Cazmanian_minx's MFi3 diary

cazmanian_minx

FINISHED!!

Just over 20,000 words in the end. The tapes are packed up and ready to drop in the postbox and the transcript and an invoice for £105.41 have been emailed to the editor. Fingers crossed he's impressed enough to use me again.

I forgot to mention the other day that the spruced-up short story went somewhere else in the afternoon - it's not normally good practice to send out a story to more than one market simultaneously, but it went to an Australian one in the morning and a UK one that isn't published in Australia in the afternoon, so even if they both buy it (Ha! I wish!) then I'll be OK. The only UK magazine you can't do this with is Woman's Weekly - they have a big readership in Oz and have it written into their contracts that you can't re-sell a story they've bought to an Australian magazine until 18 months after they've published it.

Now for the bit I've been trying not to go SQUEEEEEEEEEEE! about for the past week - we're going house-hunting in Scotland tomorrow :j :j :j We weren't planning to move up there for another 5 years, but we saw this house online and it looks so perfect for us that we decided we had to belt up there and have a look at it - it's got 3 bedrooms, it's in a village we both really like, it's got lots of outbuildings and attached to the house is a huge room that used to be a bakery which would be perfect for my bead business! OH's mother lives in Thurso (he was born and brought up there) and this is about 40 miles away from her. It's in a bit of a state (we think it's a probate sale), so the plan would be for OH to buy it (he's wanting to get back on the property ladder since losing his house in his divorce) and we'll gradually do it up and pay for it over the next few years before moving up there when this flat is paid for and we can sell it and bank all the equity. However, OH has got vastly over-excited about the whole thing and applied for a job in the area yesterday, so goodness knows what could happen if he gets it!

Oh, and tsharp - go for it!

Caz

catshark88

How exciting!! Hope the viewing goes well.

Kaz2904

Oh God how exciting! I'd be weeing myself with excitment! Would you be able to relocate now without too many major bothers? You may be able to let out your flat down here.
Far more exciting than that is my news though, wait for it.....




DS has just found an astronaut in the back garden! I've told him to bring it on in for me to see!!!

Kaz2904

So how did it go then? I was having a look at the snowball calculator and if you had a £30k mortgage @ 7% over 10 years you would need to repay £348.33 per month to clear it. That seems to give you some nice leeway for rental returns if you did decide to relocate and rent out your flat.
I'm excited for you (can't you tell!) just hope it went well.

cazmanian_minx

Kaz2904 wrote: »

So how did it go then? I was having a look at the snowball calculator and if you had a £30k mortgage @ 7% over 10 years you would need to repay £348.33 per month to clear it. That seems to give you some nice leeway for rental returns if you did decide to relocate and rent out your flat.
I'm excited for you (can't you tell!) just hope it went well.

Much too well, we're now at the mercy of the Scottish housebuying system!

We put in an offer the same day we saw it and the seller's solicitor got back to ours 24 hours later to say that they were setting a closing date for 25th September and would we please get a best and final offer to them by noon on that day. So we know how much we can realistically afford, given the amount of work that needs doing to it (it's not been lived in for 7 years and the weather has started to force its way in - it basically needs gutting, re-plumbing, re-wiring, all the guttering doing, the layout changing slightly and redecorating) and now we just have to cross our fingers that ours is the magic number.

OH has got a mortgage approved in principle and our offer will be subject to the building society surveyor agreeing it's worth enough for them to lend us that amount, which could be a stumbling block! But the house was built in 1906 and still has the original doors and skirting boards and it has sea views from all the upstairs windows...excuse me while I dribble quietly in this corner...

IF we're lucky enough to be able to buy it, we'll be staying down here for another two years while the work's done to make it habitable - we'll be handing over to a local firm to project manage the major stuff and then using up OH's holiday time to do the kitchen & bathroom installation and the decorating ourselves. We reckon we'd be looking at moving up there in about 2 years' time, at which point we'd sell my flat, pay off what remains of my mortgage, pay off the mortgage on the house (OH has sensibly gone for a discounted tracker that allows unlimited overpayments and has no early redemption penalty after 24 months) and that should leave us about £10k left over in emergency savings and outgoings that can be covered from my ebay business, so as long as we continue to live in an MSE fashion, we can pretty much retire :beer:

In other news, I got back to an email from transcription man thanking me for my hard work and saying that he might have another similar job for me in 2 weeks' time - hooray! Let's hope his magazine's accounts department pay on time, as a writer it can sometimes be a total nightmare getting paid. I've been organised though, I've put my payment terms on the invoice (30 days) and have a note in my diary to chase it on day 31 if they haven't coughed up.

I've come back to 52 ebay parcels to send, so I'm going to stop nattering to you lot now and get on with it

Caz

catshark88

That's fantastic Caz, best of luck with your offer! How exciting to have found a house that could be so perfect.

I made the error yesterday of reconciling all my receipts/ expenses. Found another £200 of costs I'd forgotten and figures went red again! Today's job is to pitch to three places that do weekday events so that I can up the workload without taking more time from DH (who leaves before 7am and gets home 9 pm during the week).

Am also putting one of the ponies up for sale. I've got very nervous riding since having DS and he's a bit too much for me. Cannot believe the cost of small pic ad in H&H, £145! Horrid decision but the right one I feel.

Happy parceling!

auntie_brenda

Caz, that's just so exciting! :j:j:j:j:j:j:j

And Kaz ..... about this astronaut , details please......:D

Kaz2904

Caz- wow! I would love to have a house near the coast (well nearer the coast than I am right now!!)

Auntie Brenda, he never brought it in so I never got to meet this astronaut. It's funny though because I don't know where he would have parked his space ship- it's very busy around here!
Maybe next time I'll get to meet him?:rotfl:

mountainlioness

Hi CM - that is just SO exciting!! whereabouts in scotland is it??

We got married in the Highlands last year and I'd love to have a plan like yours to gut our perfect place up there and move there for life. Good luck!!

cazmanian_minx

MountainLioness - it's in Caithness, about 40 miles south of John O'Groats!

If anyone wants to see why I'm quite so ga-ga about this place, I've uploaded my pics to Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22544094@N00/tags/kirkstyle/

62 eBay parcels dispatched today and $%*&ing Royal Mail online postage wasn't working!

Caz