Cheery's country living adventure

Fortune_Smiles

Hi Cheery. I wouldn't pay the builder's final invoice until all the snagging has been done. We had a garage built when in Kent and paid the builder the full amount taking his word that he would be back to fix a few minor issues. He never returned

I bought my subscription to C0untry L1f£ with T£$c0 vouchers. I don't think I'll renew it though - I'm not finding it particularly inspiring.

Hope Building Regs pronounced the lintel sound. Do mention it though. One of the steel lentils at our old house failed and the brickwork above started coming down :eek:

Fortune x

Cheery_Daff

That's what Mr Cheery's afraid of (the builder not fixing stuff) - although he's coming back on Thursday anyway to fit new lintels, and in a couple of weeks for more windows, so I suppose if there'sany funny business I just won't pay for those things until everything is done...

Eek to your lintel :eek: in reality we will definitely mention it - no point not doing while everything's stripped out.

Bought oil and some kind of oil leak fixed (which might work, or might not...). Will attempt that when I get back, just having an unwise and quite grumpy trip to the supermarket on the way home...

redofromstart

The neighbours builders (came to grovel about stacking rubbish up my gable wall making the damp worse etc) and said that if we couldn't replace the external wooden lintels we should apply anti rot stuff, and paint over which was better than no fix at all.

Cheery_Daff

That sounds like a plan redo - hopefully buildings regs geezer will say that tomorrow... But if they need doing I'd far rather do them than have the wall fall down!! :eek:

So we have been putting our thinking caps on about the amount of dosh that is leaving our hands at the minute :eek: Mr Cheery has identified a few things that he can sell that are just lying around not getting used, so that's a good start, and he reckons he'll be able to get around £1000 or so for those, based on recent sold prices :money:

I've cancelled the magazine subscriptions, and I'll cancel the professional subscription I referred to before, and there's a professional membership thing that's up for renewal soon that I won't renew.

And we've decided we're going to have Thriftvember :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: Makes these things more fun giving them a silly name, doesn't it?? :rotfl:

I did spend £26 on car-fixing things, and another £30 in the supermarket :eek: So not a good start (but I guess Thriftvember hasn't actually started yet... )

I've got lunches and snacks for work all week in my bag to leave at work so I don't have to remember them :money:

Going to get to work early to go to the gym :j Not exactly thrifty as I did pay for the whole year upfront but with the discount it worked out at £11 a month, so I suppose the trick is to make good use of it :rotfl:

And I've realised I've got various points etc stashed on various loyalty cards - will have a think about whether it makes sense to use those now or save them towards Christmas :eek:

Have already started a Christmas present list :eek: Every year I vow to have everything bought before the end of November (or Thriftvember :rotfl: ) and I've never managed it. Maybe this is the year?? No panic buying the week before??

Making no promises on that one :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Oh! And I noticed the electricity company has finally got with the programme and reduced our DD from £95 to £53 from next month so that will make a nice difference! Of course I imagine it will go back up... but I shall endeavour to keep an eye on it and send meter readings so at least it's accurate.

Just need to get on top of the gas next nothing I can do price wise as tied into a 2 year contract til about August I think and not much choice anyway in LPG world... but we can keep an eye on what we're using. Tank was still at about 70% when I looked last week so shouldn't need any for a while. I'm not sure how their calculations work - they guessed the first year, and then after that put our DD up from £84 to £151 - can't imagine they'll put it back down again...

Next contract I'm tempted to ditch the DD and just pay each time we have a tank full - feels like it gives us a bit more control and the price is fixed anyway. Not sure what happens now - do we end up with a refund at the end of the contract? Or do we just stop paying the DD even if we've got a whole tank left? Who knows.

Got a few months to work that one out.

Next job is pesky car replacement :eek: mr Cheery did make a passing suggestion of managing with just one for a while :eek: but I confess I dismissed that wholesale - I think my head would explode with the logistics of having to coordinate and we'd both spend a lot of time hanging round waiting for the other one, and what if the remaining car broke down?? No.

Found a few new potential ones for £700 - £800 so will investigate further this week.

Cheery_Daff

Evening chums :hello:

Bit of a vexing day, what with double booked rooms, missed appointments (in one case ME making a mistake and leaving someone waiting ) things not QUITE being sorted out properly, people cross about things that they know aren't my fault but are vexing nevertheless...

