EH - Essex > Hebrides...the next step of the adventure?

EssexHebridean

MistyMountainTop wrote: »

Bugslet - are you scanning in the receipts at the self serve? Or do you have to take them to customer services?

I wish my account didn't have any withdrawls, unfortunately we needed some basic food so I went to Tesco and got £9 worth of bits on my debit card. I have .13p in my purse, which is a good thing because if there is money in there it will get spent.

I saw a house that looked like it might have been a prefab, but it was all on it's own. There was a matching pre-fabby garage. Are prefabs only in sets?

No - certainly not any more, as so many have been demolished. There were all sorts of different styles too - from terraced ones to fully detached!

RosaBernicia wrote: »

Oh, there is a throw on the end of the bed, but being cats the little ****ers rarely sleep on that bit! They curl up next to me instead which I guess saves on hot water bottles

HRH used to curl up round my head overnight in the winter. Slightly odd having a purring cat vibrating gently against the top of your head, but excellent for heat retention!

MistyMountainTop wrote: »

Thank you bugslet. I thought you had to take them to the customer service desk. I've done a few there before and the staff started getting a bit twitchy about having different receipts for the same day. Do the cashiers ever say anything or do they just add the points for you?

I'd wondered about this, too.

Mysteek Good luck with the mortgage thing - it sometimes felt never ending but we kept the faith that we'd get there in the end. The feeling of looking at the copy of your Title to the property from the Land Registry and it having nothing under "Charges" at the end is amazing!

MistyMountainTop

I was just remembering in my dream house search coming across houses that were described as being of "non-traditional" construction - would these be pre-fabs?

I am quite envious of your mortgage-free status, my main goal in life now is to own my own house outright and you are my inspiration.

I bought a house over 25 years ago, a lovely little thing with original Victorian features, solidly built, an open fire, a cottage kitchen, a sweet garden with an old apple tree. We had 10 glorious years there before selling and moving to a larger property. Looking back, buying the larger house was the beginning of our financial troubles, as it needed more work than we first realised or could afford. Instead of saving up as we had done in the first house, we took out loans to get the work done right away, and it was a downhill spiral from there. My husband was made redundant, we couldn't keep up with the repayments, had to sell the house, and we've been renting ever since.

I often think back to that house and wonder how different life would have been had we stayed. We too would be mortgage free by now, even without overpayments. Why we ever thought we needed more space is beyond me, the house we're in now is much smaller and it's fine, even when the whole family is here. The thing that really rubs is the area of the first house was up-and-coming, now it has truly arrived and is far beyond our means, even renting in the area would be impossible. We paid £24,600 (can you believe it!!!) and the house next door recently sold for £188,000.

Sorry to take up your thread with my rambling. Hindsight is always 20/20, there is nothing to do now but go is forward and try not to make the same mistakes!

EssexHebridean

MistyMountainTop wrote: »

I was just remembering in my dream house search coming across houses that were described as being of "non-traditional" construction - would these be pre-fabs? Possibly, but unlikely I'm guessing - I suspect getting a mortgage on one of the original ones now would be close to impossible, due to the age over the expected lifespan.

I am quite envious of your mortgage-free status, my main goal in life now is to own my own house outright and you are my inspiration. That's such a lovely thing to say! :)

I bought a house over 25 years ago, a lovely little thing with original Victorian features, solidly built, an open fire, a cottage kitchen, a sweet garden with an old apple tree. We had 10 glorious years there before selling and moving to a larger property. Looking back, buying the larger house was the beginning of our financial troubles, as it needed more work than we first realised or could afford. Instead of saving up as we had done in the first house, we took out loans to get the work done right away, and it was a downhill spiral from there. My husband was made redundant, we couldn't keep up with the repayments, had to sell the house, and we've been renting ever since. It was the way everyone was encouraged to do things though, wasn't it - expectation tends to put a whole lot of strain on people, and often other people's expectations are even worse! Get a boyfriend > "Ooh - wedding bells soon then?" in a coy voice from assorted nosy relatives > do the wedding thing - often leading to debt due to what people "expect" a wedding to be > Buy a little flat somewhere > "Oh you'll be wanting a house and a garden next then!" (same nosy Aunties) > up-size, to somewhere needing work as it's all that can be afforded while meeting the expectation > "Oh it'll be lovely when you've got it all finished" > pressure builds up to get stuff done to other people's timetables, not your own > debt debt debt, and you end up not enjoying the place you've run up all the debt "fixing up"! :mad::mad: Aargh!

