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

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all, well I have a quiet house, the kids are away and DP has driven off to his conference until tomorrow so it is just FLD and me....he is fast asleep next to me. I have the window open and can hear the stream in the garden, it is very peaceful right now. I will be grateful if I have a quiet day compared to the rest of this week  
Happy summer solstice to all too....do we think the weather might turn nice yet? We have a grey haze still here, clouds butted up against one another and only tiny hints of blue under that....

Our buyers want to move in August, as do we, we have messaged the seller of our new home and he hasn't responded so we think perhaps his offer on the house he wanted was rejected. (I am a bit naughty and pulled some tarot cards to be nosey and he has a card with a man that looks suspiciously like the seller holding on to all his coins haha how apt). Anyway nothing we can do really there so we will keep hoping that he finds somewhere very soon as we will miss the window otherwise to move on that date. The buyers of our house need to give notice on their rental by a certain date so I guess we will find out sooner or later if that date is a no go. I am not doing any packing until I know but I am still cleaning and decluttering (minimalism at this point is looking like a great option to me )

I had to transfer almost £400 out of my account yesterday to pay for the vets as FLD needs liver supplements. £60 a box sheesh. I had an internet search and found a similar one for less than half that price ....nothing I can do about that now but I do wonder why they have to charge quite so much. We aren't all rich. 
Our moving funds are now down to less than £200. We have enough to hire a van and do it ourselves. We had to laugh really or else we may cry. At least we have another pay day, possibly two before we have to pay for removals. And DP has pointed out that we also have a bonus pay month to come....so we could use that and then just suffer without the extra money after we move. So we have options. I prefer the options where my back doesn't have to lift heavy stuff personally. LOL  

I slept better last night, DP & I crashed after being up all night previously with the dog so I have energy today which is great. Don't have much to do though, can't walk the dog for a few days, and the kids aren't here to mess things up and i only have myself to cook for all day. What to do! Feel a bit lost when I only have myself to look after...well me and a sick dog who just wants to sleep. 

I have another Child benefit due before pay day I intend to use that to put into my savings account and I am close to pay out on a few survey sites no big payouts all small, but they all add up. DP gave me £20 for the savings from sales on FB. Need to sit and reconcile all these in and outs of cash and see where we are at exactly. 

NSD for sure. Today and hopefully for the rest of this month (well until pay day on 25th) I will sit down and do the budget taking into account the fact we have just raided the EF/ HM fund. I may hold off putting into the YBS because I believe we have enough in there for our new EF already for it to be a decent amount so may divert that money straight back into the HM fund. That is £300 right there so will be almost what we have just spent. -i've just checked the YBS and we have £1800 between us so that is great, I will have a think about whether I have enough to top that up to £2000 or whether to divert it all to HM fund....I guess at the end of the day it doesn't really matter as if I need it I can just take it from wherever it is. Okay I think that is all for now....I need to get on and find another cup of tea  

skint_spice

Will your seller move to rented if he doesn’t complete on time? Hope the chain stays intact🙏

debtfreewannabe321

skint_spice said:

Will your seller move to rented if he doesn’t complete on time? Hope the chain stays intact🙏

We don't know. I'm hoping so as he's mentioned that he would rather buy at auction so it would make sense. Guess it will be what it will be.

Our buyers have messaged us today to ask to view the house again at the weekend so best get cleaning it really as I've not done much this week. Still catching up on towels and stuff to wash from dog being sick!

ladybird1106

🤞For your seller to find somewhere pronto.
Love 🐞

debtfreewannabe321

Thank you 🐞 😁

Well I've blitzed the house this morning in between making sure the dog is ok. He wanted to go out yesterday stood by the door so I thought well it won't do any harm walking him up the road a little. We didn't get far and he stood still and looked at me ...so we went back! Bumped into a neighbour on the way back (I literally only got six houses away too) and her dog and mine stood saying hello for a bit. She told me she had spoken to lots of neighbours and they all thought we'd done a great job on the house renovations. My face must've looked a bit shocked as I caught up... realising they'd all been on RM nosing at the pictures after seeing the board up 🤣 ...thank goodness I spent so long cleaning and staging for pics lol.

Not a NSD today I ordered some electrolytes online for the dog. I've been giving him Himalayan salt and sugar in his water but he's not keen on it so just ordered some off line. 

DP is back from his conference. Kids will be back on Sunday I think (and hopefully after the buyers have been round as I've just cleaned and tidied their rooms and shut the doors).

The sun is shining for the first time in a long time it seems and it's warm! I'm making the most of it and finishing off all the washing from dog being sick and will hang it outside.

Not much else to report I don't think....so best get that washing out before weather changes it's mind!

Watty1

Fingers crossed your seller finds somewhere chain free this weekend.

debtfreewannabe321

Thanks Watty!
Morning all, well what a weekend I am glad it is Monday as I am exhausted. We have overspent, got ourselves overtired and the dog has been up and down! He is finally better and I think what helped most was the kids coming home  
The new buyers of our house came over again, we set them off with a tape measure and they wanted me to do a tour with them again. They were here an hour and then we had to leave to get the kids- so many accidents on the A1 yesterday ugh. Nightmare journey that should have taken 2 hours took double that. We were glad to be home last night.

The weather has perked up nicely but it went from freezing to boiling and no in-between here and my poor body couldn't cope (I have a problem since menopause with regulating my body temperature) so I had the worst night sleep ever on Saturday - sorry to be one of them moaners but it is true.

