Our Mortgage Free Journey

savingholmes

Hope you feel better soon. My house is also in chaos if it makes you feel any better.

caeler

Great news about the pay rise @Ami-Rose
I hope you complete soon! 

FtbDreaming

Hi @Ami-Rose how are you doing? I ha noticed you’ve gone quiet so thought I’d check on. Any news on completion date? xx

Grogged

I think she was looking to move around this time.
Hope your all well @Ami-Rose.

Ami-Rose

Hi guys! Thanks for checking in on me. 😊 I've not been well for the last few weeks, having a flare up of some health stuff which isn't fun. The plus side is that my mum came to stay for 12 days and now my sister is here for 11 days to help out. Actually getting to see my family has been a silver lining to needing the extra help.

As for the move, we finally have an official date! 🎊 We get the keys on the 29th January and don't have to be out of our flat until the 7th February, so we can move without rushing. I will try to come back before then and do a proper update. 

Grogged

Glad you have a moving date.
Sorry to hear about your flare up, it's great you have such a supportive family able to be there.
Take care, G.

savingholmes

Glad you have had help. Hope you are on the mend

caeler

Sorry to hear you are poorly @Ami-Rose but brilliant you have a firm moving date.  I had a move from rented to owned and that bit of extra time to move was brilliant.  I could also clean everything in both places really well!  Roll on 29 January! 

FtbDreaming

Hi! Just seen your post on 21MF Challenge! Congratulations on your new home! Hope you’re feeling better now and you’re settling in nicely xx

Ami-Rose

FtbDreaming said:

Hi! Just seen your post on 21MF Challenge! Congratulations on your new home! Hope you’re feeling better now and you’re settling in nicely xx

Thanks Ftb! It's been a rollercoaster of a week, I think I could sleep all weekend and still wake up tired! 😂

Health is a little improved, but still not great. I'm on some new medication that has reduced my symptoms slightly and now I just wait for surgery. My parents came over for a few days to help us move, but that's the last of the help for a while now.

We return the keys to the flat on Sunday and we only have a few bits to do before then. We paid for a deep clean to take the pressure off of us, but not before my sister tried to remove the limescale from the toilet with steel wool and stained it. 🤦🏼‍♀️ So got to try and remove that or lose some deposit. At this point we're happy to lose a small amount just to have it out of our hair, because...

The house has been full of surprises, and not in the good way. First, the previous owners didn't finish moving out until 8.30pm on moving day (they didn't get their keys until almost 4pm) and they generously broke the garage door in their haste. 🙄 Then we discovered that he fancied himself a bit of a handyman, as there are bodge jobs all over the place. There's also a blocked drain in the garden meaning that the waste water from the utility room overflows into the garden. Should be a simple fix, but it's still piling up. And then to top it all off, my biggest MSE failure to date...

For the first time in my life, I forgot to arrange insurance promptly. Between health matters, hospital appointments and all of the other pressures of moving, I just forgot. There's no other excuse. So I only purchased insurance last night (Thursday). This morning, after a solid week of torrential rain, the ceiling of the utility room started dripping. We called someone to take a look and apparently the roof isn't up to regulations - it's a slope, but only 5% rather than the required 15%, and has regular roof tiles which it shouldn't. The water is pooling between the tiles and that's why it's coming in.

The verdict is that the entire roof needs replacing, it'll take 3 days and will cost £2,500 to do so. I called our insurance (while seriously doubting they'd believe we only discovered it 12 hours after the policy was bought) and apparently there has to have been a storm with strong winds for the damage to be considered for a claim. There was such a storm... on Tuesday. 2 days before the policy began.

I don't even know what to say. The only time I've ever needed an insurance payout and I managed to mess it up. You can bet there were a lot of tears and swearing today.

So there you have it. Our emergency buffer is gone and then some, we need to borrow money from family to fix the roof. We're in desperate need of furniture, but even if we had any money (we don't) none of the shops are open anyway.

And that's just the financial mess! I spent a large portion of Monday in A&E with Little after she fell down the stairs. Her Dad had been stood right next to her, but wasn't able to catch her and she went top to bottom. She was absolutely fine, thank goodness, just a little shaken. They kept her in for the afternoon for observations to be safe, but nothing came of it.

But despite all of the awful surprises, we are still very glad to be in our own place. Little is absolutely loving all of the extra space  and the fall hasn't put her off the stairs. She still insists on climbing them 50+ times a day. She also loves to run around the downstairs, which is lovely to watch.

I'm not sure how to end this post, it seems so dramatic that anything I say would be an anticlimax. 😂