XSpender Speeds it Up - £0 to £60k in 27 months

XSpender

Hello SHS

I think the wood burner will have to be put on the back burner as the style of house we have been found in our preferred area (there are a lot of them) that suits us you cant get one in unless we extend the kitchen/diner at the back and have one in there.

I would love an aga but will settle for a range cooker in the new house if/when it needs a new kitchen and pretend its an aga. I have a ceramic hob currently and dislike it immensely, I miss my gas hob.

XSpender

I am WFH most of today with only 1 short local appointment this morning which I must get ready for in a minute. I will pick up my prescription which has been sat at the doctors for 2 weeks on the way and put it into Mr T and buy a Christmas present on the way back using a double up voucher. Will also fit in a short run and a swim this evening when DH is back from work.

I am exactly a pound out on YNAB and cant for the life of me see where I have made the mistake. Oh well I am a £ up not down so I wont worry about it.

I tried last years party dress on and, as I have lost a bit of weight since last year, it hangs on me like a sack so is going on ebay. I have seen another one for £40 in n3xt which I may try on at the weekend.

DH and I had a good chat on Sunday about finances and the house purchase. We have decided that if we sell the house we will cancel our summer holiday as it is costing a fair bit and will still be there next year. It will be putting too much pressure on us to save for this and pay it off by early May when we will be in the middle of moving or have recently moved and we need the money for the moving costs. We will probably have a week at a Haven instead as DH doesn't want to go abroad for 1 week or anywhere but the HV we booked. I need to double check when I can cancel it to ensure we lose nothing but our deposit.

He also signed up for a new ebay account which bearing in mind we both cant stand ebaying I was amazed by. He has also asked me to do the food shop on my own as he feels when he goes we spend more. I don't mind doing it and I am quicker doing it on my own and stick to the list.

No other money news. I haven't done any TTs for a while as I want to keep all monies in the account to cover the paint and materials we need for decorating next week.

XSpender

£21.21 received from TCB today which will be moved to the mortgage.

Nipped into Mr T to drop off a prescription and spend my remaining double up vouchers and a £7 off £50 spend they sent me yesterday and got £52 worth of gifts for £13. I feel like I have broke the back of the Christmas shopping now and I know what everyone is getting I just need to buy the last few bits and some wrapping paper. That is excluding DS who has his main presents bought but I will hang on a bit to get his last couple of games/toys.

I must crack on with some work I need to complete by tomorrow night at the latest and then I may give the broker a call to get our mortgage application/DIP started as I don't want to start the house move process unless I know I can get the mortgage at a rate/deposit level we can afford.

Suffolk_lass

Hi XSpender,

What is TCB? and TTs please?

As I have come out of lurkdom, I thought I would also offer a little Aga insight. At our last house we had a 2 oven Rayburn gas Heatranger (so it ran the heating and hot water as well as the cooking) - and it was great. Rayburn are the same company, but marginally less trendy and a bit cheaper. We turned it off in the summer and managed with a domino hob, BBQ and Microwave combi-oven grill built in and an immersion heater in a cylinder. It worked so well for us we bought a four-oven 13amp electric Aga for this house (a small 3 bed thatched cottage). The big plus is no servicing every six months at over £120 a go (which the oil ones need - once a year for solid fuel and gas). We do not use our heating much as the Aga warms the whole house. We make it work by turning it off over the summer months and reverting to a combi-oven and domino hob, with the latter running off a propane bottle as there is no gas here. It is expensive to run but worth it. I cannot think of ever going back to another style of cooker now, but it was worth going on a course to see how to make the most of it.

Keep going!
SL

XSpender

Hi SL

Thanks for the Aga info, I didn't realise you could get an electric one!

TCB is top cash back a website that pays you for doing internet shopping. I book all my work hotels through here and earn about £6 a go. TT is Tilly Tidy which is a rounding down the back account and sending it over to the mortgage.


I am feeling nervous about getting a mortgage due to our previous troubles and with the deposit we have. I rang the broker today and they are getting their specialist team to ring me back. They asked me to check my credit file via noddle which I have done and it is clear. Signed up for an Experian trial (via TCB) and that is clean too! If the mortgage is unlikely to go through we will not cancel our holiday and just keep saving until next Christmas and sell then.

I am supposed to be painting the house this week but am not going to spend the money if I am unlikely to get a mortgage at the moment.

Dentist tomorrow and DH and I are going for a 10k run to try out our trail shoes. We have been offered the opportunity to run the race route for our 10 mile run the week before the race - not sure if this is a good idea or not.

XSpender

DH and I have had a lovely day off together. I had an early visit to the dentist and all is well there followed by a late brunch(at home), DH moved his hair appointment until this afternoon and we went into the city to do a little Christmas shopping.

