Sort of debt-free but hope to be a super-scrimper in 2019

Lifeisforliving19

Well done on the sales. Had to laugh at the woman coming back at the end when you had sold them all.... :rotfl: We have had similar experiences at car boot sales.

[Deleted User]

Lifeisforliving19 wrote: »

Well done on the sales. Had to laugh at the woman coming back at the end when you had sold them all.... :rotfl: We have had similar experiences at car boot sales.

Thanks, Lifeisforliving:)

Please don't start me off about car boot sale happenings:rotfl:. I once nearly had to use force to separate two women who were doing a 'tug of war' with a travel bag that they wanted to buy from me:eek:


When I started my diary I intended to write something most days but I'm sorry to say that I've already failed dismally in that aim:o. Real life has a nasty habit of scuppering the best of intentions:(

I've been busy anyway trying to find some saleable items for the Table Top Sale on Saturday. I almost have enough to take now, just need to polish a few things and iron the clothes that I've already washed to sell.


My friend, several years older than me, whose husband died last year has moved to the other end of the country to stay with and care for her brother who has Dementia. She is finding it a real struggle and it looks as if residential care for him is fast becoming the only option. Although it's her home town she left when she married and has no friends or social networks there nowadays. She phoned recently and asked me to go and stay for a few days and we've fixed it up for me to go on Sunday. I want to drive there as it will be nice for us all to go out to places in the car and my friend doesn't drive. I hate driving in really bad weather conditions, I did enough of that when I had a very long commute to work on a lot of very rural and treacherous winter roads:eek:. The weather forecast looks good at the moment though so it looks like all systems go:j. Now I just need to find some halfway decent clothes to take with me. I haven't bought anything new for years and don't want to start now if I can help it. My friend is a really smart dresser and if we go out anywhere I don't want to look like a bag lady:eek:


Another problem this past week has been that our house electrics keep 'tripping out'. We need a full rewire, the emergency electrician who restored our service one freezing black night when everything had been off for hours and wouldn't allow itself to be reset by normal means told us our wiring is so old and no longer fit for purpose. He had to isolate the majority of the sockets from the 'fuse box' or whatever the modern equivalent is called. At least that's a newer addition and does away with having to use fuse wire every time anything 'blew'. OH is really handy at fixing most things but he shies away from anything electrical so that's always been my job. The electrician just left us able to use a few safe sockets which has been a real bind and I've written at length about the trials and tribulations of that on various people's diaries:o. We can't get anyone to do the rewire before I go away and I really don't want them doing it in my absence as I want some sockets in different places while they're at it. If I leave OH in charge of it we won't get what we really need:(. He's all for doing things as cheaply as possible, he needs a general anaesthetic to spend any money, but we've had to put up with a lot of inconvenient and inadequate electrics in this house for decades.It's the only chance I'll have to get it right and want to be here to supervise it;)


I'll try to be back before I go away on Sunday but am rationing my electrical use as much as possible. I don't have any internet-enabled devices apart from my laptop and yesterday the electrics were so 'iffy' that I couldn't fully charge it.

At least the sun is trying to shine already this morning and the sky is blue with only a few clouds:j. Have a good day, everone:beer:

Karmacat

Have a lovely stay with your friend, CBC - but yes, a rewire before Sunday is not on! Have you had a meeting with an electrician yet, so it can start up when you return, or is that in the future too? Anyway, hope it all goes well.

Lifeisforliving19

Ooh yes, sounds like you should get rewired ASAP, electrics are always a bit worrying.


I'm sure your friend won't mind what you are wearing, but I hope you find something suitable...maybe a quick whizz round a couple of CS's is in order. I love doing that and always seem to find something I like.:)

HairyHandofDartmoor

Have a lovely lovely time visiting your friend Carboot. Have you got time to look for any clothes in the charity shops? Anyway I'm sure your friend will be so pleased to see you that she won't worry about what you're wearing. Have a safe journey and a fantastic visit. And make sure you tell us all about it when you get back too .

It will be great for you to finally get the rewiring done but you should definitely be there to supervise and direct operations .

[Deleted User]

Karmacat wrote: »

Have a lovely stay with your friend, CBC - but yes, a rewire before Sunday is not on! Have you had a meeting with an electrician yet, so it can start up when you return, or is that in the future too? Anyway, hope it all goes well.

