Building The Burrow!

chumpy45

Wow exciting news on a house move, although I feel your pain on the thought of the actual upheaval of packing etc to achieve it. A garden though - those Thompson and Morgan catalogues will be in demand lol. Well done on resisting the sales and Happy 2017

themadvix

I didn't feel that there was as much time as normal for plotting over Christmas this year Perla, so it wasn't just you. Hope you're feeling more energised soon!

misscousinitt

Happy New Year PM!!

Hope you are well.

Great news on the move and the plotting (always love a good plot me...)

We look forward to reading about your new adventures for 2017.

All the best.

MCI

Pearla*Merle

apple_muncher wrote: »

Well done resisting the sales :T.

I have since been unresisting them. :rotfl: Trips to National Trust shops do that to me I'm now the proud owner of a cute ceramic pot (with to-be-plated irises), and two other lovely vintage-looking ceramic pots (eg. first one in the second picture down here: https://shop.nationaltrust.org.uk/aged-plant-pot/p8515) which will sit happily by my new back door (plated up with tulips, methinks). Oh... probably not a good idea that I've now found their sale online

I also seem to have acquired some sale succulents and keep fit clothes (badly needed).

I daresay I'm blocking out the memory of other buys, and will regret not buying other things at a later date but hey ho.

chumpy45 wrote: »

Wow exciting news on a house move, although I feel your pain on the thought of the actual upheaval of packing etc to achieve it. A garden though - those Thompson and Morgan catalogues will be in demand lol. Well done on resisting the sales and Happy 2017

:rotfl: I may have already turned the Thompson & Morgan website upside down...

Pearla*Merle

themadvix wrote: »

I didn't feel that there was as much time as normal for plotting over Christmas this year Perla, so it wasn't just you. Hope you're feeling more energised soon!

Me too! I'm seriously regretting working between Christmas and New Year, I feel knackered now (worked Saturday and it was intense -January is the busy time at work)... have had to rest up over the past few days (and miss a bargain theatre trip today - gutted but I can't seem to do much for more than 10 minutes without needing another sit down). Could do with this week off but never mind, will soldier through and hopefully be in a more fit state for bargain theatre trip number two next Sunday...

misscousinitt wrote: »

Happy New Year PM!!

Hope you are well.

Great news on the move and the plotting (always love a good plot me...)

We look forward to reading about your new adventures for 2017.

All the best.

MCI

Thanks, MCI - there will definitely be lots of money-saving adventures and lots of plotting as I'm going to have to get very crafty with the financials this year... didn't quite figure moving house into my original calculations

Happy new year to you & everyone out there in MFW-land!

(As an aside - was talking to someone at work the other day and they referred to this time period as being - pretty much - the 2020's... oh my goodness, how have so many years passed since the Millennium?! It gave me a little bit of a heart attack )

Pearla*Merle

After a few days resting up (and the better diet kicking in - scary the difference it makes!), I've finally got a sliver of energy to use up on here plotting and planning. Huzzah!

So... tenancy for new place almost all sorted. It's a private landlord, who is lovely and very flexible which is brilliant as it means we won't do ourselves in with having to play crazy catchup games with rent payments on two places etc. Whew.

Firstly, let me wax lyrical about the house! Or should I say cottage?! It's a beautiful old house, but very cottagey looking. It'll be so nice to live in a proper house again instead of white boxes (which has been the last several years). It has a lovely big kitchen (oh my gosh - batch cooking ahoy!) and a log burning stove (*all Christmases descend at once*).

We have a few extra rooms which mean we can now easily have a storage/laundry room and more space for my crafty bits and Mr M's hobbies. There's a garage and garden office (or shall we call them new Costco storage facilities?). Seriously though - Mr M needs to work from home a day or two a week and then I want to do some of my own work so it'll be amazing to finally have some proper space for this. I'll also have space to actually do some exercise DVDs (again, haven't had this for years and was never quite up for joining a gym despite odd flurries of thinking I might).

The garden has a little patio area, along with a secluded garden with huge apple tree and the pièce de r!sistance - a fig tree! *died and gone to heaven*. :A The garden is really well established but am hoping I can sneak in the odd veg patch or two.

We don't have neighbours on one side and the other we met (retired couple - perfect). And we're a lot nearer the countryside - am so looking forward to living in a tranquil spot. It means getting up 15 mins or so earlier for work but hey ho - daresay I can cope with that.