I spent some of my personal spends on a pair of jeans (got 10% off as they couldn't do the free alteration within a week) and a new belt that I have been desperate for ages for since my last one broke. Why they have only brought them out in the department store at Christmas I have no idea!

DH bought me my Christmas present of a black handbag for work which I won't use until after the big day and we completed DS present shopping and our Niece's. Only 4 items to buy (I know exactly what I want to get) and a couple of small surprises for DH and I am completely finished :j

I have had to jiggle the money from a couple of pots to cover the spends but these will be repaid on pay day from the money budgeted for Christmas in December. I am on budget too

We haven't heard back from the broker yet but they did say it might be 48 hours.

DH is out for a drink with his cousin tonight so I will put a load of washing on, make a start on listing the pantry contents and read my book

I have received the pack to sort out DS's CTF/ISA and the house insurance renewal so will add these to my to do list for next week.

XSpender

It is bitter cold today and I am feeling a bit ropey. I didn't sleep brilliantly and my sinuses are playing up. I should have gone for a run today but it's too cold anyway. I hope it isn't this cold in a fortnight when I have my race as it is always several degrees colder at the venue than it is here at home due to it's location in the middle of nowhere.

Food shop done while DH took DS to his swimming lesson. DH wanted to visit a store this afternoon where he had been told there was a trade in offer on a game but it had ended last week. The store is on a small retail park so 1 Christmas present bought for DMIL and my Christmas party dress chosen and it's a size 8!!!! No wonder last year's looked like a sack on me, it was a size 12 from the same shop!

We also got some YS GF sausages, creme fraiche for SW garlic kievs and a new value duvet for DS who still isn't consistently dry at night. I couldn't wash the old one again as the dog had chewed a hole in it last time I washed it before I got the cover back on. Oh and I treated myself to a fitness mag out of personal spends.

I rang the broker earlier to chase them up but it appears they only open Monday to Friday.

I am so looking forward to chicken pie, mash, cabbage, carrots, green beans and gravy for dinner, just the thing for a cold day

smallholdingsister

We only get our oil fired aga serviced once a year and its £60.

Definitely go on an aga cookery course or two before you get one.

Suffolk_lass

smallholdingsister wrote: »

We only get our oil fired aga serviced once a year and its £60.

That is your choice. I tend to use the manufacturer advice with the single biggest purchase I made the house, though I am sure I could reduce the cost by not using an Aga-appointed engineer. I was just checking the Rayburn site but that doesn't include the prices. Both sites advise twice yearly servicing for oil and solid fuel (the latter to remove soot build-up, along with regular chimney sweeping). We had an oil Aga at a rental house in Scotland a couple of years ago and that was noticeably smelly, but I have no frame of reference to compare that with. I really like the electric one and we had no problems with the gas Rayburn either.
SL

XSpender

First day of my week off today and the house looks like we have been burgled :eek:

Yesterday we decided to go to IK3a and get the bits of furniture we need to finish the house off ready to sell. I picked up the wrong light fitting though so will have to go back this week and change it. If we don't sell for another 6 months we will still enjoy the furniture bought and will be ready to go when we do. Everything will be coming with us.

I had a reply from the broker and have had to request our credit files to send to them. The trial with Expedia didn't happen and I cancelled it straight away as they had technical issues and couldn't access my file:mad: I have had to pay with Experian(as I was a previous customer) but have got DH a free trial. This is the only one that shows my IVA still with a £0 balance (it shouldn't show at all as it is over 6 years old) and has 2 other errors on it! Neither noddle or expedia showed this information so I am glad I spent the £15 to get an accurate picture. DH file will take 48 hours so I am hoping I can speak to the broker about it this week before I go back to work.

I am getting a bit twitchy that we are pushing ourselves too early to buy a new house and need more money behind us as if it all )happens quickly I worry that we wont have enough money to afford to move even if we have the deposit. I don't know why but I have that panicky feeling I did when we were in the IVA/skint after it. I don't know if it is because we have spent so much money this weekend even though it is only a small proportion of our income and there is still money in the bank and we have savings too or it is that I believe we cant afford to move yet.

We made some progress this weekend on getting the house ready as I have cleaned out the pantry cupboard, DH cleaned out the bathroom cabinet and cupboard and I have ordered an oilcloth to cover the old kitchen table so we don't have to buy another one as it does not match our kitchen at all!

Today will hopefully be spent getting the house clean and tidy, portioning up for the freezer the massive bolognaise I made yesterday, getting waxed and dropping some stuff off at the charity shop. The arch of my foot is really sore after my run yesterday morning and it hurts to walk so I may not get as much done as I hoped but I do have a lot of sit down jobs to do I could tackle instead.:(