I often think back to that house and wonder how different life would have been had we stayed. We too would be mortgage free by now, even without overpayments. Why we ever thought we needed more space is beyond me, the house we're in now is much smaller and it's fine, even when the whole family is here. The thing that really rubs is the area of the first house was up-and-coming, now it has truly arrived and is far beyond our means, even renting in the area would be impossible. We paid £24,600 (can you believe it!!!) and the house next door recently sold for £188,000. Similar situation with us - our first rented flat together in London, when we moved in upstairs, the downstairs one was for sale for £66k. we took the decision not to go for it because at the time MrEH's circumstances would have meant it having to be in my name only, and I didn't feel ready for the responsibility. when we moved out of our rented one 5 years later other places in the turning were selling for £249k

Sorry to take up your thread with my rambling. Hindsight is always 20/20, there is nothing to do now but go is forward and try not to make the same mistakes!

Hindsight is AMAZING, but something that is actually even better is making a conscious decision to step away from other people's expectations in favour of doing what feels right for you. I've done it work-wise (took the decision that I was happy with a job I enjoyed, and had no wish to climb the greasy pole. Best moment - in an appraisal when asked what I saw myself doing in 5 years, and I replied that I'd love to be doing the same thing as I really enjoyed my job. The reaction of absolutely shock was PRICELESS!) and we've done it home-wise too - by staying where we are, in a flat, and actually paying for it, properly paying for it, before we started putting a lot of work into refurbing it. It's fine, there is stuff that needs doing, but we can live with it, and it suited us better doing that than running up further debt before we've cleared what we had. It's taken YEARS but finally people have stopped applying their expectations to us, and have just accepted that we're choosing a different path, I think they're still mystified, though! :rotfl:

EssexHebridean

Morning all! :hello: - all bright and cheerful I hope? Sun's out and sky's blue here so I'm going to get myself out for a walk at lunchtime, I think, make the most of it! :T (It'll be raining by then, you wait!)

Forgot to read the meter last night but not too worried, it doesn't *need* doing until the end of the month in any event.

Got the confirmation of the Airshow ticket booking through OK - that's been forwarded on to Claire so we both have the tickets "just in case". There are a few others that will need booked yet too - mainly to take advantage of the "earlybird" ticket offers - pal and I will be doing Yeovilton Air Day again and that's a great savings as they're offering money off the ticket AND no booking fee, so those bought before the end of January are £5 a ticket cheaper. :T Better in my pocket! Need to think about accommodation for that one too - staying over the night before is the way to go otherwise it's a horrendously early start. We found somewhere basic but good value in Yeovil itself last year that worked well. Also need to think about Cosford, and the biggie - RIAT. Airshow savings account is looking *OK* currently - and will get a bonus this month due to lack of cashpoint visits. My £2 coin savings also go there.

The CC is now looking TERRIFYING but I do have to remind myself that over £500 of that is the car, and now nearly £160 of it is airshow tickets, too, half of which will come back to me.

I think I'm settled on food for tomorrow - I'll go the Buddha Bowl route - I can use a tin of chickpeas to do something with (considering trying cooking those off in a spoonful of pesto - might be nice?), and I have some tomatoes that need using, so I can probably incorporate those, too. That will also give me a "building block" to start from the next day for lunch, too. MrEH can have "use it up pasta" with the couple of rashers of bacon from the freezer, the cream that needs using, the last leek. A sort of quick carbonara. Thankfully he doesn't have any objection to eating pasta 2 nights on the bounce.

Stuff to do:
Need to start putting together next weeks meal plan and shopping list, and update my "use up" list.
Sort out converting the ClubCard to online.
Attack the room of doom...spare room. A job for Friday. :eek:
Stuff to Charity shop - Friday
Clean car - also Friday.
Hoover inside car - Friday again, will stick £1 in at the garage
Email pals about the weekend
Decide on recipe to cook on Sunday - maybe something from Rick Stein's India...?
Decide on our best route to Twickenham on Saturday
Buy Train tickets if that's our best route!

EssexHebridean

Well that was a useful lunchtime stroll! Decided to plod down the High Road as far as the Turkish Supermarket as I wanted to see how long it would actually take me, and whether it was workable to pop there during lunchtime. Answer, yes it is - and better still, I passed two different ethnic type food shops on the way both with fresh produce outside, including some gorgeously fresh looking herbs, at 2 bunches for £1, so cheaper than the supermarkets by miles! I've walked that way before, but usually after work, and I guess by that time they've normally taken their fresh stuff in. I deliberately didn't take my purse with me today, but I'll certainly be heading back there at some point! :T

I'm going to keep up with the thing of just popping out for a short walk each lunchtime I think - when it's dry, at least. While the walking isn't massively inspiring it does give my daily step count a bit of a boost, and means I can also factor in things like adding credit to my Oyster card, the odd bit of shopping at somewhere that doesn't begin with T and end in "Oh!", and that sort of thing.

MistyMountainTop

Now I'm envious of your ethnic shops! The most ethnic shop where I live is Iceland...;)

Your organising skills are amazing. I think writing everything down here is a good way to keep track of it all, it might be something I should consider doing.

