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

ladybird1106

Another here with a room of doom, ours is the spare room. Just heading in there once I've finished my cuppa. 
Love🐞

killerpeaty

To what extent do you want a fixer upper? Like loads of building work? Or a new kitchen and bathroom kinda job? You don't have to answer, I'm just nosey

debtfreewannabe321

ladybird1106 said:

Another here with a room of doom, ours is the spare room. Just heading in there once I've finished my cuppa. 
Love🐞

I got totally distracted Ladybird I got as far as the dining room (pretty good size, probs 12x12ft but has three walls with doors so a bit of a thoroughfare and a dumping ground, one of the doors leads to the small conservatory which is where I was supposed to start lol) ...I have been looking at the shelves in the dining room for a while and realised they are just not feng shuing it any more for me I did an energy read on the house when we moved in to see where I should place things, where energy needed a boost with plants etc and the dining room was the worst one in the whole house bar none for disrupted energy flow (I realise to some this is foreign language and not for all, skip on through if you want, aside from doing these things I am relatively normal ) So I put some old scaffold boards up, lovingly restored and treated for shelving to bring in a natural wood element in there, and I placed a few crystals, lamps in corners for light, because even though there is three walls of doors it is dark? Guess that is because none of the doors lead directly to outside. SO it was lovely and calm in there but that and the conservatory have become awful again because I have been busy with work and finishing DIY jobs and honestly had no energy to do it and kids, well kids...you know kids, they don't care. 
SO yesterday I gutted the shelves, cleaned and polished them, rearranged nick-nacks on them and they look nice again. I have a lot of things sat on the dining table though which if they haven't found a home within the next week will be delegated to a sale pile or CS. That's how I roll now  
Today perhaps I will make it to the conservatory now although it is mostly just in need of a clean and tidy now as I threw all old boxes out that were ruined and have a pile for friend to use for packing, so it's just shoes that need putting away now and mopping, cleaning and rearranging stuff. 

beanielou

Do you ever stop!!  

debtfreewannabe321

killerpeaty said:

To what extent do you want a fixer upper? Like loads of building work? Or a new kitchen and bathroom kinda job? You don't have to answer, I'm just nosey

I don't mind answering! So our houses to date, I'd say my dad's house was the first one we did. I gutted it before I even met DP, I pulled kitchens out (left sink as i'm no plumber) and floors, took off all woodchip, and sanded down some bits. DP I met after this, he seemed keen to help out and dad paid him, it was lockdown so he was kind of in between jobs because he relocated to live with me. So it worked well. He finished removing the kitchen & bathroom, and he built new walls where they had rotted away and replastered and tiled. We knocked down a wall together because I felt the outside coal shed should be incorporated into the house for resale value, and it was right next to a tiny toilet. Made it a good size, blocked up old outside door to coal shed and now had a great sized utility with toilet. He finished it all off, dad did pay for plasterer to quicken some of these jobs. DP & I will both give it a go but we're not experts. DP fitted new bathroom and kitchen and tiled. Dad paid for flooring to be done. DP painted everything too. 
The second house was mine & my ExH, I had already made it 'pretty' enough by removing most woodchip, giving plastering a go on my own, shelving where I could etc, but that was the end of my skill. DP fitted a new kitchen, and utility area and we fixed up a few things that helped with re-sale value, I.E replacing glass in windows but not new frames and a new door. Sold it on as the paint was drying. Literally. It sold in two days, I was so happy! It was the smallest house on the estate and sold for a really good price on par with the bigger ones. Everyone loved my pink kitchen who knew  
This house was always going to be a doer upper as I don't want to be here, but we desperately wanted ExH off my mortgage and a home of our own. We felt as we were effectively starting again (he didn't get a lot from his divorce and I didn't have a lot to start with) we needed to take on a project. This house was probably last decorated whenever the woodchip wallpaper fans went crazy for that stuff *face palm* We've paid for a wall to be knocked down here and an RSJ put in (we will knock down stud walls but not structural ones you'll be pleased to hear) and we've put in a beautiful new bathroom, DP re-jigged the layout too on my demand (If i have a vision he usually will do it ) it is a beautiful calming blue and white now rather than dark forest green and black. We have replaced all internal doors (DP hates that job the most I think) flooring, and put an office in the garage. This was actually less work for us than the first house because we have paid for builders and carpenters along the way. 
The house we were looking at on RM had NO central heating, radiators and needed a total rewire, therefore a total gutting and re-plastering too. I'm not sure about that, whilst living in it, but it seems it's the only way we can jump up the housing ladder to where we want to be and we have learned a lot of skills along the way so far. DP is very capable but he also has a full time job so i'm not sure...we haven't said no to it. But also I think we are both wondering if that is too much.
I bet you wish you hadn't asked now that was a long reply lol.

