Extending our house without extending ourselves beyond our means

joedenise

@missymoo81 I used to have a M@kro card and found they were more expensive that supermarkets.  Didn't find anything particularly cheap and also have to remember prices are excluding VAT which makes quite a bit of difference once you get to the till!  Have to say this was quite a long time ago so not sure whether it is any better now.

PurpleFairy26

We have both a m@ckro and c@ostco card. We haven’t used m@ckro for a couple of years. Good for industrial kit but the food was very hit and miss in terms of cost. Some stuff were bargains and others more expensive as joedenise says. So I just had a notebook of what I would buy in there that I knew was cheaper than when I’d compared in SM. 

Other one is the one we use now about every 6 weeks. We have about a dozen items we buy from there that again we have priced checked against SM so we know are cheaper and we are quite disciplined as to only buying those. They occasionally have good offers on some other products and then we can compare (as they send you the offers on e mail in advance) if there is something on our usual SM list and decide where to get it from. We’re now in a routine with it and it works well for us. 

PurpleFairy26

Lots going on this week at chez Purps. 

Builders taken down the fence and we can see the extent of the neighbours overgrown border. There are two massive ivy bushes that have 6 foot stems and a dead tree trunk plus and old fence intertwined with that and several other bushes that someone at some point obviously build the new fence up against. By this time next week it should be dug out and new fence erected. 

Another builder working inside. We now have two new rooms from one previous one and an extension to our hall. Looks amazing in just 2 short weeks. Plus they are the tidiest builders I’ve ever met which is also a winner. We need to decide on paint colours so we can get them painted so they can fit the internals on both and the flooring. Then they will hopefully move on to making my pantry. Can’t wait! 

Whilst the paintbrushes are out I want to paint the woodwork in the hall. Luckily we’re getting new skirting so that will be straightforward. It’s just the under stairs cupboard door and the ballestrades (sp?!) I really want to open it up as it’s currently cheap MDF but maybe a job for next year as I think it will be a full replacement job rather than finding a hidden beauty behind the MDF. 

Builders will be back again today so will be lovely to see their progress at the end of the day. 

We picked 4kg of blackberries yesterday so
jam making and open freezing on the cards today. Plus making roasted tomato sauce from
some gifted beauties. May get on with that now actually as I’ve been up a while and may as well make use of the time. 

Fortune_Smiles

Sounds fabulous Purp - great progress.  Lovely to be able to pick blackberries again but a little sad too - summer is almost over... or definitely over according to the view outside my window at the moment 😆

Fortune x

hugglemonster

All sounds amazing, please can you send your builders my way when they're done they sound fab! Ooh a pantry - *dreams*

Hope you enjoy your blackberry jam, H x

foxgloves

Just caught up with your diary, PF. What a lot of progress on your house. And you're having a new pantry too! I can't wait for ours to be done. I am looking forward to being able to arrange all my jars in there as new pantry-building is coinciding with preserving season & lots of lovely jars are buulding up in our temporary food cupboard.
F x

savingholmes

Sounds good PF. Hope you are taking lots of pictures for B4 and after show and tell LOL

crazy_cat_lady

So much going on - sounds fabulous.

missymoo81

Wow purple. It sounds like things are steaming ahead, and yay to tidy builders. Very envious of your blackberry picking, I absolutely need to find some to pick! 

debtfreeoneday

All sounding good in here x