Champagne Lifestyle on a Lemonade Budget.

helensbiggestfan

Flowers are nature's Chanel.......one bunch of flowers, £2.79 from Aldi, divided into 2 vases.    A little bit of luxury for pennies.  Hopefully by the time these are finished I will be able to raid my garden and have flowers for free.  

helensbiggestfan

Just typed a post and then lost it. Grrrrrrr.

anyway......

Good Morning  my lovely friends.  

Champagne moment .....last nights storm.  After hitting 35 yesterday, the storm has cooled things down and freshened the air.  Much better.  Hopefully I can get out in the garden over the weekend , although I also have to do some serious cleaning - the house is rather a mess and I have a pile of ironing.  

My other champagne moments..........first week of my diet and I have lost 4lbs.  Also yesterday I had my 6th chiro appt.  Both the weight loss and the chiro are starting to work their magic and I'm feeling so much better. I finally seem to have found my mojo. 💃

Overpaid the mortgage yesterday, Upping the overpayment to £250.  Wahoo.  My goal is to start 2021 at sub £40k. 

So here's my targets.......

lose 19.5lbs by Christmas.  

Finish Chiro in mid November - be pain free, fitter, stronger, more supple and flexible 

Make mortgage overpayments to get me down to the £39k range.  

All whilst tackling the garden and house renovations. 😂🤣

have a great weekend.  Keep those champagne moments flowing.  

joedenise

Well done on the weight loss, that's a brilliant first week loss; and also on the mortgage overpayment.  Glad the Chiro appointments are helping.

You're certainly going in the right direction to be fitter, slimmer and mortgage down by the end of the year!

sugarbaby125

My Champagne moment was treating myself to having my oven professionally cleaned. It cost me £58 with Fantastic services and was money well spent as it is sparkling clean.   

I did not hit my monthly savings goal of £400 in July as I had a lot of outgoings with my grandson's 21st birthday, oven cleaning and my Boots online order but I did manage to save £120 in July so now I have £5,175 in my savings account 

LL you are making good headway with all of your fabbing goals for this year   

Wednesday2000

My champagne moment was my weekend away at the coast in a hotel. It felt like total luxury after being cooped up for so long. The hotel was very nice for the very cheap price and it was so lovely to eat out in a restaurant again. It was gorgeous weather if slightly too hot!

sugarbaby125

My Champagne moments yesterday were all to do with celebrating my great niece's 10th birthday with family and friends. I tried not to look frumpy and I put on make up and layered my perfume with the matching shower gel, body powder and body lotion

My older daughter. She always dresses this colourul and it is a great reflection of her personality. My sister H is in the background

helensbiggestfan

Fabulous photos Sugarbaby.  Good to hear you had such a fun time.  Well done on the savings too, it's mounting up nicely now.  

Wednesday.......glad your weekend went well.  It's so nice to have a little break from everything.  It does us good.  Did you search for your dream house.  

Thanks Joedenise.....yes hopefully I'm back on track now.  It's good to have my mojo back.  😂

I'm back in the game.........😉

Wednesday2000

helensbiggestfan said:

Wednesday.......glad your weekend went well.  It's so nice to have a little break from everything.  It does us good.  Did you search for your dream house.  

We were looking more at the different areas and we think we have picked a location we really like now and I have set up alerts on Rightmove.

It's hard to know what is best to do as the stamp duty holiday in until March but that might be too fast for us. It's such a strange time to be thinking about moving house as nobody seems to know exactly what will happen with the pandemic.

phoebe1989seb

Pretty flowers, LL..... so pleased you've got your mojo back 

Glad you had a great weekend away, Wednesday! Hopefully it has given you a first hand experience of the different areas you are considering.....

Sugarbaby, super pics..... I'm loving your eldest daughter's colourful style. She looks fabulous!

I did more fiddly work on the cabinets yesterday, whilst DH almost finished the T&G cladding on the seating area walls.....till he ran out of timber

Today it's been teamwork as we began applying the botanical prints. We're both delighted with how things are progressing but it will be a day or two before they're both complete. Pics to follow asap 

Had a lovely champagne worthy supper of tapas and wine last night! Yesterday I was thrilled to see a few more of the bare root roses opening up as well as the hydrangea paniculatas looking fab.....

helensbiggestfan

Ooh exciting......

timewise.........hard to say.  The market is quite buoyant at the moment. Im sure the right opportunity it will present itself.  I think being mentally prepared is half the battle.  Then just get all your ducks in a row, have your house More or less "sale ready" and then when the time comes you are ready to go, 

Last time I might moved, after months of the property market stagnating, I suddenly noticed on my daily walks a few sold signs appearing.   The renovations were more or less finished  so I rang the agents.  They said the market is great, your area is hot right now and you have done a cracking job, the house will fly.  And it did.  Sold within a couple of weeks for the asking price.  

That was 2018. We bought it in 2014. And in that time the area had gentrified a little.  It was a good move. 

Obviously nothing could happen during this spring and there's a lot of pent up demand, plus the stamp duty Holiday will be tempting for a lot of people.  

I would say now......or wait until after a decent interlude when the stamp duty offer finishes because when it does the market could well slow down for a little while afterwards.  

I am aiming to move again as you know. I'm not ready yet so the stamp duty thing doesn't figure in my plans. In all probability I'm looking at 2022/2023. 

Although I'm always open minded.  😂