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

Sun_Addict

Brilliant news, fingers crossed it all comes off 🥳

Starlight_at_Sea

Everything crossed for you EH! I am also saving like mad for the stamp duty / solicitors costs. Mines a second property so they are huge - and like you, I jumped up a bit in my purchase band, ...but hopefully will get some back as I think we would be trying to sell #1 within 18 months or so. 

beanielou

Exciting times ahead 

lucielle

It all sounds like it’s coming together EH!  Waiting on tenter hooks to hear the outcome. Everything crossed! L

Sunshine_girl2

Great to hear you maybe on the move soon. Fingers crossed for a good outcome . 

EssexHebridean

Thank you so much for all the good vibes and crossed fingers everyone - it means a lot to have to many folk in the wings rooting for us! The offer is in, and now we just have to wait and see what they say - ultimately I'm trying to tell myself that if it is meant to be, then it'll happen - but as I suspect we all know it's not that easy when you've seen somewhere you love, is it! Time to breathe, and cross fingers... 

MSE Stuff:
Banks checked and all good - I've been crossing fingers (I'm running out of fingers!) that @t0m might up rates on my instant access account, but as they haven't I think I will empty the contents into M@rcus later as there is now quite a big difference in rates. Better in my pocket than theirs, and if they don't want to make it tempting for me to leave my money there...! 
I've done the CC money shuffle this morning as the statement has landed now - MrEH owes a chunk so he needs to transfer that. Then I've squared away the food account too - I think I'll keep doing that as I go along as it makes life easier - and a couple of other small items. I'll let that lot clear off the account and then check if I've missed anything, I'll be aiming to ensure it is at zero before we head off for holiday as that makes it far easier to then keep track of holiday spending as we go along.
I'll be parting with just over £30 from my airshow account a little later as I'm going to book a ticket for this weekend's evening show at the same place I went to the other week - it's one of my favourite venues for shows, and has got some really lovely aircraft flying at this one including the Bristol Blenheim that I've not seen fly for a while so that will be good. The evening shows there tend to be fantastic for light and the weather forecast looks good. it also has the advantage of being relatively local - it only takes me about 50 minutes to get there as a rule. 
Last night's curry was delicious - I do love that thing of having batch cooked  meals ready to go! I did lime and coriander rice with it (as I bought a big bunch of coriander that needs using!) - there is still another double portion of the curry in the freezer too so I'll factor that in to the plan for next week I think. I need to have a rejig of the freezers to see how close we are to being able to empty freezer 2 into freezer 1, but I don't want to do that until after we've been to the farmer's market on Saturday. Freezer 2 will also need defrosting when we're ready to switch it off.  Tonight is going to be sausages, mash & beans (yes, really!) but the mash will most likely be a mix of the last sweet potato and regular. 

Plans:
Farmers market as mentioned first thing on Saturday, then we have a meeting to do with our voluntary role which is likely to take several hours. We'll need to get out and get shopping at some stage too (although that will most likely have to be Sunday). Then the airshow for me in the evening. I plan to get over to see Mum on Sunday too - she's got some odd jobs that need doing I think so we'll get those done and see what else we can help with. I think she has a belated Christmas present of mine there too - a book that was on pre-order. Tomorrow will be gym and general recharging I think, much needed after a quite stressful work-week! 

savingholmes

Enjoy your day off tomorrow 

beanielou

Happy day off 

jwil

Enjoy your day off, and fingers crossed you get good news from your offer! 

EssexHebridean

Morning all (well, it was when I started typing!) Thanks for dropping by SH, Beanie & jwil! 

I confess I have cried off the gym - TOTM hit with a vengeance hit his morning and I’m feeling generally a bit bleurgh and sorry for myself - plus my poorly back which has been playing up for ages is very gripey this morning and I’m not convinced it will enjoy strength training at all. I may still go this afternoon, we’ll see! (But I suspect not!) I also might get the big bike out of the garage and go for a ride if the weather stays nice - the sun is out here currently after some steady rain this morning - so if it looks like the roads might dry out sufficiently then that could yet be a plan. We did get out for a walk this morning before the rain set in so I have at least done some form of movement todsy, and I shall add a yoga session shortly. 

MSE Stuff: 
A little flurry of small Prolific bits last evening boosted my tally by a couple of £’s - I’ll continue to keep an eye there through the day today too. There are a couple showing at the moment but they can’t be done on the iPad so if they are still there when I put the laptop on later I’ll do those. 

Banks checked and all good. I’ve swept a few pence from my personal budget account across to the VSP. No movement anywhere else to be swept over - that was just the change after my mobile bill came out. 

MrEH was meant to be sorting his car for a service ahead of the holiday but hasn’t done it yet - we’ve decided that as it seems to be running OK we’re probably best not poking that particular bear until after we come back now so I’ve transferred the excess money out of the the car running costs account into the longer term one which pays better interest.

a quick check through the pots:
Food - I reckon with careful planning and shopping there will be at least £100 there to sub across for holiday food shopping so that’s useful. 

Household - enough in there to covert the contents insurance when it is due in August - but not enough to cover the insurance on the new house when we move. That first year will come under general moving expenses though. 

Joint fun - nearly two months worth of contributions sitting in there and I’m not expecting to use much from there before we go away - this will contribute towards a trip with pals in July though so I’ll let it mount up.
Presents/Christmas - mounting up as expected - no action needed.
main car account - just under £800 in there but with 2 x insurance renewals and 2 x breakdown cover for renewal in august, plus himself’s MoT test and service to cover that is about where it should be. All good. 

New house fund - just over £4000. If our offer is accepted this is now known as “not even quite two thirds of the s0dd1ng Stamp Duty… 🙄 Still, I shall try not to let my resentment boil over too much… (I’m lying!) I totted up last night and potentially we can stash another couple of thousand in there before any move is realistically likely to occur - so my new target for that is going to be to see if we can actually get it to the stamp duty amount at least. Might be able to do it, with a bit of enhanced frugality… 

No news on the offer - but then we didn’t necessarily expect to have anything from them immediately. At this end though our buyer is now getting her ID verification done with the agents, so once they have that they will issue the Memorandum of Sale to us and our solicitors (Mr Boss at work) and we can start to make progress on paperwork. Mr Boss already has our protocol forms completed although they will probably need re-dating.

I did another run through of finances last night - we just need to make final decisions on amount of borrowing, term, length of fix etc (whether to borrow a little more, and extend the term from the 15 years we had planned to 17 or even 18 years on the basis that we are going to overpay anyway, so the term is almost irrelevant to us) in order to both keep monthly payments lower and leave a little more in the background savings, and whether to go for a 2 or a 3 year fix. (Anyone got a crystal ball to see what interest rates are going to do?) Currently we could just about do better on savings interest than we’d be paying on a  Mortgage rate… 

Jobs for this afternoon will include a meal plan and a shopping list - we think we may head to Al’s for shopping this evening as that seems like the easiest way of fitting that in.