My mortgage clobbering post

Frith

Thought I’d do a quick update!

Still waiting for help with smaller son. He’ll be leaving college in July and literally nothing has been sorted for that.

I also need to start saving. I did a fair amount of shopping after paying off the mortgage (just food, paint for the house etc) then I took son to a hotel and to watch his team play football.

So only £500 saved since October! 

Frith

Another update! 

Nothing ever was sorted by college or the County Council so son2 left college in July and is in the house permanently. Not having to make him engage with education has cut my (and his) stress level noticeably. He did pass 3 GCSEs which will be useful if he wants to start anything in future. 

My child benefit has gone (reasonably enough) plus the minimum of child maintenance. I had a letter from them asking if I want to pursue the ex husband's debt of £1500. Yes, please! He has only ever paid £7 a week so you can see how many years he refused to pay that...

My UC plummeted to £151 in September so I have queried that. We will soon be getting thin living on just that plus carer's allowance. It doesn't cover our electricity bill! 

I'm tentatively looking for work but don't want to leave son2 for too long. Hopefully something interesting and fairly local will turn up.

All savings gone thanks to the car MOT then needing two thirds of a new exhaust today. No heating in the house (like many people) so it's 15⁰ inside. I need to sort some logs out and go back to using the stove. We managed with no heating for 21 years but have gone weedy since getting central heating last year. 

Frith

Another update! I need to get my life in order...

Son1 moved out 2 weeks ago and now rents a house with his girlfriend. I have been round to help with the garden and also went for lunch on mother's day. 

Son2 is at home. He is less aggressive but only goes out now (with me) to watch his local football team play. 

My house has been on the market since November. The very first person to look round made a low offer and don't I wish I had accepted it now! I've only had 4 people look round in total and no offers since I turned that first one down. Someone else is coming on Friday. Keeping it tidy and then having huge clean ups before each visit is getting wearing...

I need to get a job but am struggling to find something without Saturday hours (I need to take my son to the football). I have put my name down again for quite a lot of work for the elections and have also done some invigilating. 

The car keeps going, thriving on benign neglect. It is now 20 years old and has needed a new clutch for 2 years. No one can drive it apart from me! 

As for me, I sort of almost had a thing with a man who turned out not to be very nice. The upshot of this is backing away from any socialising at all and putting probably 2 stones back on again. I just haven't felt like exercising, cooking or doing anything that requires thought and effort. I haven't been saving or doing anything constructive at all.

I thought I would start this diary up again to ramble on about improving matters. I'm going to put all my savings into premium bonds and leave myself £1000 in my current account. This will concentrate my mind (like the old days!) and force me into proper cooking from scratch, batch cooking and not wasting money. 

I have started going to chess club, which has shown me I am not as good at chess as I thought I was. That is free, with a donation for a cup of tea. I help out at a local cinema, although I have nearly been driven away by the levels of racism of some of the other volunteers. 

I need to go back on the blood sugar diet. Even the thought of getting the Wii and the Wii fit board out from under the stairs and connecting it all to the TV is too much! 

Anyway, here are the moneysaving actions for today:

1) Transferred money to PB.
2) Booked a haircut at college. I went there for years and it is only £4. 
3) Agreed to 3 further days of election work. 

Frith

P.S I did return the form to Child Maintenance (or whatever they are calling themselves these days) and never received a reply. 

P.P.S Just did a YouGov survey (haven't done one in aeons) and am 4/5ths of the way to getting £50.

Checked Quidco and they owe me £58!

Frith

For today (sounds like nothing, took me hours and hours...)

1) Transferred more money to Premium Bonds

2) Found I can no longer log on to PB to check. Downloaded the app. Still didn't work. That will require a phone call at some point.

3) Phoned First Direct, as it said 24 hours. In fact, the technical people aren't there past 11pm so the lady couldn't help me. Took me an hour to sort the technical issues by myself. One of the problems was I tried to buy my son a voucher in Switzerland last year (he was in Switzerland, I was here!) It wouldn't have worked in time so I cancelled it but every time I logged on, it tried to get me to transfer money there! Anyway, somehow I managed to delete that. 

4) Also managed to FINALLY transfer the money from FD to my new savings account. Top rate as recommended by Martin Lewis. This took me 3 days as every time I left the app to verify myself with FD, the new banking app threw me out! 

5) And... my younger son is very interested in his online trading app (he only has £20 on it) and, like transferring money to my new account, I have found it impossible just to put £5 on. Managed it tonight and I have invested my £5 on NVIDIA. My older son's friends are really interested in this and compare notes. One lad has made £10,000!

