Time to Face The Music

joedenise

I don't actually grow rosemary myself as my next door neighbour has a big plant right next to the fence and she told me to just help myself when I want it so means I haven't needed to plant any.

With regard to basil, I just buy a growing plant from the supermarket and keep that on the window cill and it seems to last for ages.

RelievedSheff

It is a no spends day today.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be from stores today. Breakfast was cereals, the other half has taken his packed lunch to work, I have some of last nights pork chilli left over so I will have that on a jacket spud for my lunch and then it is per peri salmon with sweet potato wedges and vegetables for dinner later.

Today's jobs include:

• working from home
• cleaning the kitchen
• wrapping some Christmas presents when they arrive
• walking the dog x 2

I ran some Dr Beckmann washing machine deep cleaner through the washer dryer yesterday afternoon. It is the last ditch effort to get the thing working properly before it has to be replaced. Judging by the resulting crud and grime that was floating around in the drum while it was doing it's thing I expect it was long over due a deep clean. So fingers crossed it will now dry properly. Not got enough clothes to wash to warrant sticking it on today to find out though!

joedenise

Glad the deep clean seems to have worked.  My machine tells me when one is due and I just have to run it using the Drum Clean setting - it's a 90 degree wash without powder and a fast spin - takes a very long time but that's probably because of heating the water up!  I've got solar panels so I try to do that one when the sun is shining to save a bit!

Do hope you find the machine works better when you get to try it and gives you a bit of time before needing a new one.  Do you have a savings "pot" for things like white goods renewal?  I have a pot for Household Items and another for Household Maintenance and find it really helps, although have to say these tend to be the pots I raid if something unexpected turns up!

RelievedSheff

Intrigue has got the better of me and I have made up a wash with some towels

Will let you know in a couple of hours if the deep clean has worked or not.

We have started a couple of savings pots. Not sure what they are for yet but no doubt they will get raided as and when something in the house breaks and needs replacing!

alt80

Coming from wrong person I know lol but worth going through a list of likely maintenance/ appliance replacement over the next ten years to work out the sort of sinking fund you need for the property. Tbh you won’t need to budget for big schemes of work to the house being a new build but have a plan for boiler servicing etc is a good thing.

Do this for all my btls and set sinking fund according to the requirements of the property eg if roof has limited life left I’ll account for that etc etc so not complete BS from me ha. 

RelievedSheff

Thank you.

Most of the appliances in the house are new or nearly new. The fridge freezer and dishwasher in the kitchen are about 18 months old and the garage freezer about 6 months old, so we don't expect to have to replace those any time soon.

The washer dryer is one that we brought from our old house and is about 3.5 years old, so not ancient, but it has been troublesome in the past. It is out of warranty now and probably not worth repairing. It is going to need replacing in the not too distant future. It has failed to dry again this morning. Not a problem while I am working from home as I can just hang the stuff to dry in the spare bathroom with the extractor fan on. But when I go back to the office to work it would be nice to have the washing dry when we come home!

We have the boiler serviced by a local company every year in February. Need to have that done to keep the ten year warranty valid on the boiler.

We do need some sort of house fund we know that and we will look to set one up once a few of the debts have been paid off.

alt80

Appliances don’t plan on them lasting more than 5 years if they do win win if they don’t you’ll have funds to replace. Washer/dryers are awful, tend to be super unreliable. When I first started buying HMOs I supplied them now always separate washing machine / dryers. I spend the cash on ones with a 10 year warranty tbh and I doubt they get more use in a HMO than if a big family lived there. 

Boiler servicing not expensive but plan to replace every ten years much like appliances win if you don’t need to.

Depending on your age and if you’re planning to stay in the house long term you may not have to think about some of the major costs that can incur on older / neglected property so sinking fund generally won’t need to be as high as someone living in a much older / neglected house.

RelievedSheff

We have no plans to move from this house now unless something significant changes. It is planned to be a long term home.

Had we thought on when we moved we would have left the washer dryer in the old house and bought separate washing machine and dryer for here. Instead we brought the washer dryer with us and bought a dishwasher which rarely gets used. Hind sight is a wonderful thing. For the time being and while I am at home and while the washing part of the machine is working then we will make do and try to save for a new washer dryer and get one after Christmas. We should be able to achieve this but next time we will be getting a better brand with a better warranty.

We have never had much luck with appliances. If they get to five years they have done well in our hands

We went through 3 fridge freezers in 12 years in our old house!

enthusiasticsaver

I think it is worth paying a bit more for better quality appliances if you can afford it. We must be very lucky with appliances as ours all lasted minimum 10 years. We only changed our Bosch washer/dryer when we had a new kitchen. I can recommend Bosch and Neff. Helps having a husband who is an engineer though as for years he would replace parts on them etc as things went wrong but difficult to get them now and as they are so electronic based rather than mechanical it is just as expensive to repair as to replace. 

One-step-at-a-time

enthusiasticsaver said:

I think it is worth paying a bit more for better quality appliances if you can afford it. We must be very lucky with appliances as ours all lasted minimum 10 years. We only changed our Bosch washer/dryer when we had a new kitchen. I can recommend Bosch and Neff. Helps having a husband who is an engineer though as for years he would replace parts on them etc as things went wrong but difficult to get them now and as they are so electronic based rather than mechanical it is just as expensive to repair as to replace. 

Absolutely agree with this. We spent ages researching before we bought and have an AEG washer and dryer both still going strong after 18 years, and a Bosch dishwasher which has needed one repair in 15 years. The EF is kept at an amount that would allow us to replace two out of the three in one go. I realise I'm tempting fate just writing that