Buying a little piece of Middle England; Manifesting my way to mortgage free.

debtfreewannabe321

HotDog2020 said:

Wowser, you are an inspiration. and what happened to resting? It sounds like you in love with your new home albeit a project in the making? EnjoyX

I rest, until my eyes fall upon something that needs doing, I am my own worst nightmare! 
No heavy lifting today though so sort of resting

beanielou

So blooming exciting to have all those shops so easily within reach. I only have one. 

debtfreewannabe321

beanielou said:

So blooming exciting to have all those shops so easily within reach. I only have one. 

That was like the last house and It was so depressing as they never had any organic stuff or vegan choices and that was basically my weekly shop 🙈

debtfreewannabe321

I thought I'd do another hour or so in the garden whilst the weather was nice ...This is at the back of the garden. I had already cleared away grape vines that were over the doorway and pulled out about fifty metres of Vine before taking this (seriously 😳). There was smashed glass from the door all over the floor but weren't able to get to it because of piles of wood in the way. They're the piles that someone has collected. So today I thought I'd make headway into this ....the last owner used it for...can you guess? Storing wood. It seems some fell and smashed the door. And then he abandoned it. With wood and all. If you look at the top picture that's the first time I've managed to get a picture inside. And on the left ....is a potting shed!!! I always wanted one of these. I'm not sure if this is salvageable though. The vine has taken over like day of the triffids. It's smashed through the walls, the ceiling 🤣 it's over all furniture that was in there. The owners before the last one really seemed to have loved and cared for the garden so I'd like to try and get it back to how it was ...this is about five years worth of neglect so it could be worse. 
The bottom picture shows the pallets I will try to make a compost heap from.
This back section of the garden is like a secret garden, you have to go through a clematis archway and through apple trees, it's really lovely. The dog seems to like it too which is why I need to clear and clean it as there is glass everywhere (the last owner had two small children- not sure how he kept them away from this when he had them?!)

Dinner tonight was leftover food. A tin of vinaigrette mixed beans, spaghetti with sauce, veggie fingers and garlic bread 🤣🤣 it was awful. I can't wait to go shopping and do a meal plan!

skint_spice

It looks like it will be fabulous in time💜

debtfreewannabe321

Thanks s_s it's a real mess and overgrown atm I think it will take until next summer to do each bed properly.

Today I'm up, I've big bags under my eyes, suitable for all the shopping I'm going to do later. I've done a meal plan, some easy ones, some treat ones, and some healthier ones. I'm trying to balance nutrition with costs as well as celebratory meals for back to school (woop I can't wait that's for sure!).

I am due at the storage place in an hour and we will take as much as we can carry (or more precisely what we can squeeze in the car). 
After unloading here I will go do some shopping then poor kids have been eating utter rubbish when feeding themselves during the day. I need packed lunch stuff too as I can't afford two times hot dinner every day. Will report back how much it costs to fill freezer/ fridge later 🙈

ruby_eskimo

Wow @debtfeewannabe321 congrats on the progress you've made so far!  You have my sympathy with all the cleaning, especially the bathroom - I didn't time it but it was definitely a couple of hours of scrubbing to tackle the grime.  I still haven't finished scrubbing the kitchen - there's layers of grease everywhere 🤢.  Good luck at the storage place today and hope the food shop isn't too expensive!

debtfreewannabe321

ruby_eskimo said:

Wow @debtfeewannabe321 congrats on the progress you've made so far!  You have my sympathy with all the cleaning, especially the bathroom - I didn't time it but it was definitely a couple of hours of scrubbing to tackle the grime.  I still haven't finished scrubbing the kitchen - there's layers of grease everywhere 🤢.  Good luck at the storage place today and hope the food shop isn't too expensive!

The kitchen was my first job it took me and my daughter an entire day to scrub it and even now it's clean I can't wait to replace it all as it's falling apart 🤣
The bathroom I put off for three days and then DP hurt his back carrying stuff up the stairs so said he'd love a bath but would get in the shower instead. Well I felt bad so I went and spent hours scrubbing it. I actually had to use a metal scourer over and over on the bath. There were layers of grime. And when I thought about the fact this was the main used bathroom and there had been little kids in it bathing just last week I felt very sorry for them 😑....

debtfreewannabe321

Okay we've done one trip to the storage place. Once again I am surrounded by boxes 😩. We certainly managed to fit a lot in there that was for sure. 
We've brought back all our ornaments and antiques and oil paintings this time as well as audio stuff (records and players etc). There was hardly anything left if I'm honest but we couldn't fit more in the car. So I've sent DP back to empty it out now rather than waiting till Wednesday. So that will be empty by lunchtime and the paperwork signed to say it's empty and a refund will be in the system for the weeks we paid for (we had to pay for the month and can claim back two weeks) so that will be around £30 to claim back. 

DP was up until 10pm in his office (thank god we got a four bed house because the garage is totally unusable right now for an office space) preparing for his interview tomorrow. It's a 15 minute presentation that's taken two days to do 🤨🤣 reminded me of my uni days 🤣. The drive over to the interview tomorrow is 3 hours (perhaps a bit under but we went with worst case scenario). So that's six hours on the road and perhaps an hour or so for interview. He's not sure whether he will hear anything soon from that because he's not sure how many more are being interviewed for second stage. But he's really really wanting this job so I'm all things crossed 🤞 that he gets it. We're not even sure on pay structure or level yet but he's so bored in his job that he wants a new challenge regardless.

I need to sit DD down today she can't put it off any longer on her homework. She's annoyed me a little bit. She desperately wanted to go to the school for sixth form and now she's got a place allocated she's already being very lazy about it all. This school is on par with the grammar school sixth forms round here and I've told her she cannot coast like she did in the last school (which I've heard is now under investigation for something that happened recently - not surprised) so she needs a stern word in her ear today I think.

No contact lenses yet 😕 
Really didn't want to spend lots more money on them as I know she's got loads somewhere. I think when she's at school tomorrow I will go through everything in her room again without her staring at me and telling me no, it's not in there. They have to be somewhere?

Right breakfast is eaten, juice is drunk, I will start unpacking this lot of boxes before more turn up!

debtfreewannabe321

DD has tidied her room, hooray! I went through her room today whilst she was having breakfast. They're not there. I decided to give up at this point because it is just driving me mad and I've enough on my plate without trying to find a small box with contacts

Lock-up is empty, refund will be processed at the end of the week sometime and not sure how long it takes to come back. Not a great amount anyway so it's not included in the budget.

Went shopping, decided to go to Mr T as that is where we have our eye tests done. Went into the opticians first and begged for some help with the prescription and how to order online, the very nice man also gave me 8 days worth for free (that's all he had in stock of DD prescription) I could have hugged him! That gives me enough time now to wait for the refund to arrive and DD has enough for nearly 2 weeks with what she already had. Phew....Online I have noticed it is a lot cheaper anyway so I might cancel the one we have with the opticians and buy online from now on.....

Shopping was a disaster in the fact we spent SO much. It was a success in the fact we were able to get everything on the list (unlike our old shop where we'd come away with less than half usually of whatever I had put down). I had an empty freezer and fridge this morning (aside from some limp lettuce and milk and 2 yoghurts), I now have an almost full freezer, and a very full fridge and the cupboards are also full. I need to sit and break down the receipts because I have put aside £30 for bulk shopping and the rest will be normal groceries. But i've spent over £200  

I am off to have some tea now and put the receipts into YNAB I will report back later. I was under on groceries last month but obviously I had no money to roll over because of the huge bill so this £200+ has all come from what I had left from my maintenance.