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

HotDog2020

debtfreewannabe321 said:

Morning all,

It is good to read about your Christmas plans, I hope you enjoy the break and celebrations. You seem to have many plates spinning in the air with regards your house, how is DD and DS rooms coming along, have you started redecorating? I know you were going to use your vouchers for the refurb from the big orange store! Last day tomorrow already crikey, I can't beleive Xmas holidays are already nearly here! Enjoy your day today and the festive period. All the best HotdogXXX

debtfreewannabe321

We've not started on the kids rooms yet 🙈
We have started dismantling DD room ready to do up, which should make the job a little easier when it comes to it. She had a wardrobe built in around the chimney breast which was around 14ft wide and wrapped around to the next wall by around 6ft. It was huge! I tried to talk DD into new doors and doing it up but she was insistent on taking it out. As we took it out we realised that the loft stairs come into her room slightly on one side which is why the wardrobe was so huge. So we have make that good with some panelling to cover it up. There is mismatched decorating on every wall because of the wardrobe - so underneath that wardrobe we found original picture rails and coving and floral wallpaper. The rest of the room is without coving and picture rails and is decorated in a brown wallpaper 🙈🤣 it's awful. Anyway we can't do much else until she vacates to go to Dad's house. Once she has gone at the weekend we will move whatever furniture we can out and then cover the rest over and start making it good probably around 27th December after our break and Xmas. I'm not confident we will get that far with it all as it's the largest room...but we will do what we can. And I may just get her to sleep in the dining room for a few nights extra when she gets back to crack on with it. It would be great to get one room completely done to spur us on.

The architect has been and had a good look at the work we want doing. We are working without a budget because we've no clue how much it will cost. Not helpful really but we were honest and said we do not have the cash ready, we do need to borrow it in some way so we'd like to phase the build work. He was happy to work with that as many people can't afford to do it all at once. He was shocked at the size of our kitchen (it is small) compared to the size of the rest of the house and thought our ideas would work which is good. So we'll see what his quote is. I'm expecting thousands .... 
I do have my £20+k in an Isa.....I am wondering if it would be prudent to use it on the house build because it would probably earn me more money in bricks than isa's... DP and I think we'll probably downsize in years to come anyway as we wouldn't need four beds. But if we didn't then I'd be without my (miniscule) Isa / pension. I'm going to think on it but I think it probably makes sense to put it into the house. The ISA matures in April which is around the time the builder would be free to start ground works anyway (unless of course he gets totally booked up before then- he has a big team of builders).

Right I'm off to drop Xmas present to my friend and a quick catch up as it will be the last time I get a chance to see her before Xmas. Then back home to make burgers and do some ironing. I need to do a meal plan using up all the kids stuff before they go at the weekend. I'm thinking snacky dinners for Friday with the pizza I planned might be good to get rid of some. 

debtfreewannabe321

Presents swapped, tea and cake consumed, catch up done and I made it back to the car in two hours so didn't need to pay for extra parking. Had a nice few hours before my friend has to start work. She's made me feel better about my job because she is doing the same job I left in March and she absolutely hates it, is overworked and only has two days off over Christmas. I feel sorry for her and tried to not gloat about all I've (not) done this week at work whilst she is run off her feet doing three people's jobs. I said I'd keep an eye open for job openings with us as I think she'd be perfect for it having had same experience as I have had. 

I've done the ironing and have dinner to make still. It's already dark out so plans of spending half hour in the garden have passed for another day. 

I have notifications on still for RM and I saw a house go up yesterday on our road and it's sold already! Not a surprise as it was undervalued massively I think. £55k cheaper than ours! Although we have an extra bedroom & reception room, and double the size outside. Still, I think it was undervalued by around £30k at least. There are three up on our road for sale (it's a long road) and they vary by £120k in price although that cheap one has thrown the average way off. I'm trying to gauge how much we can spend firstly without breaching ceiling value to bring it up to a good standard and also with how much we can / want to be borrowing. I think our style is closer to the more expensive style of house on our street. We paid £80k less than the expensive one that's currently up for sale (it has the style of extension I'm after too so it's good to nose on RM for ideas for this style house). I don't want to spend £80k on the work that we want doing though. ....so....hmm...

