Forever Home with 2 adults, 1 toddler, 1 bump, 1 dog, 1 cat

gearfreak

I'm looking at DD's christmas present ideas and we are thinking about getting her a wooden toy kitchen from A*da which is £40, although I did see it in the shop the other day and it doesn't look that sturdy, it'd be good to know if anybody else has bought one and what they think? The other option would be the ikea one, but thats £65/70 i think.
Going to get her the pots and pans to go with it too, as she loves opening our kitchen cupboards and pulling all the saucepans out onto the floor and playing with them.

gearfreak

Been really good all day, but really fancied some chocolate, so popped to the local shop and got 2 bars, had to cash in my lottery ticket too, won an amazing £2.80, so bought another euromillions for tonight and then had £0.80 back, so covered just over half of my chocolate spend :0)

Checked my nectar, tesco and boots points and I have about £40 of points all together so going to try and use some of these for dd's christmas presents. Although I'm bidding on a couple of things for her christmas presents atm on ebay, so hopefully I'll get those.

gearfreak

Had a pretty good ms weekend, looked into all my shopping points and it looks like I'll be able to get quite a few presents for dd with them all as I have approx. £50 in points between the different stores. So I'm going to get her some happyland and duplo stuff with them, which has saved quite a bit.

Also did a shop in lidl at the weekend and used a £5 off £30 voucher, that I found on the forums that somebody had posted so thanks for that :0)

Sold a couple of bits on ebay too, which is good to get rid of them and I got what I was wanting for them too.

Also ordered seller packs for the NCT sale, although I'm a bit gutted I won't be able to volunteer at this as I'll have dd to look after and am very big now with the bump so not sure I'd be able to cope energy wise. But it's good as if I did volunteer I'd get first choice at what's on sale there, I did it at the last one and got some real bargains for dd, so I might see if I can get somebody to babysit her.

Also our next door neighbour has managed to get an offer on his house, so I'm hoping that with just ours left on the market it should go quite soon, fingers crossed!

I'm also setting up piggy bank savings accounts for things like holidays, car/sofa, christmas/birthdays so me and oh know how much we have to spend as its normally me who ends up paying for these types of things.

Hope everybody has had a good weekend :0)

gearfreak

Still haven't managed to get the remainder of my decluttering listed on ebay nor finished decorating the house for the estate agent photos, not been feeling to great after spending evenings and the weekend decorating the house last week. So I've put the photos off for another two weeks, but the estate agent is still coming round tomorrow to get the details sorted out so we are making some progress.

We did look at not going through with not putting the house on the market with this new estate agent, and leaving it until I go back to work after maternity leave. But then I measured dd's bedroom to see if both a toddler bed and a cot/cotbed would fit into her room and they basically won't together. So we really do need to move! Just annoyed with the original estate agent as our house has been on the market on and off for the past 5 years with him and we only had 3 viewings in all that time. Fingers crossed this new estate agent will come up with some more viewings

I've also managed to go through all my points cards and bought a set of duplo from A*gos with my nectar pts, getting a happyland zoo from t*sco with those points, and still got about £30 in b**ts and L2S points/money so going to get dd a couple of bits with that too. Although I seem to be having a few problems with my b**ts account online and every time I go to check out it won't let me, which is annoying and its happening when i try to spend my points or on my debit card.

I ended up also getting her the wooden toy kitchen from a*da and then thats it. It might seem like alot, but she doesn't have that many toys and only really gets them for birthdays and christmas now. And I really want her to have a good christmas as I think she is going to be traumatised with the new squish arriving.

I've only got just over two weeks left at work now, which is great as I'm really suffering with tiredness and I also have no work to do as there isn't any point in me starting new projects. So I'm a bit bored.

Oh and a few of the things I had for sale on ebay as pick up only as they were so big, have sold, but then people are being really awkward about picking them up, when I've been really clear about where we live etc, so looks like I'll be relisting a few items or selling them elsewhere.

I got a new quote for my car insurance which is due to run out in the middle of December, I've been quoted about £200 including breakdown which is good, and alot cheaper than last year :j, and I'll pay it off in one go. So I've put a reminder in my phone to renew that along with the MOT and Tax so I don't forget.


So my jobs list atm is:

• Switch electric tariff as we are now on not the best option according to the MSE Energy Club.
• Have a look into switching house & contents insurance, I've got a cheaper quote, but not sure in the long run that we would save money due to already being signed up for this year, iyswim.
• Get listing on ebay when I get free listings.
• Get decorating finished (this mostly needs to be oh).
• Label up things for the NCT sale & get coat hangers.
• Purchase remainder of DD's christmas presents.
• Do meal planning and get OH's buy in to it.
• Write general christmas cards, so they are ready to post out.
• Get my hospital bag ready and buy anything else I might need for it / and new baby.

I'm so looking forward to the point where we get to move house and being in a position to be able to overpay the mortgage when I go back to work after this lot of maternity leave . We'll hopefully save a fortune on fuel and car maintenance, as I'm sure the roads to our village have caused damage to our cars over the years.