6) I looked online for more work. 

It really has been a day of complicated things. I wanted to print something out in the library and, instead of handing the man the money, they have installed the most complicated system in the world where you have to log on, feed money into the machine, then press print on the computer you are using, then dash over to the printer and log on there with your card. All with no instructions! 

Perhaps I need something to save for.

Jobs to do tomorrow

1) Get the house ready for another viewing.

2) Speak to Premium Bonds. 

3) Might do some batch cooking when the looking round people have gone. 

Frith

Well!

I am glad March is nearly over. 

I did clean up ready for the house viewing. Since the previous post, the list is as follows:

1) A lady came to look round my house last Friday (24th?). Son2 and I went out to McDonalds while she and the estate agent were here. We had a phone call while we were still in the car and she offered £5000 under the asking price (£5000 more than the original lady, all those months ago). I said yes! She is a cash buyer and wants to move as soon as possible.

2) Right at the start of January, I looked round a property with son2, then had another look with son1 and his girlfriend. We liked it - a 3 bedroom semi with a decent garden and a lake beyond which is an SSSI. I put in a low offer but they didn't accept it as I hadn't sold my house. I kept looking at it on RightMove and panicked a few weeks back when they knocked £10,000 off the asking price. 3 days ago I made an offer and it was accepted! They had already moved out before January so hopefully things will be straightforward. 

3) I've done all the legal work online and sent it to the solicitors. I also posted yesterday all the certificates for the new windows, shower and central heating and drew a map of where the septic tank is. I know the lady buying my house has passed her finance and ID checks. 

4) I finally managed (today) to sort the premium bonds out online so I will be able to get my money back out of them as the house moving day gets closer. 

5) I keep going to the two local chess clubs and finally won a game today!

In other news, I had thought for a long time (best part of a year) that I was getting out of breath when walking uphill. I wondered if it was getting older or perhaps something left from having coronavirus. A blood test 6 weeks ago showed that I have ferritin levels of 5. I think the doctor wondered how I am still walking around! Even 6 weeks of very healthy eating has only raised it to 6. So this is another task for me to achieve. I have never eaten so many nuts, dried fruit or eaten so much red meat in my life. 

The not very nice man has left me completely alone, which is all you can ask for really.

No job yet but I have been signed up for the count as well as election day itself and 2 days of postal vote sorting. 

LeighofMar

That's wonderful news. Your potential new home sounds lovely and I hope all the transactions go smoothly. 

Congrats on the chess win. I always thought I was a decent player until a computer checkmated me with just a knight early in the game 😟

Zerforax

Congrats on sorting the house sale and purchase! Worked out well in the end.

Frith

Quick update:

1) The solicitor is dealing with the Deed of Trust - the only thing left of my annoying divorce.

2) Just transferred £58 from Quidco. 

3) Managed to get some iron from the pharmacy so hopefully it will have gone up from 6 next time I am tested. Not sure, but I think I feel every so slightly better.

4) Enjoying Park Run (walk) on Saturday mornings.

5) Won another chess match! (and lost many).

6) Got some invigilation work coming up for GCSEs.

7) Other tasks are to learn Arabic (122 days done and it's going well) and to learn to juggle with 5 balls. 

Frith

REALLY have to get my life in order now...

What has happened since April:

1) Literally no progress made on the house sale/purchase of the new house. No amount of phone calling or emailing seems to help. There is a portal where you can log on with 2 pie charts and they haven't moved in weeks. 

2) I am doing quite a lot of invigilating and also did a few days of work around the election (including the count). 

3) Ferritin has gone up from 6 to 21 so am feeling better. There is still room for improvement. 

4) I see towards the end of March that I had got rid of a man who wasn't very nice. Well, he is looking positively angelic compared to the man I have just been out with for 3 weeks. At least the first one had a sense of humour. The whole thing this year has made me feel very sad.

5) I am now as fat as I have ever been. I have been going round in my pyjama trousers under long tops because nothing fits me.

6) Son 2 is doing pretty well. He has agreed to go to the local motor racing and went for a walk with me along the river the other day.

ANYWAY.

The upshot is that the Blood Sugar Diet starts again tomorrow.

I need to get fit. I'd quite like to do the C25K secretly then suddenly surprise people at Park Run by running, rather than walking at the back. I need to get some trainers.

The finances need keeping in check, though they are not too bad.

I want to be accountable somewhere, so it will have to be here, where few people will suspect that I write as I no longer have a mortgage!

Measurements
Calf - 41cm
Thigh - 74cm
Top of arm - 35cm
Waist - 116cm
Hips - 125cm