Sorry not to have responded to your post quicker, KC. I wasn't ignoring you:o

This is a clay area (as I think it is where you live) and houses locally are prone to subsidence. We had some work done under our insurance in the early 1990s but more major cracks have appeared since then including one in the solid floor under the lounge carpet which is pretty scary actually:eek:. They monitored the cracks for over a year in the 1990s (all wall cracks then) and eventually decided that the movement had stopped and full underpinning wasn't needed. They did some structural work then under the insurance but we now think if full underpinning had been done then it might have fixed things more long-term. We have consulted builders who said it is definitely subsidence and we need to put in an insurance claim. That is now ongoing and we are still awaiting a visit from the insurer's structural surveyor. Our hands are a bit tied in the meantime as there's no point having the electrics done if a lot of the walls are going to be chopped away when the building work is being done.


We have had a couple of quotes for the rewiring already when we thought all we would need to 'make good' afterwards was a bit of internal plastering and decorating. OH decided the quotes were too high and was going to skimp on what we actually had done, such as a partial rewire even though all the wiring dates from early 1970s and is not fit for purpose:mad:. He's been looking for a cheaper electrician (false economy IMO) but now it's all a bit up in the air as the subsidence issue has taken more prominence.


By trial and error I managed to work out which of the remaining usable sockets are blowing the main fuse and we'll just have to manage with the others. I quite relish the wartime spirit of soldiering on through adversity. Good job I do in this house:rotfl:


By the way, the visit to stay with my friend is off for the time being. Her son is coming over from Canada the following week after my planned visit to help her sort out the residential care situation for her brother ( a widower with no children). It's the only week he can manage to have the time off from his work. All things considered I'm happy about delaying my 'holiday' until later in the year. I'm just too stressed by things generally at the moment to be able to go away with a clear mind.

HairyHandofDartmoor

I can see why you're worried about possible subsidence Carboot but try not to worry more than you need to, iyswim. Will your house insurance cover the costs involved? I hope you hear back soon about what needs doing. Try not to get too anxious as I'm sure it's all fixable .

It's just as well your visit to your friend has been postponed, as you'll enjoy it more when all this is sorted out, as hopefully it will be by then .

Karmacat

What Hairy Hand said, exactly. Can you give yourself something comparatively nice while you're at home this weekend, to stop yourself fretting?

[Deleted User]

HairyHandofDartmoor wrote: »

I can see why you're worried about possible subsidence Carboot but try not to worry more than you need to, iyswim. Will your house insurance cover the costs involved? I hope you hear back soon about what needs doing. Try not to get too anxious as I'm sure it's all fixable .

It's just as well your visit to your friend has been postponed, as you'll enjoy it more when all this is sorted out, as hopefully it will be by then .

Thanks, HH:)

We're hoping the insurance will cover it. Our last subsidence claim in 1991 ended up being for £8000 and that was just for major cracks in the walls. It wasn't just a case of replastering, most of the walls had to be chopped back to bare brick inside and repaired before recementing and then plastering. That was the price they offered, we hadn't a clue what it should be. A friend saw our floor crack (which has only just become evident as it's covered by thick carpet) and he says his Mother had something similar and they had to chop up all her solid floors and redo the foundations. As well as lots of structural work to her walls and complete 'making good' which included decorating, the total cost amounted to £55K:eek:. They paid for hotel accommodation for 6 weeks whilst it was being done. I'm not panicking unduly and we were prepared to have a builder do what he can with the wall cracks and just live with it if the insurance don't pay out. Now there is the floor damage which is much more serious and the cost of us paying for all that if the insurers don't will be prohibitive. I agree it is all fixable but at what cost? Because of the settlement of one side of the house our side door is practically impossible to open as the frame has warped under the stress. I think the stress of it all has warped me as well:eek:

[Deleted User]

Karmacat wrote: »

What Hairy Hand said, exactly. Can you give yourself something comparatively nice while you're at home this weekend, to stop yourself fretting?

Thanks for your concern, Karmacat:kisses3:

I can't really afford the time to pamper myself as we're trying to clear as much out of the house as we can so the surveyor has full access to every wall. We want to make it easy to roll back all the downstairs carpets so he can inspect the cracked floor without us having to move lots of stuff out of his way at the last minute. The floor crack we discovered in the lounge isn't just a hairline crack, it's like a geological Faultline about 2 metres long. A definite 'step' with one side higher than the other. I'm not sure being physically busy will take my mind off things as each time we move a piece of furniture away from the wall we spot another crack:eek:. Maybe I'll be so tired I'll sleep well but I never had much trouble with sleeplessness anyway however bad my problems have been in the past. I could sleep on a washing line as my dad used to say:rotfl:. OH rang the insurers again today and they say the structural surveyor/engineer or whatever he's called will definitely be in touch on Monday morning to confirm which day next week he'll be visiting.