Ding! Ding! All change, please... (now replaced with new diary on MFW)

Humdinger1

How right you are @foxgloves! A bit like Delia when she started but perhaps more veggie?

beanielou

That is some house!!!!

Seasidegal58

A very floraly ( if that is a word!) house!  Not my aesthetic (which borders more on plain and minimal) but, hey, we all have different likes and tastes!  Actually one of my dear departed aunties would have loved it!  Right up her street!😂

RosaBernicia

oh crikey that is a LOT of florals.

And the asking price just made me remember why I moved out of SE England

themadvix

RosaBernicia said:

oh crikey that is a LOT of florals.

And the asking price just made me remember why I moved out of SE England

And there I was, pleasantly surprised at house prices in Harlow compared to where I am, less than an hour away!

foxgloves

Ohhhhh, just looked at that link, @EH. That is very floriferous indeed! It should come with a free wallpaper stripper! Can see potential in that garden though. Am enjoying your house hunting tales.
F

Cheery_Daff

Ha, I love the flowery house 😁😁 I'd never choose to decorate like that myself, but faced with it in a house I'd just bought, I'd keep it forever, it's ridiculous and I love it 😂

EssexHebridean

Haha the mad flowery house has clearly found the level here hasn't it! (Cheery - I hear you on the complete craziness of it though - it's the same reason that we've always left the bizarre and horribly faded 1960's wallpaper in a cupboard in the flat - it was clearly loved by someone once, and it doesn't affect us as the cupboard is always full anyway!) SuffolkSue - you say the bedrooms are plain - but no,. look again, you'll see that the flowers have actually crept in there, too!  I literally couldn't stop giggling as I was looking at the pics!

Foxgloves I remember that chicken too - and my jaw hitting the floor! There have been a few "Eat Well for Less" episodes in that vein too mind you. I think the main thing about that programme is so often it's just about giving people confidence to make changes - I do love seeing people who've always thought "I can't cook" being shown that actually, yes they can - that really is life changing! 

SSG I prefer plainer decor as well - and have realised over the last few years that I REALLY like calming colours too - something which has now translated into the bathroom - one painted wall in a soft grey - the hallway with a sort of "very-milky-coffee" shade, and now the bedroom with is a pale milk chocolate sort of colour on the wall that isn't cream. MrEH would choose something brighter as a rule, but I'm hoping I'm winning him round as he has agreed that so far everywhere I've chosen the colours for has worked well. Each time we look at more property particulars I'm envisaging what would work in al the rooms now! 

Rosa & TMV that exchange made me laugh - and yes, with what we're looking to spend down here we could pretty much get a 4 bedroom detached house right on the shore with attached holiday cottage, up in Uist! Generally Harlow is a lot lower priced than many of the areas around it though - it's one of the reasons that first my parents, and then us, moved out there in the first place. It's ease of accessibility back into London is a big advantage too of course - although increasingly the train company appear to be making that less useful in practice as the prices are substantially higher than commutes of a similar length on other lines. 

As always it's lovely to see so  many people dropping by - I do get daftly excited when I see there have been lots of visitors! Thanks to all and apologies for not namechecking everyone! 

OK - onto the MSE stuff then:
- New Nat10nwide savings account opened and named "New House Fund" - I've transferred the contents of the Account Formerly Known As... over to that as well - it's due its interest on the 11th so I've not closed it altogether, and it now occurs to me that it might be quite fun to leave it open for initial payments to the fund to go into each month and I can then manually transfer them to the new one - means we can keep track of what we're managing to stash aside perhaps. The "standard" payment in there each month currently is £232 which originates from our "money we didn't know we had" savings - so money that over the year has been saved on renegotiating bills etc - just £10 here and £5 there but each time a saving is made (and even if rates go up again later) it got added to that payment. I'll shortly be increasing that by £50 to take account of the monthly payment that won't be going to the 0% card after this month, too. We've also put at least one payrise of MrEH's mostly to there over the years as well IIRC. When we were mortgage clearing before we also transferred things like the "free months" from council tax and water rates - those will total £180 each month this year - to the OP pot too, and we'll be returning to that from now. Finally to top it up will be any surplus in the joint account at the end of a month - that varies from month to month. 
- At the moment money that would previously have gone to regular savers which will have then come to an end is going to be taken as "long term savings" and squirrelled away. I *think* we are going to open new C0v3ntry ones anyway - that's now paying 4% (or will be from tomorrow) and allows £500 a month in - which makes it decent. It also allows you to make lower payments if needed here and there - although in real terms we would most likely sub from savings elsewhere if needed. We won't risk opening others for now though until we know where we are with outgoings. 
- On the Subject of the C0v3ntry I'll probably open a new limited access saver for it's rather juicy upcoming 3.25% rate as it will make a nice short term home for the cash we'll be looking at using for a deposit. Because we'll only be looking to use the contents for that reason realistically, the 6 withdrawals thing isn't an issue. 
- Another NSD yesterday - and more of the same today is the plan. 
- Waiting for the Octopods to update our account with both this month's payment and the EBSS payment for January too. We're currently showing £108 in credit, and those going on will put us at £290  - I'm starting to think we might scrape though the winter without needing to raid the buffer fund much, if at all! 

Ended up doing couscous with the pork steaks last night as the frozen cooked potato had clearly been frozen for too long and had gone ridiculously soggy - I'm afraid they have gone to the bin! (I could literally have wrung them out I think!) I've got turkey out as planned tonight for curry - and also pulled out the carton of passata from the storecupboard to remind me to use it up. Must remember to get out burger buns from the freezer to defrost for tomorrow too - and that I have to make those burgers early in the day - the recipe tweak with us is parsnip rather than carrot as MrEH is a carrot-dodger. 

We have another possible viewing at the weekend for another "mad project" house - this one currently has two bedrooms both with ensuite shower rooms, and then a further shower room downstairs - begging the question of WHY?!! It's also got a huge conservatory and a garden in several different areas - all of them seemingly paved to within an inch of their lives! It would be liveable immediately though - and eventually we'd convert one of the ensuites to an office for MrEH - thus neatly reverting it to a 3 bed in the process. Food for thought. 

milann

Food for thought indeed. It sounds a very interesting venture. I’d love the excitement of moving home and a project to get my teeth into. Won’t be happening for me though. I think my dream would be to pack up and move near dd by the sea. But as we live in an area where the house prices are much lower and my other family and friends are in the area I’ve lived all my life think it’ll always be a pipe dream.
Happy viewing when it comes 👍

Makingabobor2

The next house viewing sounds interesting. Hope it turns out to be as good as it sounds. 

Just checked our "tentacled" account also and we are currently £236 in credit, next reading/bill due on 17th and payments go out on 24th, so we'll see what happens. Fingers crossed.  It does seem a lot milder at the moment than normally at this time of year. If I'm cold I just do another exercise routine....lol