Crumpets

Hi GF, you sound so busy! And with a bump too, no wonder you're feeling tired. Best of luck with your new estate agent, it doesn't sound like the other one has been very proactive in getting your house sold! Let's hope the new one is better and you get lots of viewings.

Great news about spending all your points :T I'm wondering how many I've got to spend now do you do things like nectar adpoints to boost your points? It's a bit tedious but something you could probably do if you get pregnancy insomnia

I hope the ebayers turn up for your items, it's so frustrating isn't it! Why bid on something if you don't want to go and get it? :mad:

gearfreak

Thanks Crumpets, yes mainly due to my oh not doing anything, plus my pregnancy aneamia isn't helping. Estate agent turned up this morning and managed to take a good external shot, but the house isn't anywhere near finished being decorated inside so need to get that done over the next two weeks. But the EA got the details down and paperwork done so they are just waiting on the pics now.

Yeah I didn't realise how many points I actually had, until I logged in and checked and then had a brainwave to use them for dd's christmas presents :j. You should definatly check, what would you do with them Crumpets? I did do nectar adpoints but got a bit bored with it I think, just before dd was born and swagbucks and other surveys etc. Could do with taking them up again, but they are quite time consuming.

I picked up some more duplo for dd today from Ar*os with my L2S points that I accumulated from Topcash back ages ago :T

I haven't heard off two of my eb*yers so it looks like the items will be getting sold on, two of the items I could put in the NCT sale in a couple of weeks so will probably do that.

Had to make an appt. for my dd for monday to see the gp as we think she may be lactose intolerant, really hoping he can sort out what the matter with is her as her nappies have never been normalish and always leak if she does anything more than a wee . Also talking to the Health Visitor as she has started waking 3/4 times a night for a full bottle of formula, won't take normal milk and is wetting through her nappy twice a night. We have tried loads of things to wean her off but they aren't working and up until a couple of months ago she was sleeping right through the night with no problems, so hopefully they'll come up with some ideas although I'm not convinced! Really need to get her off the 4 bottles and sleeping better by the time the new one arrives in december!!!!

gearfreak

Had some good news this afternoon, we've got a viewing on our house tomorrow morning :j its a first time buyer apparently so keeping everything crossed!!

gearfreak

So 'if' we manage to get an offer on our house I'm now unsure about the house we were looking at buying as we've seen another that's smaller, but £20k cheaper.

So the original house we went to see is on for £189k, has 5 bedrooms, 3 reception rooms, attic room, double garage, 2 outside sheds, it needs work doing to it in terms of decor as the people who own it haven't done anything to it in about 20/30yrs, it's very 80's. But we could move in straight away and not do anything.

House number 2 is on for £166k, has 3 bedrooms, 2 reception rooms, single garage, garden is split level and access to the garage is from a rear access track. The only thing that would need doing is painting the bedrooms.

With house number 1, we probably wouldn't move again it would be our forever home, it has enough spare rooms that I could work from home when I needed to, kids could have a playroom, we'd have a spare room for visitors (my family live 3hrs away) and oh would easily have space outside the house for his bike maintenance business and outdoor kit. Oh and we were looking into the idea of becoming a host family renting out a bedroom to students. But it does need a lot of cash spending on it.

House number 2, mortgage is £200/month cheaper, no space for office/playroom/guests/ oh business kit or running a bike maintenance company. Doesn't need money spending on it.

I guess now I've written down the pros and cons house 1 still looks like the better option long term, particularly if we can get a room rented out. But it would be good to see what other people's opinions are as my oh just goes on the money side with the mortgage.

Happier_Me

Hi and good luck on your journey. We too decided to move during my second pregnancy for similar reasons to you.

Before committing to house 1 I would work out your household monthly budget. An older, bigger house that needs work will probably be more expensive to run and you will need to have spare cash to do it up over the next few years. It's not just your mortgage payment that can increase (utilities, council tax etc).

I think its important you properly assess the cost of the work. Is it just decorative? Replacing boilers, windows, kitchens and bathrooms etc is expensive and hard work with two kids.

Our first house hadn't been touched for years and it was a bit of a money pit although we wasted a lot of money due to inexperience. Things that should have been cheap, such as wallpaper stripping just wasn't because the plaster came of the walls - every room had to be replastered. We seriously underestimated the cost of doing up that house.

Saying all that, if it is affordable and you are prepared to do the work I would go for the forever home.

Good luck with your viewing today.

gearfreak

Hi HM, thanks for the advice, viewing went well, hopefully they'll be back for a 2nd viewing.

I've already been through the mse budget sheet based on the more expensive house and it looks achievable, but would be tight, but I think worth it in the long run.

With regards to costs of doing an old house up, luckily I work in construction as a quantity surveyor, so I've got a pretty good handle on costs and timescales etc and this would be the 3rd house ive done up, glutton for punishment! 😉

Like you say though the part I am slightly worried about is doing the work with two kids around, although I think the house is in good enough condition and big enough to be able to do a room at a time. How old were yours when you were doing a majority of the work?