Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Thanks all. Yesterday's problem still not sorted out. Have been assured the relevant tradesperson is defo coming to do it tomorrow. Roof progressing well. The tiles arrived this afternoon. 

@rtandon27 - Perhaps I'll do a debrief post when it's all finished. Tomorrow is theoretically their last day. It's certainly been a saga. Good job I am fairly resilient on the whole & as others have mentioned, that we had (note the use of past tense here) a good emergency fund.

At least no new horrid problem reared its head today. I couldn't really concentrate on much, but I did a decluttering job, made a quiche, played the piano, did a bit of Saturday's cryptic crossword, did a few surveys & read.

F x 

Blackcats

I hope the roofing work finishes on time tomorrow.
well done on your Scarlett O'Hara approach to managing stress and getting through this week's upheaval.

foxgloves

Thanks, @Blackcats. I really hope so too. The roofers are fed up with it too & have apparently asked their boss if they can not tackle another foam sprayed roof for at least 6 months. 
One big final push - from both them & me, plus the outstanding repair, & fingers massively crossed that will be the end of a stressful & expensive week. 
F

KajiKita

Standing with you in spirit
🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞 for today.

KK

Humdinger1

Dearest @foxgloves I think this is the last big job you'll be tackling on your house.  Painful but you're navigating it with style, even if it doesn't feel like it right now.  Can you imagine the screaming ab-dabs if you didn't have your emergency fund.   What if this has happened pre-LBM? Complete implosion; virtuoso head-burying-in-sand; national campaign against foam? All of this or something else entirely? The national campaign might not be a bad plan.  Once everything is finished, obvs.  Love Humdinger xx 

Cheery_Daff

Sending soothing vibes and I also hope you have your house, and your cats, back today! Xx

foxgloves

Thanks so much everyone for your supportive messages. 
Yes, @Humdinger1, this work has virtually wiped out our emergency fund, but the portion remaining will still be more than many people are able to save for facing adversity. If we had needed this work done back when we had a mortgage, 2 car loans (one of them also carrying a portion of debt from 2 previous cars), debt on 3 credit cards (1 of them getting little more than minimum monthly payments), a flexi-loan, a little bit of BNPL, a consolidation loan & 2 overdrafts, it is likely that we might not have been able to secure additional borrowing. The irony of course, is that we both worked back then, so 2 not huge, but full-time professional public sector (area service management level-type) salaries coming in & we were much worse off financially then than we were post-LBM after I'd taken VR in the austerity cuts & we opted for a single-salary income & adapting our lifestyle! Of course, the difference was that we had cleared our debts, so were by then only paying the mortgage & not a host of other monthly debt repayments. Even if we had been able to borrow additional money for something as big as a roof, the additional monthly payments on top of the debt we were already servicing would probably have been the thing which began impacting us. We were always able to manage our monthly repayments, you see, so never saw ourselves as having a debt problem, just a bit 'spendy'. It was later (I was about 43) that I wondered why we couldn't afford a campervan (which we very much wanted at the time), sat down & worked out how much all our debt repayments (excluding the mortgage) came to each month, & the LBM started right there.
So yes, I am gutted to have had the security blanket of our emergency fund decimated, but at least it was in place. Anyone who may happen upon my diary who hasn't yet started an emergency fund, start one this week. Yes, it is likely to grow much more slowly than you'd like, but it will be a start & anything is better in an emergency than nothing. Our emergency fund was completely untouched since before the pandemic, but genuine emergencies do happen & galling though it undoubtedly is, we do feel fortunate that we had the funds in place.
Well, a huge conveyor belt sort of gizmo has been erected up the side of our house/scaffolding, power tools have been winched up & there are additional roofers this morning for a big final push. I can do another day. The big girl's pants are on, I've had my caffeine & as Mr F is on some sort of motivational management course, he thinks he has drawn the short straw today.
See you on the other side,
F x

foxgloves

@ellenvan - I noticed you de-lurked to post a comment. Thanks & welcome!

Baileys_Babe

I hope all roofing issues are resolved and the roof completed today.

When are the cats returning home?

foxgloves

@Baileys_Babe - Have arranged with the cattery owner to collect them tomorrow morning. So looking forward to having them home again, but very glad we made the decision to book them in for a stay as they wouldn't have coped with this week. Soot might have adapted to it grudgingly as long as he had plenty of fuss & extra treats, but Ash wouldn't have coped. As an ex-feral with signs of a hard early life, he sees everything outside his narrow comfort zone as a threat & so he would have been on a constant state of alert & stress and would probably have gone & taken up residence under a hedge in the cold each day until the workmen had gone home.