My journey to a debt free life

Honeysucklelou2

Hope the new boiler appears soon and you can be warm. I lived with a broken boiler for 2 years and remember how hard it was to dry washing and ensure warmth with a couple of electric oil heaters. 

foxgloves

What a massively productive day, @Onebrokelady. Here's hoping that the wretched boiler problem will be sorted soon, now that you have someone coming to look at it.
Agree re emergency funds. It is pretty grim how quickly they evaporate in the face of an expensive necessity. I'm sure you will be motivated enough to have a frugal year. You will feel better seeing your fund build up again. At least your new boiler should have a decent warranty period, so that is one expense that shouldnt occur again for several years.
Anyway fingers & paws crossed here that you will soon have the problem resolved.
F x

Onebrokelady

Cherryfudge said:

Well done for all that - you must be feeling a bit better! (I hope so).

It's rough that you can't decrease your hours as hoped, but don't let go of the fact that having the emergency fund has made a big difference, and also it should be a good while before the new boiler needs repair, so perhaps you can take that out of the sums for a year or so.

So - new career as a tree surgeon, or possibly open your own laundry? You do seem to be versatile!

Feeling loads better thanks. I'm so glad that I had my emergency fund to put towards the bill as it would have been impossible to do otherwise. Funny you should mention being a tree surgeon because I listened to a podcast last year about this woman who recovered from Fibromyalgia and she became a tree surgeon 😀

Onebrokelady

SusieT said:

Onebrokelady said:

Feeling slightly more human today 🎉🎉🎉which is good news because while my brain was keeping me awake last night I remembered that the boiler people will need to get onto the roof and the monster bay tree is in the way of where their ladder will have to go 🙀so I'm off out in a minute to give it a drastic haircut. Wish  me luck because it's currently as tall as the house 🙀 luckily I have good extendable loppers and a big ladder so should be able to get to it all

I just took B up to the fields for a good walk and we were accosted by a pack of lurchers that were off lead. There were five of them and they were all playing fighting with each other which lots of snarling and biting going on, of course as soon as they saw B they all made a bee line for her, the owners were just laughing and inefficiently calling them away in that tone reserved for naughty toddlers that you can't control. I put B behind me but she still managed to lunge at one of them. Why oh why don't people keep their dogs away from a dog on the lead who is clearly not happy being surrounded by a pack of out of control dogs, I swear next time this happens I'm just going to let her decide how it plays out and I can guarantee they won't like the result 😡

Anyway enough moaning which is all I seem to do nowadays,I'm off outside to attack the beanstalk 🌳 

People with out of control dogs are so annoying and dangerous Those you met being lurchers and pack/hunting ancestry could easily have killed a dog if it had been insecure and snapped at them as it is whet their genes tell them to do. Expletive idiots for owners, who need to have a talking to from the dog warden before they cause a nasty incident. Gives good dog owners a bad name

That's what worried me,there were five of them altogether and they were all snarling at each other and biting each other, it looked like play fighting to me but I know how easily that can change into something else. B would have bitten one of them if I hadn't held onto her and put myself in the way and it would have ended very badly for both of us.
I had a German shepherd once who was terrified of other dogs ( another rescue who wasn't socialised as a puppy) and he was attacked one day while out on a walk and I was badly bitten on my arm trying to keep the other dog away from him. I'm always wary that a situation can get out of hand very quickly 

Onebrokelady

milann said:

Wow what a productive day. I really hope they can get the boiler sorted for you on Wednesday. I know the emergency fund will be wiped out, but that’s exactly what emergency funds are for…….you’d ah e been well and truly up that famous creek without a paddle, had you not had it. At least you should have no boiler worries for a long time now.

I think I'm just worrying now in case something else needs repairing or replacing. I just have to hope nothing else breaks until I can save up again 🤞🤞

Onebrokelady

Willowtree222 said:

Fingers crossed all goes to plan with the boiler this week x

Thanks Willow 

Onebrokelady

Honeysucklelou2 said:

Hope the new boiler appears soon and you can be warm. I lived with a broken boiler for 2 years and remember how hard it was to dry washing and ensure warmth with a couple of electric oil heaters. 

You are made of sterner stuff than me,I would never last that long with out a boiler 🙀I think maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I still had my tumble dryer so I could at least get my washing dry. I've been happy over the weekend because it was windy so I pegged it out to dry 😊

Onebrokelady

foxgloves said:

What a massively productive day, @Onebrokelady. Here's hoping that the wretched boiler problem will be sorted soon, now that you have someone coming to look at it.
Agree re emergency funds. It is pretty grim how quickly they evaporate in the face of an expensive necessity. I'm sure you will be motivated enough to have a frugal year. You will feel better seeing your fund build up again. At least your new boiler should have a decent warranty period, so that is one expense that shouldnt occur again for several years.
Anyway fingers & paws crossed here that you will soon have the problem resolved.
F x

Thanks Foxgloves I'm hoping and praying that they can do the job. I'm still hoping they will turn up and announce that the boiler can be repaired and doesn't actually need replacing but realistically I know this is highly unlikely. I am up for the challenge of an extra frugal year so hopefully it will  build up quite quickly again 

Onebrokelady

I had a good day at work today with some cute children coming through the clinics. I'm feeling loads better today but still haven't felt like eating a meal, I've just had cereal, sandwich's and toast. I am hungry but just don't feel like eating much, I'm sure my appetite will return soon 😀

I came home and had a snack for tea, took B out for her evening walk then had a lovely hot shower. I put the heater on and both the cats plonked themselves down in front of it but I have noticed one of the bulbs has stopped working so I will have to investigate that when I stop using it, I just hope it doesn't pack up before the heating is fixed.

I also got the invoice for the work to repair the leaky pipe today plus the initial visit to diagnose the problem so that's £216 less in the bank to put towards my new boiler thankfully DD2 told me this evening that she wants to give me some money to put towards it which is so lovely of her. I have been offered the choice of two boilers, one is the economy brand ( Ideal) which is a good brand but it only has a 5 year warranty, the other is a more expensive one and a very reliable brand ( Worcester/Bosch) and it has a 10 year warranty but it's going to be out of my price range once they add on VAT. DD is quite keen for me to go for the dearer one with the longer warranty so has offered to help with the cost, I just can't decide what to do but hopefully after speaking to them tomorrow the decision will be easier.

I couldn't sleep last night, one reason was because I am panicking about spending all my money and the thought of all the things that could go wrong once it's gone and the other reason was because my nose was freezing 🥶🥶

Cherryfudge

I think a hot water bottle might be good investment!

I've no experience of the Ideal boiler. We have a Worcester boiler and it's gone seven or eight years now with nothing more serious than a weird rattling which turned out to be dead bees that had got into the vent. Sad, but solvable. Your daughter is lovely trying to help and I wouldn't hold back too much as she is benefitting too. I wonder if there's some sort of instalment plan you could use to spread the cost of whichever you go for, or does your workplace do loans against salary?

We added one of our major costs - I can't remember if it was heating or electrics - to the mortgage, a good choice in that we had a safe and effective system but not such a good one in that I wasn't mentally together enough to get it paid back before the additional loan went onto standard rates. I don't know if some sort of loan is an option or whether you'd want one if you had it - I suppose the EF is essentially to avoid things like that and if you had additional costs at least the EF would have deferred you taking out extra finance. Not something to get into if you can avoid it, I guess, but you have to balance that against possible effects on your health.

I hope you go on feeling better and get your appetite back.