Dreaming of financial freedom!

Kittenkirst

Hope you’re having all the cuddles with your family.

Free coffee always tastes better i find

ch4rly2002

Thanks KK. I had lots and lots of cuddles, it was wonderful and the free coffee was a hit. We nearly got lost getting to the collection point, the usual entrance has changed to pre-booked slots only and there are loads of cameras there that scan your number plate so we have to back out and drive round until we found the right entrance. I haven't been to Manchester for a while, so maybe I'm out of touch, but the £4 for 30 minutes seemed a bit extortionate, and as we had two cars it worked out quite pricey. Still, a lot cheaper than hiring a taxi or renting a car for the day. B-I-L and his wife aren't happy though, their expensive stroller that they brought over was damaged en-route. It's meant to be very sturdy and came with a special travel case but it still got smashed up so they're trying to get a replacement part for it as they're over here for 5 weeks and it's $1000 for a replacement!

We went to the garden centre near to where we used to live on Saturday and had a look at the Christmas decorations. They're quite pricey and I remember a few years back when we first moved to Yorkshire we spent an absolute fortune on Christmas Decorations. Now we have a new colour scheme and we had already bought some cheap red baubles in the sale last year and I managed to convince DH that the decorations weren't really all that special for the price they were charging so we managed to leave without buying any, which I see as a result! when we got back to Nottingham I heard about a warehouse store nearby, which kind of sounded like Makro or Costco. In reality some things were overpriced or what you would pay in the supermarket, but there was the odd bargain. We managed to get some tinsel that we needed, for a very reasonable price, and a cardboard chest for putting Christmas presents in for the kids that only cost £4.99 so I was happy with my bargains, much more so than I would have been if we'd bought the ones from the GC.

I've set up the basic budget spreadsheet and started making a log of income and expenditure. I want to get a 2019 forecast so I can track what we expect to pay and how much we end up paying so we can see where any extra money has gone and really see the damage that 'one-off' purchases make. We have a few more items we want to get for the house that we're hoping to get on sale after Christmas so I'll factor that in too.

B-I-L 2 is still looking for new cars. He's still shaken and undecided whether he wants to get another car or keep taking the train, but as the in-laws keep having to drive him to the station every day, that's probably not really an option.

I read an article on FB yesterday that said you should have saved one year's salary towards retirement by the time you hit 30. I'm not sure if that just means your pension pot or savings on top of that, and the article was american so there were some differences, but it got me thinking. No way would I be able to save up a year's salary any time soon, but I am going to dig out my pension details and see how much I have saved in there. I'm still aiming towards 6 months worth of bills as my emergency savings target.

ch4rly2002

As the song goes, it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! We have put up our Christmas decorations and it feels so much brighter now. All the lights are LED so I don't feel guilty about having them on all evening, and I don't worry about being hit with a massive energy bill. It's lovely driving round the estate, so many people have put up their decorations and there are lights in every direction you look.

We've had our first couple of Christmas meals with friends. We had one Christmas party that we hosted at our house. DH and I, and our friends are feeling the pinch a bit and as 2 of our friends couldn't make the date of the Christmas party booked with our other friends (work commitments for both parties) we offered to host them at our house, rather than going out for two meals in one week. I think it worked out best for our wallets and our waistlines! We made them a cheese fondue to start with using lovely jazz apple wedges and crackers to dip in the cheese (something we had in America and liked), then for the main we had chicken in white wine and tarragon sauce, jacket potatoes and veggies, then we had stollen for afters. Our friends really liked the stollen but couldn't fit any more in so we sent them home with another big piece to share. With our other friends we went into Nottingham and had the festive menu at Pieminster. The food was good and the company was even better! We then came back to our house to play some board games and have some drinks rather than paying for drinks in town, so I view that a saving

I've just switched mortgage rate on our buy-to-let property as the deal expires at the end of January. We are moving onto a flexible rate where we don't have to pay any arrangement fees and there's no early repayment charge when we sell the house, so it worked out much better than letting it run onto the SVR. We'll be saving £257 a month by moving to this new deal, which is great as I thought we'd have to let it run onto the SVR to avoid locking into a deal with an ERC, so I'm very pleased that the Building society offers a free mortgage advice service.

I have now bought all of the nieces' and nephews' Christmas presents, so I'm almost ready for Christmas. I just have to wrap them now. I also need to send cards out to friends and family, which I'll get done this weekend. I have lots of beautiful Christmas cards. I always end up buying them in the boxing day sales, so I never run down my stock - in fact it grows a little each year. Same with wrapping paper. I've made a vow not to buy any in the sales this year, no matter how tempting it is!