The house upgrading thing was only down to myself and hub. By that point we didn't care about impressing anyone else, but I was convinced that what we needed was a larger house with a huge garden out in the country. It was on an estate in a village about 12 miles from the nearest town.

We stupidly assumed that hub would be in his very good job for the duration, this was long before the housing bubble burst and the banking crisis. At the time the loans didn't seem like a problem. The house was ok, and much better once we'd fixed it up. I never bonded to it the way I did the first house, and though I was sad to leave, I suspect we would have sold it again even if we hadn't been forced into it.

Of course back then I didn't realise how credit can take away your freedom. I am going to do my best to not borrow money again. If I can't afford a house outright, I may try to get a mortgage, but it would have to be short term and affordable.

bugslet

MistyMountainTop wrote: »

Thank you bugslet. I thought you had to take them to the customer service desk. I've done a few there before and the staff started getting a bit twitchy about having different receipts for the same day. Do the cashiers ever say anything or do they just add the points for you?

I scan my own at the time and scoop up one other. There's about four weeks I think before you can't add, so you can get a few for one day and get them added on over a few weeks. I'm not that disciplined, so stick to one a day!

EssexHebridean

Oh this area is AMAZING for ethnic shops Misty! I'm lucky to work around here really. For the first 5 years MrEH and I lived together we lived not far from here (and in turn, not far from where I grew up) so we got used to having regular access to things like the indian supermarket. The town where we live doesn't have a vast amount of anything like that, annoyingly, so having them close by here is great. Even the T***o over the road to work has a brilliant range of Asian produce!

As for my organising skills, they only become amazing if I actually DO the things on my list... :rotfl:

EssexHebridean

Update/Additions...
Stuff to do:
[STRIKE]Need to start putting together next weeks meal plan and shopping list, and update my "use up" list. Started...[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Sort out converting the ClubCard to online.[/STRIKE]
Attack the room of doom...spare room. A job for Friday. :eek:
Stuff to Charity shop - Friday
Clean car - also Friday, weather permitting.
Hoover inside car - Friday again, will stick £1 in at the garage
[STRIKE]Email pals about the weekend[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Decide on recipe to cook on Sunday - maybe something from Rick Stein's India...? [/STRIKE]Kind of - except I'm doing it for tomorrow instead! :rotfl:
Decide on our best route to Twickenham on Saturday
Buy Train tickets if that's our best route!
Credit card money shuffle Work in progress
Sort out hem on work trousers...
Aldi
ThaT oTher supermarkeT

EssexHebridean

Well that's the end of another working week for me! Looking at that list though I have plenty to keep me busy tomorrow, don't I!

Today wasn't a NSD as I wandered up the road at lunchtime and bought a couple of bunches of those herbs I spotted yesterday. Parsley and Coriander, and some of the parsley has already been used in my dinner tonight! I also stopped at the cashpoint as I AM going to need money for the weekend, so thought I might as well do it as I was passing.

Tonight's food-mystery resolved itself in a buddha-bowl type direction, as I thought it might. I cooked up a double-quantity of lentils (Sorry Greying - no idea what variety - small, and sort of speckledy-green if that helps!) and while they were doing cooked off some mushrooms and the last of the tomatoes I bought the other week, with a dollop of pesto and a handful of roughly chopped parsley. Used brown rice for the base, and threw a handful of rocket on the top for added veg content. Very delicious and good for a "use things up" type meal. :T

The credit card money-shuffle has nearly been done - just waiting for MrEH to shift his share over and I can pay that off to the card and that's it all done for another month. With Christmas on the way I'm trying to keep a track on what's being lumped onto it this month - So far we've both put a tank of diesel in our respective cards, MrEH has put £10 on his Oyster card, and of course there's my airshow tickets and the cost of my flight last weekend - but those are both accounted for away from general spends, of course.

Dinner tomorrow night is set as Rocky's Chicken Korma from Rick Stein's "India" book. I LOVE this book - in fact I love all his books - but the recipes here generally require a lot of tweaks reducing the level of chilli to make them edible for me. This one's a bit different though being a korma. Delightfully aside from the Kashmiri Chilli powder (which I wouldn't have used in any event) I have all the spices required already, and I have chicken portions in the freezer from the bird I cooked last weekend. So I'll need to get coconut and greek yogurt, but that's all. :T

Meal plan is starting to take some form of shape - nothing allocated to days yet, but:
Sausage and lentil casserole (Greying's diary)
Sausage and tomato pasta (possibly as a bake?)
Mutton Stew (this assumes that I get the super 6 veg from Aldi OK tomorrow)
Omelette (him)/Buddha Bowl (me)
Stir fry? (Chicken & Veg)