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

Newstartforme

debtfreewannabe321 said:

Newstartforme said:

Hi DFW , just popping in to sympathise on the weight , exact same here though a bit shorter , do you feel more out of breath , I do and feel that along with sore joints is putting me off the exercise . I think when you get older you need to exercise as well as diet don't you ? Xx

@Newstartforme yes I am really out of breath lately. Hayfever season isn't helping me but it is definitely because of my weight on top causing breathing issues (I also have a large chest and I don't think the tightening bra straps are helping me). I have joint pain which has only recently started for me but it really does put me off exercising, but then I know I also need to just push through it to get fitter, lose a bit of weight and then hopefully the joint pain won't be so bad....it's really hard even just starting though isn't it 😏

I feel even to get a half stone off would give me a bit of encouragement and make it less painful on the joints but menopause makes it difficult to shift even a pound or 2 unfortunately.  Hopefully we will get there ! Good luck with the next stage of the house xx

debtfreewannabe321

Newstartforme said:

 I feel even to get a half stone off would give me a bit of encouragement and make it less painful on the joints but menopause makes it difficult to shift even a pound or 2 unfortunately.  Hopefully we will get there ! Good luck with the next stage of the house xx

Ditto sadly it is not shifting easily 😏 and thank you 😁

debtfreewannabe321

We are currently in that !!!!!! stage of building works in the house..it's full of soot and brick dust in my kitchen and I've tried to clean up plates glasses and put them all away throughout the day so they're hidden away from it all but omg it is stressful. I hope dp is finished soon. Btw he got the last few bricks out! Yay! I searched on the Internet for tools to help and he had the right ones so went out to try them and they seemed to have worked. He's cleaning up at the moment. 

And full disclosure it was so noisy I had a headache so I  went out with DD when she got home from school.

I ended up spending £15 on glasses 🤓 for DD she's been moaning her old ones are giving her headache so we ordered new with New prescription. And as she wears contacts I told her she wasn't allowed to spend more than £20 over the NHS voucher 😏😆.

We also got a top up shop. We've been doing small and often all week because the kitchen is such a mess and we have minimal places to put the food at the mo. Spent less than £130 all week so far, I'm still within budget. And I've bought extras within the shop like garden trowels which i keep losing 😏 i need to buy a bright luminous colour i think! 

Also took DD to the CS and she found a pretty skirt and I got a couple of tops. Whilst we were at the tills she spotted a pretty lamp too and asked for it. I initially said no but as we got back to the car she said could she have it for her birthday present so I relented and went back in. I've basically spent way too much money and wish I'd stayed home with some ear plugs in🤣🙄.

Courgettes and aubergine fried up in coconut oil and herbs for dinner (from the garden!) and rice. Am sure the kids will eat that with delight 👀. I will do frozen fruit for pudding with ice cream which has layers of ice all over it, as I'm trying to eat down the freezer. It seriously needs defrosting after we accidentally left it open last week. 

Right I can hear DP finishing up finally so will go assess damage in there 🤣.

KajiKita

This is the worst bit of any building works; the demolition phase … 

It will be worth it though 😊

KK

debtfreewannabe321

KajiKita said:

This is the worst bit of any building works; the demolition phase … 

It will be worth it though 😊

KK

Definitely. I can see room shapes starting to come together already, it's quite exciting. 
I got up this morning to dust everywhere even though we mopped and dusted yesterday afterwards. It will take days before we stop finding it 👀🙈.

Last night as we both collapsed onto the sofa DD came down with her empty dinner plate, so I told her to go and get some pudding from the side and that there was some ice cream in the freezer for her to add to it. A couple of minutes later we hear squealing coming from the dining room and a plea for help. DP goes in, and the freezer door has fallen off 😳. So that was the end of that basically. He couldn't get it back on and the food was fast defrosting - I think the door has been broken a while and we hadn't noticed. 🙄 Of course. Thinking on my feet I went on FB MP and found the freezers for sale section see the first one and message them. Within a minute they reply back, it's available and yes we're here at this post code- they literally had one letter different in the postcode to us and were a three minute drive away including traffic lights being red! Within twenty minutes (we had to divert to cash point) we had a new chest freezer, which is what we would have eventually replaced ours for anyway, for £60. I could have definitely got it cheaper but honestly time was not on our side. And probably wouldn't have been as near to our house either. We over half filled the new freezer with food so would have had a lot of waste. 
So we don't need to eat the freezer down anymore 🤣🤣🤣 👏🏻 silver linings and all that. 
The £60 should come from our EF. I've taken it from the food budget for now. And if that runs low I will take from EF later in the month. 

