And now we go again...

EssexHebridean

Ooh - my first visitors, how lovely!

So needless to say the last few days have been more than a little hectic, and VERY spendy! I've begun to tally up the spends - and some are already cleared off the card - the grocery budget spends, and the cost of our rather lovely bench for the hallway from the transport museum too - that will be a while before it arrives as it is a built-to-order item. Need to sit at some stage and go through the rest, and break them down in to stuff I am paying for with some of the money my Aunt & Uncle left to me, and stuff that will come down to joint spending.

We are hammering through unpacking the boxes - I reckon about 2/3rds are done already, including pretty much all the kitchen and living room stuff. The weekend will probably be dedicated to sorting out out the office and the shed, plus some garden bits. 

MSE Stuff:
- Pursued V0daf0ne for their early disconnection of our broadband leaving us without a connection for the last two days at the old place - this had the knock-on effect of meaning MrEH had to travel into London unexpectedly last Thursday as he wasn't able to WFH. They are crediting us with £40 goodwill, and waiving the disconnection charge for the old account - and I am happy with that. Also happy that the whole thing got sorted so relatively easily in the end, even if they wouldn't initially make it easy to complain!
- managed to cancel the old home contents insurance ahead of the 14 day cut off so fingers crossed shouldn't have any cost relating to this at all. 
- gained various bits of furniture from Mum's - with some bits still to come too. My Dad's old CD tower - an exact match for our own units (good old Ike@ B1lly!) is now sitting alongside the rest on the living room - with a load of my Dad's CD's back housed in it ironically enough! A small coffee table will be handy in the front room. There is a large swivel chair to come which will be perfect for the little bedroom upstairs, and my lovely old "family heirloom" bureau which I am I looking forward to finally having in my possession! 
- We need a new TV unit for the front room but are currently holding off on getting that while we find exactly the right thing.
- Found the perfect little bedside unit for my side of the bed in BandM of all places - £25 as well so a bit of a bargain. I think MrEH is going to have one of the same - there isn't space for either of the units we had before, but those are both being used in the spare bedroom. 
- Food is relatively under control although at the moment meal planning is a bit day-by-day. Tonight will be pasta & meatballs, and I may well get out the last tub of batch cooked spicy ragu for tomorrow, although I will have a think about what else we have.
- The steam mop is already proving absolutely brilliant - definitely no regrets about buying THAT! It's brought the wooden floor in the hallway up a treat and is so easy just to push round. It also just fits in the cupboard under the stairs which is a win! 
- Only ended up with 2 takeaways over the moving days in the end - last night at the flat and first night in the new house. Both planned and budgeted - and the only practical option in both cases. 

Plans:
- V0daf0ne are coming on Friday to install the broadband, and I fully intend to be checking that the signal works absolutely everywhere it needs to before I let him leave! the critical thing will be that it picks up in the office, and where the router can go probably entirely hangs on that. 
- Need to tally up the removal boxes and get those onto freecycle I think - in fact I might just list them as an unspecified number. There is a box of pieces of bubble wrap which it would handy to get rid of as well, so will see if anyone is interested in that too. Otherwise with the boxes at least we have the option for getting the removal company to come and get them although then they just get recycled rather than reused. 
- Need to contact the Council about how I hand the key back for the garage, then get my bikes shifted out of there and back to the house. Current plan is to collect the foldy bike on the way back through this evening, then I can use the big one to cycle in to town on friday, drop the key, then cycle back to the new house with it - that might depend on when various things are happening during the day though as I have the voda man, plus a handful of deliveries, and also Mum is popping over at some stage.
- Have to make a decision on the green-waste bin, and whether we are going for one, or not. 

Finance stuff:
- Need to work out how I go about making payments to the mortgage - when I tried via the sort code and account number yesterday it said it couldn't find the account but it's definitely there and showing up in my FD app - I'm guessing that the format of the names I entered might have been not quite right though.
- Council tax will be a little lower than I'd budgeted for the remainder of the year due to the part year so that is a win. 
- LOVING the smart gas & electric meters and we are both already moderately addicted to watching the IHD. Also already stupidly impressed with how cheap showers are with a gas boiler! 
- I have re-designated an existing savings account as the new "mortgage OP pot - so we will do as before and stash various odd savings against budgeted figures in there ready to overpay.

You may already have worked out that I am actually quite enjoying the challenge of having a mortgage to tackle again! Daft I know, but it IS nice to have a new challenge to get stuck in to!

EssexHebridean

kayannie said:

@EH
Just caught up on your last diary & found this one but not read it yet. Your new home sounds lovely!

A couple of weeks ago you were hoping for some vouchers to arrive in the post from that watery place in Cumbria. If you didn't get them, I have some that I can pass on to you. They arrived in a magazine that I subscribe to, therefore aren't specifically for me to use. One is £10 off a £50 spend, and one £5 off £30.

If you can use them, pm me & I can pop them in post, or if you want to use them online, I can just give you the voucher codes.

If you don't need them, just ignore me! 

Oh, they expire 30th Nov.

KA

Kayannie that is extremely kind - thank you. I'm going to hold out for my next "Cumbrian watery place club" ones I think though as one of those is usually a 20% off £50 and over, which as the multicooker I am planning on purchasing will be substantially more than that £50 threshold, will make more MSE-sense for me I think. I'm very grateful to you for thinking of me though! 

Seasidegal58

Have subscribed!😀👍😀👍

foxgloves

The new house sounds lovely, @EssexHebridean. I don't generally frequent the MFW board, so will have to remember to pop across to see how you are doing. I will be particularly interested to hear about how the garden is progressing as you get settled in. I'm sure you will be wanting to grow at least some food, so as to be able to chuck more spare spondooliks at your mortgage. It's surprising how much can be saved, especially at this time of year.
Enjoy your new place,
F x

Cheery_Daff

foxgloves said:

The new house sounds lovely, @EssexHebridean. I don't generally frequent the MFW board, so will have to remember to pop across to see how you are doing. I will be particularly interested to hear about how the garden is progressing as you get settled in. I'm sure you will be wanting to grow at least some food, so as to be able to chuck more spare spondooliks at your mortgage. It's surprising how much can be saved, especially at this time of year.
Enjoy your new place,
F x

Foxgloves! Do you know about the subscribe button?? You don't need to trawl the MFW board, just subscribe to the diaries you read and they appear in a handily curated list! Please excuse me if you do already know about this of course and choose not to use it 😊😊 It's one of the reasons many people were saying it doesn't matter where your own diary is situated, as once people have found and subscribed, it doesn't matter where it is! 😊

(Again, apologies if I'm just wittering on when you already know...)

lucielle

Helloooo, phew made it across to the new place  *looks very swish!
L

jwil

Happy new diary!  The house description sounds lovely.

Sunshine_girl2

House sounds lovely. Happy new diary. 

Moorviews

It’s so exciting that you are not only in your new home but also your new diary. I always enjoy reading about how you organise your finances so efficiently to reach your goals and fund your hobbies and lifestyle. 

Sun_Addict

Pleased to hear you’re in your new home and how fabulous it sounds from your description. Happy new diary too - two new homes for you 😆 Looking forward to your next adventure.