Work is really busy this week. We're doing all the planning for the next financial year, and it's month and quarter end, not to mention the shorter month with people going on holiday soon so it's all hectic! I was working until 12:30 this morning then back again at 7, after already running myself down last week and this week, so to say I am tired is an understatement! Thank goodness I only have tomorrow to work and then I break up for Christmas!!! :beer:

ch4rly2002

Oh, and I forgot to mention, I've done 3 Pinecone surveys this month and OnePoll is up to £16.85

ch4rly2002

Happy New Year! I wish everyone the best of luck for 2019 and I hope you all had a good Christmas break. We had a bit of an odd one. The break didn't get off to the best of starts with DH and I having to do some work over the first 3 days of it, even though we were on annual leave, but hopefully we can take back some of the time next week to balance it out. Our tenants moved out of the rental property on 22nd December so we've been to have a look at the place and it is in quite a mess. Luckily it's mostly cosmetic, but some of it is quite major (wobbly banister, condemned fire and damaged kitchen doors on a model of kitchen that is no longer sold so can't be replaced like-for-like). Our tenants did message on the day they moved out to say that the neighbour is interested in buying the house, so fingers crossed it could be a quick sale if they are genuinely interested. If not, it'll be a case of a lick of paint all round, refitting curtain poles and towels rails that they've taken off and rehung at a sloping angle. We have found similar looking kitchens, so if we take one of the damaged doors off for a colour match we might be able to find a close enough match. However, it does mean that we are now paying 2 mortgages until the house sells, which is not ideal, but at least we will get the capital part back. I am now ringing round companies to get quotes to put things right so I can inform the letting agent how much we want to claim from the deposit. When they asked me how much I want to claim I had a bit of a panic moment as I have no idea how much it all costs and I had assumed they would organise the quotes for repairs as they have done when the tenants have rung with an issue. I think it should be ok if I can get the quotes done in the coming week. I don't want to rip off the tenants by taking too much from their deposit, but I also don't want to be left out of pocket for issues they have caused through neglect so I think getting some quotes will be key here.

We enjoyed Christmas a lot more this year with not spending a fortune on gifts, especially as we have had experiences instead. the meal with B-I-L and his wife at the Boxtree was lovely and one we won't forget. We will be going away for a night with the in-laws towards the end of the month too so we're looking forward to that. Unfortunately our 13 month old nephew had to go to A&E twice on Christmas day (2am and 4pm) with croup and breathing difficulties. They gave him 2 doses of steroids, which really helped and he is fit as a fiddle now. It did mean that we got up late, didn't open presents (small stocking fillers) until later in the afternoon and half the family were missing for Christmas dinner so we ate in 2 sittings. The main thing was that nephew was looked after though. Boxing day went better. Nephew was more like his usual self and we had a lovely meal at Shibden Mill Inn. I'd recommend there as well if anyone is in the West Yorkshire area.

We then hosted my family at our house, so it felt like we were having another shot at Christmas. The children loved their presents and we had done stockings with little bits in for everyone. Mum and I had gone halves on the shopping so the only thing my brothers had to pay for was a £25 contribution towards a take-away that we had one night. Our nieces and nephew are 7, 6, 4 and 4 so they're at a great age now. We had lots of fun playing with them, talking to them, dancing with them and going on a walk round Rufford Abbey / lake with them. My brothers and their wives didn't stay up until midnight on NYE. My sister-in-law was upset about her dad (he dies 2 days after mine) and everyone else wanted to get sleep. DH, mum and I stayed up and at midnight we went into my mum's lounge where she had dad's ashes and photo with a candle and we said a few words to him. It is really strange to think that this is the first year that my dad will never see. We were closing the door on our most painful year and looking forward to the year ahead. Hopefully that will include us all getting healthier and, fingers crossed, the pitter-patter of tiny feet, or at least a bump, here's hoping.

We're back at work now, tired but happy. Thankfully we haven't got too massive of a credit card bill coming this month so we can recover quicker than in previous years. I'm hoping the house sells quickly and that we have a good year ahead of us!