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all, I am up, dressed, three cups of tea in and dog walked glad I walked the dog as it is threatening to rain already. So miserable here lately with the weather. The other day poor dog didn't get walked as it was bucketing it down by the time I had sorted myself out, so I have decided to do it earlier from now on as it seems to stay dry early on. 

DP is off out to meetings all day, 2 hour drive to these today, 2 hours back, and now he has it in his mind he wants to move I think he finds the drive even more annoying than usual.

I'm in work early again, we had another one off when I got there yesterday. The other supervisor had a moan and by the time we got there the manager had actually done her job for once and divvied up work between other workers. So we got to supervise properly for the first time in weeks. 

I made a yummy mushroom, spinach, red onion wellington yesterday. I will season it next time as in my hurry, and trying to cook in between doing the dining room, getting ready for work, I forgot oops. It was still really nice though. Served with some mash and veg on the side. DS, DP & I ate that, DD had a pizza because I couldn't even be bothered with that argument.

It has been about two months since I started this diary, and I was having a moment of 'taking stock' of where things are at, so two months in and we have
* Paid off one loan -£768
* An EF of £1000
* Halved the electric and gas bill to £125 (ish)
* Reduced the food bill by £300!!!
* Savings for the MOP - £900
* Paid £241 off the mortgage as small PAD/ TT
* Taken the stress out of food shopping and cooking and meal planning. I work over dinnertime and we were all getting frustrated with it tbh. So I meal prep, or cook every day before work now, or get something pre-cooked out the freezer. We don't eat hardly any processed stuff now, only the odd veggie burger and pizza and sausages. This is probably the best improvement we have noticed on a day to day basis. 
* Reduced sugar intake because I refuse to do top up shops for lemonade, sweets and stuff full of empty calories.
* Reduced outgoings so much I can quit my job! I will find another one if I can but I am able to actually quit with no impact on the household budget really aside from the savings!
* Had money to pay us all pocket money, kids and adults
* Set up a bill's account which we pay into on pay day to take stress of whether or not we have money for bills that come out towards the end of the month.

-Savings within budget were circa, £550 pm !
-Savings we have now £2000+

This all makes me very happy and I will keep remembering all these good things if I ever feel poor in the next month without my income. The savings will take a hit for now but I still have in the budget £300 for the MOP, £50 for EF, £50 for clothes and our pocket money. 

On payday this week I have already allocated some money out. 
* Green bin waste for the year, £44
* Food -£80 (I hope!)
* Health fund - £75 (I allocated £100 to new glasses but didn't need any so only the cost of the opticians has been taken out of the £100)
* MOP direct- £50
=£249.

I get paid more than this as I've done a lot of OT recently, and I already have money sat in my account, I will leave any spare in there though (I still have £50 of my pocket money left too), and allow it to roll over to next month as it may be quite tight after I've quit. My manager I think has guessed I am about to quit. She offered me a permanent extra hour which I would have jumped at a few months ago, and I replied with, hmm I am not sure, I will let you know. And then didn't. Isn't it great to get to a place where you don't have to work a job you hate any more.....!

This weekend if DP hasn't booked us in to view the house we both liked I am going to take a book and pencil around the house and jot down all jobs that need to be done before we get house valued and possibly up for sale. If there was a vocation I missed in life it is styling houses ready for sale keeping them styled with kids and dog is another thing altogether though.

Okay off to catch up with other diaries before sorting dinner out and hoovering the house. 

debtfreewannabe321

beanielou said:

Do you ever stop!!  

No DP is like, if you were 10 right now you would be told you have adhd. hahahah. I get bored too easily if I stop for too long. I am able to stop and take a nice bath, read a book, meditate but I always like to have a project or ten on the go LOL  

debtfreewannabe321

When we bought this house I had 30k in savings, we have spent all of it doing this house up and had to put carpets on 0%. 

This is from my first post!
We were working out the other day exactly how much we have spent on the house, praying it was NOT £30k. It wasn't thankfully because I wonder now in the housing market if we would even achieve that back. We actually were useless at keeping track of spends in the midst of DIY hell (i.e brick dust everywhere, holes in walls to the outside, builders in and out etc), but we have since worked out we have possibly only spent £22k tops on the house, this was being generous with guesstimates too. We've spent close to £10k on furniture (new mattresses, beds, sofas, dining room stuff, a few antique cupboards and side boards etc) if not more, as we were upsizing the house and plus DP & I wanted 'our' furniture not my old 'exH and my' furniture...so this made us feel happier about selling up in current climate as we would effectively take £10k of stuff with us again!
Still have that carpet loan to pay though....although it's probably only got half left now.

ladybird1106

You have done so well in such a short space of time. 
Love 🐞

beanielou

In total awe!!