MF by Christmas 2024 - let's do this!

CathT

Just found your diary and you've had so many changes and also lots of progress since you started.

Look forward to following your journey. 

Coxy11

Thanks for stopping by @CathT

EA is booked to value our house today at 11am. We had the front door resprayed yesterday and DH has purchased a new towel radiator for the main bathroom as current one is white but has some rust spots (17 years old!!). New one is shiny silver. DH will fit it over the weekend. These are things we would have done anyway but nice to spruce up little bits here and there.

No courgette plants anywhere so guess we won't be growing them this year  Tomatoes and lettuce are doing very well, probably due to all the rain we've been having. We have a couple of squash up in the greenhouse too, so that's exciting.

Garden project (fern corner/chippings/sleepers) is coming on but due to the rain DH hasn't been able to do much this week. He is signing on in person this afternoon, so hope to start receiving benefits at some point soon. Every little helps. Still no sign of the BAYE funds.....

Coxy11

Exciting news in that the final IFC payment for our flooring/carpets has left our account today. That means our only debt is now the mortgage.

We had a productive weekend. Bought waterproof mascara and lipstick for DS1s wedding, received double B00ts points and a few free samples too. DH ordered his shirt as was significantly cheaper on line for some reason? I’ve also ordered some delicate ivory feathers for my fascinator. It is plain royal blue but I want to make it my own. Total spent c. £100 which is covered by our ‘wedding fund’.

We finished a project in the garden – creating a fern bed and seating area under the large walnut tree. ILs have gifted us 10 large ferns from their garden and we reused some stone chippings from elsewhere in the garden. Decided against buying a bistro set (saving ourselves £95) and instead opted to use our rattan armchairs and table. We bought some bedding plants for the wall-hanging pots and a patio trough, so that has made things a bit more cheerful to look at. There was 20% all outdoor plants at Homebase so some money spent but a bit saved there. We food shopped in Aldi and topped up in Sainsbury with the couple of things we couldn’t get.  I also ran 5k non-stop yesterday for the first time since May last year – taking that as a win as my back didn’t hurt after the gardening due to all the stretching earlier in the day.

Back in work today for a normal 5-day week. One boss back from leave the other now on leave for 2 weeks. I have two meetings to sit in on today, so that will break up my day. Have bought in a homemade poke bowl and some fruit for lunch, so not a penny will leave my purse today apart from the £1.75 bus fare home.

DH had his first in-person Job Centre appointment on Thursday with the next this week Thursday at 9am. They have said they will look at his CV – next available slot is 4 July. He will obviously continue to look for work in the meantime. He has the joy of a tip run today to get rid of some garden waste created over the weekend.

EA valuation for our house came in at £975k expecting to achieve £950k. He is a friend so will do us a deal on the commission and only charge 0.5% plus VAT. Says he reckons it’ll sell very easily and not to do any work to it. Food for thought.

beanielou

Food for thought indeed. 

Coxy11

Long time no posting.

Still no new role for DH so we have decided to put the house on the market. A good friend is a local agent, so we got a good deal of 0.5% commission and have our first two viewing tomorrow eeek. We saw a house we really liked two weeks ago. It’s still for sale currently and could be ‘the one’ – 75% of the size of ours with a larger garden. Hoping we could move and only work a couple of days a week at most, and have time to be able to do other things…like gardening…. We would have no mortgage.

DS1 got married last week and we had a spectacular day. Very happy for them both as they are very well-suited and have been together 7 years. DD and DS2 will come with us to wherever we end up. DD a bit wobbly about it but we are selling the idea to her! Luckily her job only requires once a week attendance in the London office so we will make sure to be near good rail links.

Food budget was blown last month due to Dad staying with us for the wedding, and related outings that that caused. Not complaining. We will be a lot stricter this month, starting today with a £1.50 Lidl fruit and veg box (mainly fruit).

Trencherpilot2

To reduce your grocery bill, have you tried the  2good2go app. Usually food with a short sell by date, we use them all the time. Local supermarkets, bakers etc offer packages all the time. Any meat with a short SBD goes straight into the freezer. It also encourages you to try new food as you don't want to waste it. 

 

Coxy11

Thank you @Trencherpilot2 I have used 2good2go before but not for a while. There's a fuel station with M&S food hall near us that sometimes advertises but it's a late collection of 9.30pm and once I'm in from work and comfy..... I also scan Olio every few days just to see what's out there. Got another Lidl box yesterday. More veg this time but always useful. Food budget for this month going okay so far.

We had 3 viewings on our house last Saturday and have another 3 tomorrow, one of which is a second viewing. They have made a low offer and wish to rent it out so no chain. We've declined for now, will see what happens after tomorrow. The house we like is still for sale so we might go see it again tomorrow if the timings work - we need to be out of our house for 1.5 hours. Thinking it's on for too much money so there might be a deal to be had.

Thinking we might retain 10k on a mortgage when we move to retain our credit score and a line of credit should we need it. Does anyone have a view on this please? I have wanted to be mortgage free for a long time but now panicking in case we ever needed funds for something big.....

Suffolk_lass

I think if you are moving, that is well worth doing. Although you would have some sort of survey undertaken, there are always "things" with a new/different house

Coxy11

Thank you @Suffolk_lass

Feeling a bit meh. We went back to the house we liked at the weekend and took DS2. The owners showed us around along with the agent, and just as we were leaving she told us about the ‘village society’ so I googled it when home. The google search also bought up the planning application for the adjacent property – a boarded up listed mill, Georgian house and windmill. We had asked the agent at the first viewing, and she had said a lady had bought it to ‘do up’ as it was listed and residential status. Turns out there are to be 10 dwellings including demolition of a single storey building, plus a new two storey cottage both on the boundary of the house we like.

If the redevelopment had already taken place I think we would have gone ahead, but I really don’t want years of building works and delivery trucks. I recognise that sounds very prissy, but the whole point of having a better work life balance is to spend time in the garden, which will be very noisy! Regrettably this one is now off the table which makes me really sad as it’s a one-off house, with wraparound garden and in the perfect spot.

Of the two viewings of our house last weekend we have had limited feedback. One lady said ‘nice, but others to see’ (apparently she’s a serial viewer) the other (2nd viewing of those who’d made a low offer) haven’t said a word. We have another new viewing this coming Saturday.

Meanwhile we plod on. Food budget, despite me being careful, is looking decidedly dodgy this month. To be fair, we have included a few eating out receipts – should really have a separate budget for this. DH is still job hunting but hasn’t had one single invitation to interview. He is signing on every two weeks which is demoralising but at least we are receiving something in return.

Our car was picked up by the coachworks on Tuesday and we have a hire car for the foreseeable. Ours was hit from behind by a hit and run, who then ran a red light and t-boned another car, so feel we got off lightly. Ridiculous therefore that the insurance company were in two minds whether to write ours off?! Hoping they now see sense.

debtfreewannabe321

That's a fantastic commission you've secured yourself on selling your house! I hope you get the offer you are after very soon 🤞 
Sorry about the car hopefully it's not a write off?