Time to stop being frivolous!

WatchedByOwls

Hi everyone. I am really really terrible at keeping this updated consistently. I drop off when I'm doing ok with managing money and come back when I feel like I'm losing control or getting a bit reckless.

So a whistlestop tour of the last 10 months. We completed on our house and moved in last summer, which is amazing! We've settled into life here nicely.

However (and it's a BIG however), the house is an absolute money pit. We knew before we bought that it needed some work to it, but we didn't quite realise how much work. So it's costing us an absolute fortune. And every few weeks, there seems to be a new issue we didn't know about - most recently for example our newly plastered bedroom has penetrating damp, so that's multiple thousands on a roofer to fix the tiles and a builder to repoint the bricks. Very frustrating.

I'm being very frugal with general life spends because pretty much all my spare money is going into the house. Fortunately we hope to be here for a fair while so it's all an investment, but we're such a long way off finishing anything - it'll probably be end of 2025, maybe even into 2026, before we're there.

In other non house stuff, I started working for a new organisation in summer 2023 which was a change! It meant a slight pay rise (not going to say no to that!) and also a slightly better work life balance. I'm looking forward to it getting a bit warmer, I don't like cold weather and it feels like we've not had a very good spring so far this year. 

Anyway, I should be better at holding myself to account here.

Today is hopefully an NSD. There's a few bits in the freezer which I've taken out to defrost for dinner and nothing else I need to buy (I think..!). 

WatchedByOwls

Looking back through my early posts from 2021/22, I can see I'm definitely in better habits now and spend a lot less frivolously than before. 

I always do my own ironing now! Definitely not worth paying the dry cleaner to do it - pop on a podcast or the TV on a Sunday and get on with it! I am also much better at planning meals ahead and not wandering to the shops to get something or ordering a takeaway because I can't be bothered to cook. It also helps that our nearest supermarket now is an Aldi, against an upmarket deli at our last place! 

savingholmes

I sympathise on the money pit. I had to do a lot of work in the first few weeks of owning this house to make it water tight and stop black mould. I'm now spending £ correcting previous bodge jobs - including a leaking wet room. Sigh... So totally relate. Welcome back and all the best. Sounds like you've been building better habits.

WatchedByOwls

savingholmes said:

I sympathise on the money pit. I had to do a lot of work in the first few weeks of owning this house to make it water tight and stop black mould. I'm now spending £ correcting previous bodge jobs - including a leaking wet room. Sigh... So totally relate. Welcome back and all the best. Sounds like you've been building better habits.

Thank you! I've accepted it's a marathon and not a race but it is still frustrating to know it's years before it'll be finished. 

WatchedByOwls

Good evening all! 

This Bank Holiday weekend has been unfortunately quite spendy. Had to buy quite a few house things and had no food in the house so popped to the shops a few times for lunch and dinner. 

However I did find a cheap solution to a house problem. Our bedroom is east facing and although we have blackout curtains there was still lots of light coming in at the top. Lots of options to deal with it, most of them expensive - including fitting proper blackout blinds or getting a carpenter to build a box type thing. I went for the low cost option of some cheapo blackout fabric and a staple gun which has made a real difference. It looks a bit untidy but it'll do for now! 

Food order is booked for tomorrow. Will try to keep spending down this week. 

WatchedByOwls

Morning all. 

Just checking in to say I have had 3 NSDs so far this week which I'm really proud of! Can't remember the last time I did that. It's helped that I was really prepared on Sunday and did lots of cooking so we've got enough meals to last through to the weekend.

I have had really strong willpower and avoided buying snacks in the office or going out for dinner / ordering a takeaway. 

peb

Well done. Excellent news 

WatchedByOwls

I'm now ticking off today as another NSD!

We have had to pay the gardener and also pay a few tradespeople as we've got some work coming up, but those aren't being counted as they are paid from pre-allocated pots of money.

Tomorrow may well be a NSD too as we've already got dinner sorted, though I might have to pick up a couple of other foody bits for the weekend. 

WatchedByOwls

Phew it's hot today! I'm on annual leave and am putting off building some Ikea furniture but I should go and look at it soon.

Have had to spend a fair bit over the last few days - present for my mum's birthday, anniversary card, some house stuff. But all thought through and necessary, none of it spontaneous purchases, which is the aim!

We've now decided that having lived in our house for a year, we ought to start overpaying the mortgage. Probably only £200pcm to start with but every little helps. It means I should double down on spending less. 

WatchedByOwls

Hi everyone (if anyone is still reading this!).

I'm still rubbish at posting here but I like checking in from time to time as it keeps me in an MSE mindset. I also read back on my old posts from the last 4 years and it helps me realise I've left behind some very bad habits. 

Lots has changed since the last time I posted. We have slowly been working through renovating the house which is where all our spare money is going. The latest big thing was redoing the family bathroom which was pretty much ripping everything out, as it was about 30 years old and falling to bits, and redoing it all. It looks fantastic though so welll worth the investment.

We've now finished the living room, three out of the 4 bedrooms and the family bathroom. Next on the list is the kitchen/diner - currently two separate rooms which we're hoping to open up into one. We did consider extending but prices were well out of anything we could ever afford! We're currently looking at quotes and seeing if we've got the money to do what we want. Also on the list for the near future is the hallway and first floor landing. It's never ending and all very expensive!

My partner and I have also started the adoption process, which is scary and exciting in equal measures. We're at very early stages and so far have basically filled in a load of paperwork but hopefully the journey will continue through 2025.

Happily I'm still doing well with MSE habits. We now only get one takeaway a month - it used to be one a week so that's a massive difference! We also hardly eat out anymore and again that used to be once or twice a week. This does sometimes mean last minute trips to Aldi for dinner if we haven't planned or are too lazy to properly cook, but even then it's only £10 between the two of us versus £50+ for dinner in a restaurant. My bank account at the end of the month is definitely a lot more healthy than it ever has been.

Sadly there have been a few big spends recently. Some idiot crashed into our car a few weeks ago while I was driving and then drove off. Fortunately it's all on camera and the insurance are fixing it but we have to pay £450 excess tomorrow - hopefully they'll get it back off the other driver's insurance. I've also just had to book plane tickets for my partner's sisters wedding in the Channel Islands later in the year. My suit is on its last legs (actually it probably needed replacing a few years ago!) so I need to buy a new one next month. Fortunately being more frugal elsewhere means these kind of necessary purchases are more manageable.

Anyway off to bed now! Let's see when I next update this