I was doing some research yesterday but haven't come to any conclusions yet. I'm searching for a range cooker, has to be electric and induction and 90cm wide. So that helped narrow search results down. However considering my budget I stumbled across a reconditioned ranges website (think they sell lots of things actually aside from cookers) and am now in a quandary as to whether to get a second hand reconditioned ranges which would be a better brand or for the same price get a brand new entry level leisure range type one. My research goes on. I've never bought any cookers before and actually done research because every single time my budget dictated it must be the entry level cheap as chips type cooker...I'm still sort of in the same budget but for a range this time 🤣 not much changes. If anyone has a range and could help me I'd be most grateful. The budget isn't much more than a grand so I know it has to be entry level or reconditioned seconds but not sure which to go for. We considered fb too and I have alerts set up but many close to us are overpriced and / or wrong size/ wrong fuel type. Also would need to account for van costs and fuel and we'd have to lift it so we are almost at the point of not looking there. 

Right today, I'm praying nothing else breaks as Wednesday we have car service and MOT and I really don't need to be spending any more money!
Although saying that DP needs to go look at cooker hoods for the chimney breast. But that will come from the kitchen budget so not monthly budget so it's ok...next week I'm planning on getting the new kitchen area stripped of wallpaper, filled and sanded and repainted neutral in readiness for the kitchen. I think I want it done before the temporary wall comes down to the new extension because there will be a lot of trades in there working and I don't want to be in their way. I've ordered a lovely oak shelf for the chimney breast from Etsy it was on sale. So I need to start accounting for costs now as otherwise we will be like, where's all the money gone in three weeks. 

We've had lots of rain last night. The air feels a bit easier to breathe in 😌. I've finally got into holiday mode where I'm not feeling like I'm due back at work on Monday. Our dinner last night was fresh courgette and aubergine from the garden with an onion and pepper. It was really nice and went well with some rice and seasoning. Also threw a fake bacon type thing in to appease the kids which added a nice texture and flavour. DD still managed to pick out every bit of courgette though 🙄🙄.

Right anyway, off to start my day. Hope everyone has a good one. 

KajiKita

Oh wow to the freezer fandango! That was quite a whirlwind just reading that! Can’t imagine what it must have been like living through it, on top of an already busy day … 😳😂👏

I’m glad you’re feeling more holidayish 😊 - it always takes me a day or two to ‘land’ after finishing work for a break. 

Re the range, I’d be inclined to go for a reconditioned higher spec one partly because of the disruption and hassle of installing such a thing, I’d want to have the functions I want on first install. But look at prices, guarantees and trustp1lot ratings etc. 

KK

Baldybear

De lurking have you tried another brand of cooker, sure stoves used to do ranges and were great, we have a cda range cooker snd been brilliant, 15 years and going strong

missymoo81

Hey,

well done on sorting the freezer so quickly! I love how you and your DP just get on with things, you’re going great guns with your house improvements! You put me to shame, I’ve been meaning to do the floor and paint for over a year!

I used to have a rangemaster, and I know they last and last. But can’t really comment on other makes. 

Your dinner sounded lovely, I love courgettes, I really need to figure out how to grow them as no one else eats them!

Have a great day, and enjoy holiday mode. 

daisy_1571

We have one similar to this, have a look at the website as they have a few 90cms one.  Think we saw it in a real life Curry's and ordered the colour we wanted

https://www.belling.co.uk/en-gb/cooking/range-cookers/farmhouse-90ei-range#444411822

Except ours is bright pink !  (Don't think they do that colour anymore.)   Weve had it at least 11 years and its moved house with us once.  I love ours, its not induction, the whole thing has been on once for a xmas where we had a veggie oven and a meat oven plus pots on top

Daisy xxx 

dawnybabes

I have a 900mm Rangemaster, it’s 17 years old and still going strong.  The quality of the pan holders etc are so much better than the cheap ones.  If horrors of horrors it needs to be replaced I’d put another Rangemaster in.  When we bought it I was chuntering as it was so expensive compared to others but we was limited at that time with the gap as most seemed to be 1000mm