THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

jk0

Thanks Angie.

I think I'm back to an even older 'skin' now.

I wonder if I will still keep having to log in though?

jk0

jk0 wrote: »

Thanks Angie.

I think I'm back to an even older 'skin' now.

I wonder if I will still keep having to log in though?

Just found I still have to log in again, and still back to the blue skin despite saving my choice.

[Deleted User]

thriftwizard wrote: »

One of DS2's workmates commutes nearly 80 miles each way, every day, in order to be able to afford a sensible-sized home & garden; I know people do that to get into London every day - but down here? With no sensible or reliable public transport options & a main road .

public transport would immediately help the housing market and yes re stupid prices and here too, anything, with a shop in the area plus a bus twice a day, goes at a stupid inflated price. I never realised how difficult it was to get a decent house with a decent garden on a bus route.

[Deleted User]

Karmacat wrote: »

they ask me security questions, and I refuse to answer.

Me too.

I say I'll call in, next time I'm in town, then hang up.

moneyistooshorttomention

thriftwizard wrote: »

We're also hunting for a new home with a bigger garden; OH & I are a tad dismayed by all the nitpicking and rapidly-multiplying Rules at the allotments, and would rather be free to build raised beds & paths, use our polytunnel etc. It's all getting very silly, when people can't afford the homes they need in the places that they need to be...

Tell me about it - cue change of my location:cool:

In your position - I'd be inclined to "hang on in there" to the house you've got and just grit your teeth about increasing allotment rules. Annoying - but "lesser of two evils" as compared to all the hassle/expense of swopping house and the eventual result of being in a different area.

From my experience - it has to be a rather longer list of "problematic things" about current property in order to go through all the hassle/expense of moving elsewhere. I had the rather longer list/much longer list of "problems last house had" and wouldn't have thought it worth all the hassle/expense/upset of moving for just one issue. It's when you've got a long long list of problems with current house/location that moving gets to be left as only option on the table.

My own "list of reasons" had become too long to stay put at:
- still in starter terrace house in my 60s (though my own parents bought their detached in their 40s)
- yep...noise was often coming through the walls of the house from the neighbours
- neighbours neglect of their property was starting to impact on my property and I could see they werent going to be reasonable about it
- it had begun to feel unsafe (all that clambering up a loft ladder over a stairwell)
- it needed a good bit more work/money on it (as I'd never ripped it apart to a "stay in it permanently" standard to start with - as it was my starter house and not my forever home)
- LOADS and LOADS of building going on in the area - grrrr!
- heavily polluted (and it was starting to affect my health)
- loads of traffic (and I don't have a car myself)
- lots of planes in the skies (and I've given up flying myself)
- only a courtyard garden (and I'm a gardener and had always known I'd be getting on with it no later than start of retirement age)
- it was in an area of FTB houses and student houses and many of the FTB houses had turned into buy-to-lets and the area had started to "go down"
- I had calculated/re-calculated/calculated all over again and there was just no way I could do my long long overdue "move up the housing ladder" where I was.

Now that's a long list of reasons to move...

Karmacat

GreyQueen wrote: »

Karmakat, I'm about to PM you about something...........

Thanks GQ, I've only just logged on, so only just got it.

I have sunshine today! Don't know how long it will last for, but I'm definitely going to make the most of it.

[Deleted User]

wd money, I have long admired the fact that you had the courage to move to an unknown area on your own and can see exactly why you moved. Thanks for sharing

moneyistooshorttomention

Thanks Kittie:). Some might have called it something rather different:cool: and I definitely (often!) thought "What on earth have I done?" a lot in the first couple of years.

One gets through renovation work on a house/the greater unreliability factor of tradespeople in this area compared to my own eventually. The nfh basically shut up and started "behaving themselves" after a while - ie when they realised I was gobsmacked at anyone trying to order me around/wasnt going to accept it. I've made friends/most people are friendly & helpful and the few that have their own agendas have decided to avoid the resultant earache of trying to push them on me (they just glare at me as they walk past me in the street, whilst greeting me through gritted teeth LOL - and I expect you can guess who they are....).

I've still got The Weather (worse than I'm used to)/dogs kept in gardens sometimes and then allowed to bark (which I'm not used to).

The truth of the matter - it helps a lot once the house is sorted. The further truth of the matter - I would go back if I could afford to (but that means a house worth a LOT more than the one I have - in order to have a detached house and in the nicest area of my city). I may or may not always feel that way.....

Changing house within the same part of the country is a noticeably smaller challenge than doing so to a different part of the country - but there are still a lot of factors to take into account. Hence I notice those on here that are trying to move (sometimes voluntarily/sometimes not) and can understand the frustration involved in thinking "What I'm after IS perfectly reasonable - so how come it's so difficult/impossible to get?"

thriftwizard

Believe me, MTSTM, we do have a long list; it's far from one issue! The most pressing being care of my mother, but to be fair that problem could - cease to be a problem - at any point, though I can't help hoping that it doesn't. But there are a number of other things, the most important being that staying put is negatively impacting on OH's mental health; he has never liked this area or this house, and he's been "stuck here" for 25+ years...

The area we're in is a little medieval market town on the outskirts of a reasonably big conurbation. In accordance with the local bigwigs' "vision" for the area, hundreds of nice new "executive" homes are being slapped up on the ex-green-belt land around us, and all the lovely little local shops that offered good service and interesting goods are being replaced by upmarket chainstores as quickly as the landlords can double the rent. We are to become an "aspirational shopping destination", apparently, meaning that us hoi-polloi can't actually afford to shop here any longer, or buy anything that's actually any use if we're not planning to tackle Ben Nevis this week. Not to mention parking...

It would do The Offspring a lot of good to have new pastures to explore & they can't afford to do that on their own hereabouts. I have friends - good friends - family & business contacts all over the county, though I'd miss my local crew very much. In my dreams, not only do we have a house & garden big enough for us all - or at least a couple of shepherd's huts/garden rooms in the garden! - but also parking & a studio in which the DDs & I can run workshops & possibly even courses. BUT we're up against serious money, the sort that needs a paddock for Fenella's pony and a kitchen you could lose Jamie Oliver plus Gordon Ramsey in. So my job now is to persuade OH to look at village houses or 30s semis, which are much more affordable & down here do often have big gardens behind them, and useful outbuildings, but aren't the detached cottage with roses round the door that he's been dreaming of all this time.

Karmacat

Oh Thriftwizard, what a disappointing turn development has taken in your village We have a mix of infill building and greenbelt building here - a quiet country lane on the edge of the town has become a sort of bypass, not that there's any heavy traffic around here anyway, as there's a huge motorway in the right direction, just 10 minutes drive away.

Right, this is me trying to get my act together to do something in the garden this afternoon.