Did I say the landlord said we'd be ok to decorate as we like? Oh, and pets will probably be fine? Though may not rush about either of those things quite yet...! Hasn't stopped me pinteresting like a madwoman to get some interior decor ideas

So... the reasoning... although it's probably £100 more a month that we were planning to spend, we worked out that long term it's probably the most sensible option. We were always going to end up moving from here as it was starting to drive us mad living in such a confined space.

The house is a pretty safe option - landlord extremely unlikely to sell so we could potentially stay there very long term if needs be (e.g. 5 years+) and although we pay a bit more now, it also means we don't have to move again in a couple of years (which may have been the case elsewhere, or if we'd rented something smaller), therefore saving us all the costs of that.

Realistically - we can't really be classified as 'first time buyers' in the usual sense anymore. It would be utterly foolish for us to buy a flat, or even a tiny house - if we were to buy we'd need to buy a decent-sized family house. Although we may end up renting longer than anticipated, I would rather do that than buy a house that becomes unsuitable a few years after purchase (we're both past 30 and you never know if the Merle tribe might increase in a few years time...). In a few years time Mr M should have payrises and will have paid off his student debt, at which point we would qualify for a much larger mortgage (makes sense to wait for this point, despite rising house prices).

Also.... we're still thinking about building somewhere. If we could find land in this area and build, it would cost at least £200k less than buying a property of similar size (i.e. once you build such a house, the moment you turn the key in the door it increases in value by at least £200k down here - sometimes even more). We know a few people who gone down this route, so we're keen to look more deeply into this as a possibility. We also know lots of people in trade which means huge savings when it comes to the build. If we were to go down this route - it would mean (with this house rental) we would have somewhere nice to live while waiting to find the right land/build opportunity and for the build to take place.


So plan of action is to learn more about this option, save like demons, and even if we don't go down the build route we'll have enough pennies saved to buy a little Seaside Sand Burrow we can retire to - so either way, we win. :rotfl:

Seriously though, we're both not really keen to buy an old property which we'd have to sink lots of money in to keep going - we'd both rather build something that takes advantage of new technology to save on energy costs & so forth. I don't think we'd build a Grand Design, but something fairly simple that would be a good-sized family house (but also something we could happily live in for a long time if needs be).

Finances for the next while-wise.... my savings are being used as cashflow for the house move, but these will be reimbursed later (handily Mr M gets his bonus around March time). I won't be able to save at quite the same rate as I was doing before (probably £200 or so less - will have to see once everything settles down after the move and we know where we're at), but I reckon in a year or so I should be able to shift it back up to my original level once I've paid off some recent big expenses which are currently on a 0% cc (laptop, glasses etc).

MMM & co would probably think we were mad, and it does feel strange to decide to change (rather than having to change out of necessity), but I think longterm it has all the potential to make a lot of sense - I guess we'll just have to wait and see! Either way, it's a fun plot twist.

Ok, time to light some candles and get another cup of tea (read a Hygge book recently - am so on-trend - and crikey, I think I might have been Danish in a previous life... it goes right to my soul - keeping everything warm and cosy is my entire aim in life ) then I'll be back for some financial plannage for 2017.

Ooh... sudden thought... I can dry socks by my new log burning stove in a few weeks. Probably ones I've worn on a muddy walk around the countryside. That's very hyggelig. :rotfl: :j :j :j

Pearla*Merle

So, my original plans have well and truly been turned on their head. That lovely spreadsheet I made up may well have to be rather thoroughly adapted (not done it yet - shall save that for later - also need to update spending diary, really haven't been able to do anything sensible these first few days of January).

The truth is, I'm rather gleeful to be facing a Must Be Clever With Monies future, I like being frugal and resourceful. Ultimately, my budget (I always try to have a 'zero' budget - but I have a 'generally stay within this range budget' so that as I track my spending I know to try and not go outside this range or I won't achieve my savings rate) is staying the same, but a return to Super Duper Frugal Cleverness is definitely on the cards...

We were already doing well with bath cooking and meal planning, but it would be ideal if we could become even better at it. We'll be moving further away from Ald! (but can and WILL take trips back), and it's likely we'll continue to do the odd online shopping (saved £50 doing that the other day - pretty much only bought stuff on offer :rotfl:). We will be closer to a Waitflower, however, so mustn't get ensnared by their fancy foodstuffs...

