Five Year Fix, Five Year Plan

Merlin's_Beard

5 TB, @savingholmes not GB! You can tell I'm not really techy and good as misspeaking!

External hard drive has gone the way of the dodo, taking my photos with it, sadly. Paid £90+VAT for the guy to have a look at it. He quoted me a price to fix it (£620+VAT) but was very realistic about the chances of getting anything off it, which I'm grateful for. I guess this is my lesson to make sure that when one storage device fails to immediately back everything up instead of leaving it a few weeks! And to not ignore the first signs of failure in tech! A bit gutted, but not £1000 all in with little chance of success gutted, so right decision.

So now the house is falling to pieces instead (overdramatic). Went shopping today, bought some lightshades for the living room and the office bedroom. As I'm putting them on I catch sight of the live wire in one of them - split. Have sent a cheeky email to the builders just on the off chance they'll come and strip it and sort it for me, but otherwise it's getting my dad round with his wire strippers to sort it out at the weekend (he offered to come around now, but, in the dark, in a room that will have the fuse to the lights switched off, to fix a small thing. Thanks dad, let's do it at the weekend)

Have also been looking at tables today. You can tell spring is in the air - the shoots are coming through in my garden, the days are lighter and I'm coming out of my annual seasonal funk and starting to do things.

Merlin's_Beard

January round up!

£1287.80 saved - mainly because I didn't buy the thing I wanted to, or it'd be closer to zero.

Emergency savings fund: £12,428 - sticking to the plan

Surveys this month: £10 - really not in the swing of this

Food spends: £224.47 - a bit over budget, not too bad - includes a takeaway treat on my birthday!

Books 5 books bought, 2 read. Not so good.

All in all everything just chugging away, have been hibernating, mainly.

LadyWithAPlan

killerpeaty said:

LadyWithAPlan said:

Luckily my parents are a bit more switched on .. however they do listen to me ...on  most financial things..  not sipps but  I pushed them to pay off the house in the last few years 10% etc  so at least that was done..

However my ex I could see was just heading into a disaster of  increasing costs of an serviced apartment property investment (as the new build completion date kept being delayed by 10 months just as mortgage rates went up ) whilst also  renting and paying child support - his maths/monthly  proposed budget  made me feel nervous as if he didnt get 80% occupancy it would be a  financial disaster  .. and he was getting so stressed by it he became unpleasant  even the EA said noone had ever been that rude to him! ... I did try giving advice ... no clue how it ended up but  I cant imagine well  - and a lucky escape methinks... I have friends who leverage debt and I am a pansy compared to them.. I sleep well though ...

I thought it was quite difficult to buy an investment property if you didn't own your primary residence?

You can do it if you have 25%  deposit down and put it into a special pension umbrella /tax wrapper thing  .. cant remember what its called   maybe SSAS. 

LadyWithAPlan

I think we are all hibernating ..

I have a  good friend who sounds like your ex .. the amount of money  spent on absolutely gorgeous flash cars and more than one  at a time  over the years  ... instead of paying down  IO mortgages  and  any pension contributions ... scares me  just to see it. 

savingholmes

Nice you are reaping the rewards for last year's work on the garden 

KajiKita

I can relate to the not really wanting to do surveys atm thing too …. 🙄😉

KK

Merlin's_Beard

Taken the plunge and a dining room table, chairs, and a thin tall display cabinet to store things in has been ordered in the last days of the sale. Won't be delivered until mid March, but it is done. This kitchen is slowly happening!

This month, I need to seriously look at some structural plants and spending some of the garden fund. I've got some jasmine that's been gifted, and, allegedly, some mint (it looks like an empty pot to me but I'll have faith) - so I need a trellis to go up on the wall, and I need a proper pot for the mint to go in. I probably want to get some roses as well, from somewhere (suggestions welcome).

Big things to get for the garden are a shed, and seating. Seating probably the priority for this summer.

Inside the house the next step is kitchen cupboards, and then reassess my storage in there. Still need to sort of out lighting (I have one set of spotlights and one bare bulb in the kitchen/diner, don't ask me why they couldn't leave them the same).

redofromstart

I have some lovely climbing roses from David Austin by mail order, generous gardener and another scented one. They grow to a manageable height unlike my rambling rector which made it to at least 12 foot up a tree. 

I'd also suggest a winter flowering honeysuckle for one of your structure plants, good against a fence or a wall. Winters Beauty  is a nice white. 

KajiKita

How sheltered or shady is your garden? If either, it might be worth considering a Maple - they come in a huge range of sizes and they have lovely leave shapes and autumn colour. If you want a flowering option, Amalanchier makes either a good shrub or a small tree - white blossom with bronze baby foliage in spring and then beautiful autumn colour. 

The mint will be fine 😊 What I tend to do when it starts reappearing, is to snip off some of the new shoots when it first appears and root them in water. Then as the first pot starts to choke on its own roots mid summer, you have another fresh pot, with fresh compost coming on with good strong stems. Keep it somewhere shady, cool or where you will remember to water it. 

Good progress on the kitchen 😊

KK

redofromstart

Good idea on the mint @KajiKita - I will give that a try. I usually end up buying the various supermarket herb pots to split up and plant on which also works out quite cheaply.