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I do agree re not finding out footwear isn't quite right until it's too late, @EssexHebridean. It can be so annoying & very hard to tell in the shop from such limited walking while trying-on. I still have a lovely pair of walking boots I bought online during the pandemic - £180 if I remember rightly & although I ordered my normal size (5), did everything right re 'walking them in' & even had them stretched by the cobbler in town, they have never been comfortable to wear. They are just too tight & rub the back of my heel to blisters. A good brand, but my sister reckons she's had this issue too & that as a brand, their sizing tend to come up on the small side. Of course by the time they had been walked in several times to try & get them to acclimatise to my feet, they were then not in the new condition required to send back for a refund. Changing up to the next size wouldn't have helped either as it was one of these cases where there are half sizes available until one gets to 5, then it's 5/5.5 so a 6 would have been like throwing the shoes away & wearing the boxes! Ah well, lesson learned, I do have the excuse that it was during Lockdown, but I vowed never to purchase footwear online again.
F2026's challenges: 1) To rebuild our Emergency Fund to at least £5k.
2) To read 50 books (5/50) 3) The Re-Shrinking of Foxgloves 8.1kg/30kg4 -
Yes - buying footwear online is not for me, either!
Anyway - today has just got expensive... apparently we require a new roof. Sigh.🎉 MORTGAGE FREE (First time!) 30/09/2016 🎉 And now we go again…New mortgage taken 01/09/23 🏡
Balance as at 01/09/23 = £115,000.00 Balance as at 31/12/23 = £112,000.00
Balance as at 31/08/24 = £105,400.00 Balance as at 31/12/24 = £102,500.00
£100k barrier broken 1/4/25
Balance as at 31/08/25 = £ 95,450.00. Balance as at 31/12/25 = £ 91,100.00
SOA CALCULATOR (for DFW newbies): SOA Calculatorshe/her5 -
Yes Mrs F, buying footwear online is not for me, either! L that is the PERFRECT way of putting it!
Greenbee that's interesting on the pricing thing - indeed, I wonder if that was where the small difference in price between what he said it would cost and hat their website said it would cost had come from - that the price had changed and the site not been updated...
Anyway - today has just got expensive... apparently we do require a new roof. Sigh. In fairness I had suspected as much and was both pleased and surprised when lovely Steve said he thought we'd get away with a repair. He's been right up and over the top now though, and he no longer thinks the repair will cut it.
We had better dig out that solar panel research again - there isn't a chance we're having scaffold up and not having the solar dealt with at the same time! Ditto getting the repointing done around the chimney, and I'll probably look at getting a chimney cowl fitted too I reckon. Oh- and swift boxes!🎉 MORTGAGE FREE (First time!) 30/09/2016 🎉 And now we go again…New mortgage taken 01/09/23 🏡
Balance as at 01/09/23 = £115,000.00 Balance as at 31/12/23 = £112,000.00
Balance as at 31/08/24 = £105,400.00 Balance as at 31/12/24 = £102,500.00
£100k barrier broken 1/4/25
Balance as at 31/08/25 = £ 95,450.00. Balance as at 31/12/25 = £ 91,100.00
SOA CALCULATOR (for DFW newbies): SOA Calculatorshe/her7 -
Sorry to hear this. To think I am worried about a roof repair that was only discovered when I had my gutters cleaned!I am a Forum Ambassador and I support the Forum Team on Mortgage Free Wannabe & Local Money Saving Scotland & Disability Money Matters. If you need any help on those boards, do let me know.Please note that Ambassadors are not moderators. Any post you spot in breach of the Forum Rules should be reported via the report button , or by emailing forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com. All views are my own & not the official line of Money Saving Expert.
Lou~ Debt free Wanabe No 55 DF 03/14.**Credit card debt free 30/06/10~** MFW. Finally mortgage free O2/ 2021****
"A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of" Jane Austen in Mansfield Park.
***Fall down seven times,stand up eight*** ~~Japanese proverb. ***Keep plodding*** Out of debt, out of danger.
One debt remaining. Home improvement loan. 20 months left.4 -
Will be interested to hear about your panel research - our fitters were adamant that they had to have their own scaffolding, so despite having had one lot up for the roof, we then had to have a different lot for the panels. May have been to do with insurance, but they also had it set up differently so they could the panels up there. Wouldn’t have been so irksome if it weren’t for the fact that the second lot (solar) were a bunch of idiots - both the scaffolders and the installers.Mortgage free 16/06/2023! £132,500 cleared in 11 years, 3 months and 7 days
'Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.' Ernest Hemingway4 -
Ohhhh, boo hiss to the expense of a new roof, but defo worth looking at solar panel possibilities at the same time. And as the owner of 3 swift boxes, I can tell you that they are an absolute joy.
F2026's challenges: 1) To rebuild our Emergency Fund to at least £5k.
2) To read 50 books (5/50) 3) The Re-Shrinking of Foxgloves 8.1kg/30kg4 -
What a pain about the roof, but better to know and invest than find out when it caves in or blows away!
Great news about the PB and mortgagehttps://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6466032/an-in-between-phase/p1
'self-blame can be as egotistical as self-praise... any work worth doing is greater than we are... we must not overrate our importance to it, either for good or ill' Margaret Kennedy Lucy Carmichael4 -
When i found out how much they wanted for scaffolding for my small place I would definitely say get as much use as possible. But I also thought when I saw the scaffolding for the solar that looks odd. But when I saw them using it then it became obvious so it may be a difference in how it is to be used. Those large panels are quite a different proposition to piles of tiles.4
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Sorry to hear about the roof ... but if you can get your solar installers to work with your roofer on an in-roof system that may solve the scaffolding problem (so ask your roofer which solar installers he works with and do it backwards!).
I must ask my solar installers (who are going to take down the TV arial that is no longer needed) whether they'll put up swift boxes... and bat boxes.5 -
Much sympathy on the roof.
I can't have solar without planning permission that I wouldn't get (conservation) but my scaffolders were independent of the roofers so asking them to do a structure that supports both should be possible.My mortgage free diary: +++ Divide by Cucumber Error. Please reinstall universe and reboot+++
GNU Mr Redo4
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