nothing on his books we could afford..
All worked out ok in the end, thanks to lateral thinking.

debtfreewannabe321 wrote: »

The patio at the rental....well they sort of explained to me that at the moment there is nothing out the back just soggy wet mud and I suppose the worry is subsidence (or maybe something else?) if the damp gets in under the house so a thick patio will raise the back garden (at the moment you have a big step out to the garden and then a flat bit before it goes off onto a steep slope), the structure will be solid so no more soggy wet floor which is what the tenants are moaning of and also the patio will be lowered on the one side which will run water away from the property to some sort of drainage (does this make sense?) obviously the house is in Wales, so it's pretty wet there so there is a bit of a worry with damp getting into the structure of the house. I think what they've suggested should work just not sure if i'm explaining it as well on here .

So big step down out of the door, onto a muddy flattish bit, then the garden falls away steeply? Is the 'soggy wet floor' in the room next to the muddy bit?
Solution; concrete plinth adjoining house with nice patio slabs on top, sloping very slightly away from the building towards the steep area of garden?

Sounds like a job for a builder with a brain, who's good at thinking about drainage.. I'd want to be certain there isn't a watercourse running beneath the house, before starting work. If there's any possibility part of the ground floor might need tanking, then it's better to know about it in advance.

Hope DS1 is feeling better about his world today.. Dratted exams; soon be over though - then exciting times to look forward to, for all your family.

liltdiddylilt

Hello you!

Just catching up. I am so sorry to hear about the house but glad it was stopped at the point it was. Your blood pressure must be going up and down like a blooming Yo-Yo.

My bosses daughter is doing her GCSE's too, and went into complete meltdown after a Chemistry exam, insisting that she had flunked it. By flunked, she means got an A. She is at a grammar where they push and push for A*'s and anything less is not worth having. I feel very sorry for her. She wasn't eating, locked herself away in her room for 2 days... I am not looking forward to those days. When I did my own GCSE's (being rather highly strung.. ) I started sleepwalking! Badly :rotfl:

Make sure DS1 gets plenty of protein and a magnesium supplement. Chromium too if he isn't so fond of his dark green veggies. They all help with energy and concentration!!! Cheap supplements in the supermarket

As for the rental house, bless you it never rains but it literally pours, especially in Wales - hope this sorts it out. I am sure they know what they are doing!! xx

Sun_Addict

Sorry to hear about the house Sometimes I wonder if you're better off renting than buying - you can move when you want and you get the landlord/letting agent to sort out maintenance issues - as you have found out with your own rental house. I know it's dead money but owning a home is very costly. Good luck to DS1 with his exams. All things considered I think you're doing fab x

Eager_Elephant

Just wondering if you have got rid of the [IMG]https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn<img src=http://static.moneysavingexpert.com/images/forum_smilies/angel-smiley-002.gif border=0 alt= title=You are wonderful smilieid=16 class=inlineimg>Nd9GcQR-BoEmKTOA5hXK8_gGTlYBQWADGR3-Kqiyy-JOY1LZSVgnqkYhA[/IMG]ants?

If you have it seems they have walked to mine!!!

Yesterday morning I saw 2 ants by the back door and didn't think anything of it - today there were 100+ - all in lovely lines along my skirting board[IMG]https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn<img src=http://static.moneysavingexpert.com/images/forum_smilies/angel-smiley-002.gif border=0 alt= title=You are wonderful smilieid=16 class=inlineimg>Nd9GcQR-BoEmKTOA5hXK8_gGTlYBQWADGR3-Kqiyy-JOY1LZSVgnqkYhA[/IMG][IMG]https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn<img src=http://static.moneysavingexpert.com/images/forum_smilies/angel-smiley-002.gif border=0 alt= title=You are wonderful smilieid=16 class=inlineimg>Nd9GcQR-BoEmKTOA5hXK8_gGTlYBQWADGR3-Kqiyy-JOY1LZSVgnqkYhA[/IMG][IMG]https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn<img src=http://static.moneysavingexpert.com/images/forum_smilies/angel-smiley-002.gif border=0 alt= title=You are wonderful smilieid=16 class=inlineimg>Nd9GcQR-BoEmKTOA5hXK8_gGTlYBQWADGR3-Kqiyy-JOY1LZSVgnqkYhA[/IMG][IMG]https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn<img src=http://static.moneysavingexpert.com/images/forum_smilies/angel-smiley-002.gif border=0 alt= title=You are wonderful smilieid=16 class=inlineimg>Nd9GcQR-BoEmKTOA5hXK8_gGTlYBQWADGR3-Kqiyy-JOY1LZSVgnqkYhA[/IMG][IMG]https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn<img src=http://static.moneysavingexpert.com/images/forum_smilies/angel-smiley-002.gif border=0 alt= title=You are wonderful smilieid=16 class=inlineimg>Nd9GcQR-BoEmKTOA5hXK8_gGTlYBQWADGR3-Kqiyy-JOY1LZSVgnqkYhA[/IMG]

I screamed and got the talc out!!

Tonight they were all dead and my house smelt of babies!!

abba1772

Now I know it's not good when your diary ended up in page 2 of my subscription list xx

Hope your ok xx