ch4rly2002

Well, we've been busy sorting out the rental property to sell. It's a real mess. the tenants have destroyed the kitchen (water damage, tap falling into the sink with bits missing from it, supporting beam under sink removed, water damage on about 50% of the doors and carcass etc.), every room has badly filled holes and painted in odd colours, so many broken things, paint on the PVCu patio doors (that took 2 hours just to remove the paint), radiators rusting and hanging off the wall, broken banister, badly replaced sink and not to mention the filth. We've spent quite a bit of time cleaning and repairing and it's getting back to the house we knew and loved. We have submitted a claim to get all of the deposit back (I listed out the cost to put right about half of the issues and it came to well over their deposit amount), and the tenants have disputed it so now we have to wait for the deposit company to make a decision. We were round at the weekend painting the front door and the next door neighbour told us they'd been running a childminding business from the house, without ever asking permission from us or telling the letting agent. It now makes sense how they've managed to do so much damage in such a short time Hopefully we should hear back fairly soon about the deposit, our letting agent told the deposit company about the childminding business so hopefully that works in our favour.
another neighbour has expressed an interest in purchasing the house, so fingers crossed that works out. That would save us the estate agent fees as we'd only have to pay for a solicitor, but it depends on what offer he comes back with and his timescales. He looked at the house twice while the tenants were moving out and he is still keen (probably because it's next door to him and has a driveway that he and his wife could park their expensive cars on). If he can't get the funds (he has a meeting with his bank tomorrow), changes his mind or gives a low offer we'll go with the estate agent we have lined up and get it on the market soon. There's a repossession on the street that has just sold after over 50 viewings so they have a list of people interested. I'm hoping it sells quickly so we can pay off the in-laws and have some left over. I'll be glad to get rid of this stress. Speaking of stress, time to do my tax return

ch4rly2002

Just updated my signature, which always makes me feel like I'm making progress.

I've also just caught up on OnePoll and it's currently at £17.90, so not too much longer to go. I've downloaded the new OnePoll app and I think it's great. I'm hoping this will help keep me going and really progress as it's so quick and convenient to pull out my phone and do a quick survey. I haven't had a Pinecone one in a while and Prolific seems to be dead at the moment for me as well.

I have some items to list on fleebay, so that's the plan for one evening this week. It's a while since I listed on the bay of flee so I need to get back into the swing of it. I forgot how much motivation it takes to get going, but I will kick myself up the bum to do it. Now that we are paying 2 mortgages and bills every penny will count!

themadvix

That's really rubbish about the house. You'd better get your deposit back! I would have thought you'd be able to claim for some more legal redress based on the fact they were running a business without your consent (and insurance, no doubt). But I appreciate that that depends on whether you think it's worth pursuing.

Good luck with ebay!

ch4rly2002

Thanks Madvix. We're considering taking them to small claims court, depending on the outcome of the deposit claim and some advice from CA. Our letting agent has submitted our evidence for the deposit claim to the third party deposit company so they will now review what we have submitted and look at anything the tenants have submitted and will come back to us with a decision. The letting agents have warned us that the deposit company sees the deposit money as the tenants' money so you have to write a really strong case for why the tenants are to blame and why you are claiming that amount. She said they tend to favour the tenants and may decide to only allow a portion of the claim so who knows what we'll end up with, if anything. I think it's pretty disgusting considering the state they left the house in. I think they'e swung way too far in favour of tenants and while I understand it was put in place to protect tenants from landlords unjustly keeping deposits, surely they should be impartial and decide based on facts. It's so wrong that tenants can ruin a house and the landlord has to fight to get even some of the deposit back.

The house has now been cleaned top to bottom as well as we can do it. There are some places that will need another go at tackling but at least for now it smells a lot better and you don't stick to the floor or leave feeling grimy. Next door has submitted a good offer, but they haven't yet shown us proof of deposit or mortgage in principal, and I haven't heard from the solicitor he told us he'd appointed on Monday. It all seems a little odd that he keeps saying he's going to see the bank 'tomorrow' and then nothing materialises. DH and I have decided to give him until Saturday to provide the proof to back up his offer,and if we don't see anything we're putting it on the market. I suspect he won't produce anything as he said he wanted to complete in May because he gets his bonuses in April. He mentioned once that they could do it without but they would be pushing themselves, however when we asked if they could do it any sooner he stuck to May so I suspect it's dependent on him getting his bonuses. If that's the case, it seems really risky as we know from our experience that bonuses aren't necessarily guaranteed. We've always had good bonuses in the past and then one year they just stopped without notice and we haven't had any since. As it will be after Brexit and he works in the City, his bonus could be at risk so that makes me feel rather uncomfortable. We've had Purple Bricks round to value the property and they were so much more interested and knowledgeable than the high street estate agent that valued it first. this lady seems like she is keen to sell it and gave a load of great ideas for marketing the property. She took some pictures while she was there and they looked great, so we'll putting it on with PB if we don't hear from the neighbour. Not only that, the commission is half the price of the high street estate agent and we had a much better feeling about her.

themadvix

That sounds really tough and I agree that it's unfair on good landlords who are taken advantage of. Surely running a business from the property without your knowledge or permission counts as a gross breach of contract though? Your landlord's insurance wouldn't have covered it and you didn't have any evidence that they had appropriate 3rd party/business insurance (in fact, on the 3rd party bit, as it was your property if it hadn't been in a good state of repair and someone had had an accident, surely you'd have been liable and uninsured). I hope they don't get away with it!

I think you're probably leaning towards putting it on the market and I'd agree, especially if he's relying on his bonus to be able to buy!