Still, I got a free parking space, and squeezed in an early morning gym visit before work :j And it was a lovely drive to and from work today in the sunshine :j

I took lunch and snacks so didn't buy anything while I was there, and didn't stop in the shop on the way home :money:

Building Regs Geezer has been :j Looks like the floor won't fall down :j But they do need to do a bit of extra packing behind the joists and tighten the bolts holding the joists to the wall (which are currently just finger tight - why??)

So that's reassuring in the sense that the whole lot doesn't need to come down :eek: and this is an easy fix :j but it does just make you slightly mistrust their judgement

Interestingly, he reckons the lintel we suspected isn't actually that bad underneath and still has a solid heart. Just a personal opinion, but he says he has some in a similar state in his house that he's not planning to replace any time soon. Bit torn now - it's tempting to do it anyway while everything is ripped out, BUT it's clearly not NECESSARY, and there are other more pressing things to spend on... (like electrics - keep wilfully ignoring those but we will have to get someone to do something with them in the kitchen at least, there are just random wires everywhere...)

So clearly it would have been better if everything had been completely fine but at least nothing drastic needs doing and he's going to email the builders himself to explain so that's good

I'll likely just pay up now - they're back on Thursday for other bits anyway, and if absolutely necessary we can do it ourselves.

Anyway, other financial stuff...

- had email from electric people wanting a meter reading so I'll do that tomorrow

- in the spirit of Thriftvember Mr Cheery suggested we just do a couple of small presents for each other this year, and I've agreed. We don't go overboard but could easily spend £150 between us and not have that much to show for it.

I'm keeping a running of list of presents for other people and will pick up things as and when I see them. Already got a couple of small things and will dig them out to make sure I don't duplicate.

So not too bad overall :j

themadvix

Hey Cheery, I don’t know what your circuit board os like, but when we had our kitchen done we had it replaced with a consumer unit (it was recommended and I’m not sure how happy the electricians would have been to leave it as an old board). This meant though that they had to do a check of the whole house... and wouldn’t have signed it off until all remedial stuff had been done... Just thought I should warn you - our electrician’s bill was almost as much as the IKEA kitchen itself! I’m sure you’ve got it all under control though.

Liking the idea of Thriftvember! I need to find my motivation somewhere... it disappeared in the summer and I’m wondering if it accidentally got put out with the recycling...

Cheery_Daff

Ha, I don't have the electricity under control at all!! :eek: we have been wholesale ignoring the whole thing, and only really started to seriously consider it the other day when Building Regs geezer said because of the new open plan layout we'd need connected smoke alarms upstairs and down, wired into the mains, "but of course that'll be a simple matter for the electrician when they're sorting everything else" :eek:

We'd obviously thought broadly about it... but because we're doing so much of the work ourselves there's no fixed end point, so we hadn't got an electrician in as part of the deal. No idea what kind of system we're on. House is all over the place, wires everywhere.

Not in a position to pay an electrician more than the cost of a kitchen though :eek: we'll have a small period of recovery once the builders have gone (while we buy a new car...) then start getting a couple of quotes. Do NOT want the whole house doing, just dealing with the wires everywhere in the bit we've had the building work done in.

Anyway... builders are back today - neither of us are there so we've sent them an embarrassingly long email (incorporating what building regs said) and left them a note too probably overkill but it's good to be clear I think... :rotfl:

Hoping everything's been doing (at least the essential stuff) when we get back... :eek:

Cheery_Daff

Bit of spending yesterday. About £13 in the cafe (we were there for quite a long time...) and then we nipped to the super.srket and spent £8 on booze oh dear!! Definitely eating and drinking our stress at the minute... :rotfl:

Both came to the city this morning, and Mr Cheery joined me at work for breakfast - £4.99 for porridge and a hot drink for both of us, including a reusable cup for Mr Cheery - not exactly thrifty but also not toooo bad at £2.50 each.

I've brought lunch and snacks (although I've eaten all the snacks already, oh dear!) Looks like the tea kitty has run out of milk so I'll have to pop down to the cafe to get some, will try to avoid the call of cake while I'm there! :eek:

themadvix

Hope the builders did what they were meant to!

Breakfast sounded like a bargain!