Prosperous soul, mortgage neutrality & creativity Year 2

24ta

For the kitchen, an option for cost saving could be to replace the doors and not the units as most are standard, only if the units work for you where they are now.  its all very exciting

TallGirl

Exciting about the kitchen plans. When we had our kitchen done we were told you can actually save money by buying prebuilt units and the fitter doesn’t have to put them together. I think IKEA is flat pack we need Howdens and they were ready built. 

Worktops can be really expensive (we had quartz’s) but the laminate ones can look quite cheap so check you like them before committing to it. I wish I had lived with my my old kitchen a bit longer before getting it changed to get a feel for the house as I would have made different decisions. 

WelshmansDaughter

I know someone still working at 75, couldn't afford to retire. And possibly had no life outside work.

badmemory

My friend is still working a 4 day week.  He has had his own business since he was 21 & doesn't seem to have the remotest idea what to do with himself if he doesn't work.  He is late 70s now & has cut down from 5.5 or 6 day weeks.  His daughter keeps nagging him to retire but the rest of us know that if he does he'll be dead in a year.  He goes away every weekend as it is the only way he can not work.

savingholmes

Thanks 24ta, BM, WD and TG

Yes on the kitchen - I need to be really sure - and would prefer the final provider to measure up professionally ideally.

On retirement - my parents don't have a great pension and my Mum is still doing ad-hoc consultancy work in her late 70s but because she wants to. I'm happy to have income producing work - I just don't want to be tied down all the time.

I've just had my mortgage call. She will send all the details in the post. They don't need to include my p1p £ in the calc so don't need to supply details of that. She then reckons I could get an offer within 5 weeks from when I finalise the application and send it back. So now it's down to how fast the FTB sort themselves out with their mortgage. They've sent the outstanding paperwork today so the Memo should be done today/tomorrow morning so it's suddenly all systems go. The mortgage people weren't precious about me using my CCs for points.

I booked this afternoon off. I'll now carry on with my legal paperwork so it's all ready to go for when the Memo of Sale is resolved which should hopefully be the latest of tomorrow. 

I also need to take my car to the garage this evening ready for a service and mot that they are doing tonight / first thing tomorrow.

lucielle

Wow!  Moving fast SH. Will DD and DS help with the packing?  Hoping both my DDs exchange and complete in November 

L

LeighofMar

Those 5 weeks will pass before you know it. Very exciting times.

jwil

Glad things are progressing well

doingitanyway

All sounding good. Exciting times ahead 

Blackcats

I always liked to have my redundancy amount in the back of my mind - even if it's an unlikely event it's good to know that there is a cushion. 

I still find if difficult to believe that I get money into my bank every month without going to work for it.  That's the wonder of paying into a pension for 30 years.