Not a NSD had to spend on parking but I didn't pay for the tea as it was my friends turn. Right best go sort dinner. 

debtfreewannabe321

Thinking about some personal goals for myself:

• Staying off social media. I have been off FB for almost 2 months and do NOT miss it a single bit. I went on for 5 minutes earlier and it reminded me why I left. So I will continue this. I have far more time to do other things too.
• I would like to start walking into work at least twice a week, and as the weather warms up I would like to walk in more. 
• Reading more. I love reading. Why do I not find more time to do it?
• Date day/night for DP & myself at least once a month, if not more. I feel like new jobs, new home, new stresses and means we are sometimes spending only a couple of hours together before one of us is ready for nodding off in the evening. 
• Spending more time with the kids...need to get clever with this one, they are attached to their rooms and I don't want it to be a case of me bribing them out to spend time and spending all my money on them. But it would be nice to do things with them. 
• I would like to find a yoga class or a meditation class. Or anything....something....for ME. Just ME. 
• I need to keep up with my friends more, I find if I don't put the initial message out and say hi, how are you, they don't bother with me. Perhaps that ought to tell me something, but I don't have many friends so I would like to maintain contact with the ones I have. 
• I want to do a new experience/ or have something to look forward to every month. So already in the diary I have something in Feb, June...I am thinking even days out/ theatre trips/ etc will count. I just feel like we have been living on survival mode for too long. It will make it more fun to be frugal and try and find deals too I think so that is the plan.

I am sure I can add to this but it's a good start. I find my life drifts, and disappears without a plan and goals to guide me. I would like to make 2025 the start of something great which I would love to continue, new experiences, things to look forward to and getting out and about-  which I think will help my mental health as well as my relationships around me. I feel like all we do sometimes is work, renovate, pay bills, sleep and repeat. Need to break the cycle (whilst still doing all those things, but in moderation this time )

I've made black bean burgers for dinner, will serve with buns and chips for a quick meal (although burgers took ages to make as couldn't find half the ingredients )  Will get something out the freezer for dinner tomorrow. Probably spag bol as think there is one left. 

I paid my mobile off 👏 so only have around £68 on k1arna now for a bra and last payment of some tickets. 
Also cashed out £8 on surveys. And made £50 on the hoover being sold. 
I am thinking about an extra job in the evenings that I know is available for a few months but honestly not sure, as the hours are rubbish, right over dinner time. But the extra pay could be useful for EF, plans for the house being drawn up etc. I will speak to DP about it. 
Right DS is in...off to get dinner started. Tomorrow is my last day at work until the new year, very excited it has felt like a long month already. 

redofromstart

Just my thoughts but read back on what you have just written, and then add 'working more hours' into that. If you don't absolutely have to then my advice would be don't do it. You are not single mum scraping for every penny and you should ask yourself what value you place on your time.

(this isn't about me and what happened to my DH but I will never regret taking this year off, regardless of the opportunity cost or career consequences) 

MFWannabe

I agree with Redo 
You started your list with spending more time with DP and children 
You state that you don’t have much time together now 
You can’t put a price on time x 

debtfreewannabe321

I mentioned it to DP and he said, nah truck that (although it was the non MSE version). And so that was decided 🤣.the job was only open temporarily until end of March but still ... That's put that idea to bed. I appreciate your thoughts redo and mfw and I do agree with your points. 

Last day at work today (insert happy dance) I'm tired I'm ready for it. Have not been sleeping well again. 

DD is not going into school so I don't know if I'll be able to get DS in. She said she has one study period and is refusing to get up for it. Can't blame her I doubt they're doing much. DS thinks he is the same age 🙄 so I'm hoping I can convince him otherwise and get him out the house 😆. I'll start with some porridge to coax him out of bed ...

debtfreewannabe321

Kids never went to school and I had yet another party day / movie day at work. Xmas party too after work. Free drinks and food and I'm ready for my bed now. Me and day drinking do not mix! 
Not a NSD I went out at lunch for food. But made £7 back in surveys so kinda break even.
So pleased I'm off till Jan now I'm exhausted!

seventh88

Really like your personal goals @debtfreewannabe321, i'm writing similar ones for myself next year. I find it hard to balance doing things with working/saving money. Would like to hear how you get on, especially the doing something new each month. I'll try and keep up with the forum.

beanielou

Happy holidays 🤩