I really want to get back into my charity shopping - I don't need many new clothes, but I want to go back to buying from charity shops if I need anything (so I need to keep my List Of Things To Look For on my phone i.e. black cardigan for work etc) plus, charity shopping is of course more like Treasure Hunting, which is endless fun. Would also be good to find little gifts from charity shops (I used to be great for this), though preferably I'll finally get on with make handmade gifts. I have some ideas for next year, so I think once we move I'll go through the present box and work out what I've got for who and what I could make for them.

I also need to check out charity furniture shops - we may need a few extra things (I definitely need a chest of drawers and we probably need a couple of chairs) and a few things might need replaced, so hopefully I can find some nice things and paint them up (ooh exciting, I'll have space to paint things!)

As mentioned, I'd like to get a veg patch going, but I'm particularly going to try and grow some decent salad leaves this year, that should save me loads. I'll probably wait until I get there to see what else I could grow, but maybe a few other veggies and/or berries would be good. I've already got some herbs, though it's likely I'll increase my collection. Other plans are to grow sweet peas and some other flowers for cutting (life will feel very decadent with vases full of cut flowers that cost me pennies :T).

Trips out... we used to go out a fair bit (hard to stay cooped up inside), but with space and garden, the plan is to cut down on this a bit. During spring & summer we'll probably do some trips to local (or at least cheap-to-get-to) places. Handily a lot of these we haven't been to for quite a while, so it'll feel novel and not Same Old, whew. That should help tide us over while the financials settle down from moving. We also have loads of board games and books just waiting to be read and played, so we shouldn't get bored anytime soon. Might invest in a nice, comfy garden seat though...!

So, plan of action for next year is pretty much the same as ever. Be as clever as possible with the pennies, save the rest of them and continue to learn new frugal-ninja skills. This all can't happen without jobs and health, so my ultimate plan is to be really nice to myself and make sure I'm eating well (go back to smaller portions, lots of veg snacks, cut out the sugar), get enough sleep, get proper rest and treat myself to exercise and yoga sessions. As much as I'd love to engage in lots of money-making schemes (eBay/surveys/side hustles of crafty things), I'm not going to force myself into it - the job earns me more than all that and I'd rather be healthy enough to perform well there first and foremost, as the rewards are greater.

It would be great to get my crafty things going again (if I could even earn £100 a month from selling things, that would be brilliant), but I'm going to take it slow and let things come together naturally. I've come a long way in a year, really, and I can't do everything at once. Plus I'd rather spend my time growing veg than listing things in eBay. (Though saying all that, I'd definitely going to list at least one thing on eBay soon as it'll be a pain to move and I should definitely get some decent pennies for it :rotfl).

Off the top of my head, I think I can save at least £2-3k next year. Shall we just say £3k and lets see how I do?

Hmm.. what else? I suppose I never did a 'review of the past year'. So - new job, then a promotion. Now earning more than double than the last job. :T Didn't quite hit the £5k of savings I'd wanted to for MFiT this year, but I'm actually 80% there at £4k, which is pretty blinking insane considering I was on sick/low pay at the start of the year and savings didn't really kick in until (I think it was) July-time due to loosening the reins a little and replenishing my wardrobe etc.

Ultimately it's given us the chance to get this new place, and it's exciting to think that it'll only take me a couple of months to recover finances-wise, rather than well over a year (which is what happened last time we moved). Exciting times. New job (almost a year since I had my interview - gosh, time flies!) is still wonderful, am very lucky, and feel rather vindicated as a lot of extracurricular work activities I took on over the past several years (which were questioned by nearest & dearest) allowed me to secure this job, so it's rather lovely to know I was right to follow my gut instinct there. :T

Good luck to everyone for 2017! :beer:

greent

New cottagey-house sounds lovely, PM - am sure half of us at least are picturing it as we read your words (I was )

Figs and apples could be used for making preserves for homemade presents? x

apple_muncher

Cor, Pearla! These posts are stonkingly awesome! Cottage!! Brilliant! Space to play hide and seek, like the Narnia house. Space to create, tinker, project, plan, build, grow... Am chuffed to bits and sooo excited for you both x

Go girl, with your über frugal 2017 :T

in_need_of_direction

It all seems so well thought out. Also, you do need to invest in yourselves and this new house seems to deliver a lot for an extra £100. Enjoy!