We are booked into see another house today- the location isn't great but the house is beautiful!! More than anything I want to be nosey but also have a back up should the seller of the house we offered on not find anywhere soon.....I love the style of this house and although I don't want to compromise on location really nothing else is for sale in our prime location right now (if you can believe that!!) 

We have the chance to buy an old car, it's a cheap run around but an estate so good for our DIY stuff (wonder how many other people choose cars on how big the boot is and how big a piece of furniture can we fit into it)....I am unsure though. I am being the sensible one and DP is being frivolous. I have said no because of vet fees, camp fees for kids and obviously we are moving soon (we hope!) but he is erring towards- it's only money and it means your freedom again. I have said no for now though. It is less than £500 so it is cheap and we know our neighbour (a mechanic) has kept up the maintenance on it to a good standard so would be a decent ish buy. But road tax, insurance, petrol..........etc etc etc. He hasn't taken any of it into consideration.

Anyway, I have to go sort my budget out I can't believe it is payday tomorrow and it isn't done! I am slacking. I might be back when it is done to tell you how poor I will be next month.   

debtfreewannabe321

Oh yikes, I just went through my budget and I didn't fill out the daily spends AT ALL!!! Not one single day. What on earth happened there. No wonder we limped along to payday for the last few days. We went out on Saturday, we had an impromptu date day and it was really lovely as we don't do it often enough. We were good though looking at our spends, we ate in c0sta and I used a £10 voucher I had for food, we drank water from our bags - disclaimer I hate coffee anyway and always refuse to drink the herbal teas there as they are extortionate and DP said he didn't want a coffee as he'd just had one at home so that cost us around £3! We mainly shopped in charity shops, we went round art galleries and the market and window shopped mostly only spending less than a tenner on all. Parking was probably the single most expensive thing. We went back via dunelm though and spent £30 and also the pet shop as FLD needed a new type of food with specific nutritional values, then we also bought from the antique shop up that end, just a record holder which I had been needing for a while, it looks great after a clean up but that cost £15. so overall we probably spent nearly £100 at the weekend!
Not budgeted for!

I think we need to reign it in a little this month but not hugely so, savings are still okay. We are around £800 short on removals/ conveyancing after raiding the savings for vets and camp. We can make this back before we move so I am not feeling too stressed by it. We also have nearly £2k in the other savings so if all else fails we will probably just use that. DP has hit all his targets at work so will get a good bonus pay cheque next pay day (not tomorrow's one) so if we are short we will use that.

Okay need to get ready we are off to view that house soon. I have to do the meter readings, book an online shop later and do the meal plan for the month yet. As well as cut DD hair and practice curling it for prom on Friday! Might just do that tomorrow for her now. May be back again later with budget and meal plan....depends if I actually do it  

OH and the buyers have ordered a level 2 house buying survey so I don't know what they check but that will be happening soon too!

LadyWithAPlan

Glad FLD is feeling better and fingers crossed for your seller to find somewhere asap.

debtfreewannabe321

Thanks LaPlan 😃
He's much better now! I have given fld a little bath and haircut today and he's rewarded me by running round the garden. He's not done that since before he got sick so that's made me happy and made the two hours cutting his hair and bathing him worth it 🥵 well almost 🤣 my back is hurting a lot now.

BUDGET 
With both kids back and both off school till September I'm trying to figure out food budgets. I am guessing I will have to add some money to it. But for now I have left it at 500. And I have done the month's budgeting without using the child benefit so if worst comes to worst I can use that money to top up the food. I have my first order due in a couple of hours....first of the month, £139/500.

I've managed to budget our money this month quite well all things considered (EF raided twice last month!) and I am putting 150 into the EF from payday so it can't be spent and any spare money at the end of the month will also go in there. I'm still adding to the YBS accounts because they will be my back up EF. However as I borrowed money from our budget this month last month I am £140 short. So I only have at the moment £179 to put in the YBS rather than the usual £300. I knew I had to make cuts somewhere in the budget this month and that's where it is at the moment. I do have that child benefit though which is a similar amount so if I don't use it I have that there... however I might use that for treating the kids to a few things/ days out.

I'm cutting and styling DD hair for prom. And I am also doing her make up. I have put £50 into the hair/ health/ everything else fund though as I promised her a manicure and gel polish. I will leave the excess in there in case we need it for anything else.

I've also budgeted £50 for take out as I promised DD one after she finished her GCSEs and she went off out with friends instead so she never got it. Her birthday is in the middle of the month too so I will just get the one take out around then I think as £50 sadly doesn't go far with four of us getting something off the menu these days. Not sure it will stretch to two.

My electric bill was £39 under budget so that's good I might use that excess (I budgeted 140) to ping across to savings.

Everything else is staying the same.
So right now I'm very grateful I got a hold of the budget a few months back and had savings for the vets and surprise camps for the kids! It's not really affected us at all whereas previously it would have either gone on an overdraft or CC. Grateful ☺️

Other bits

DP is off out with his boss today. When he gets home I'm feeding everyone dinner and then he's off to our new house (it will happen, positive thinking) to measure up some bits that aren't clear on the floor plan.
 
We viewed that other house yesterday and wow it was gorgeous! Edwardian and such high ceilings and *mwah* just gorgeous, large rooms, big windows, old original features! However...wrong end of town it's full of noisy student HMOs and there is nothing down there aside from rows of houses and busy roads and is 2.3 miles from kids new school, it also needs around 70k spending on it to make it habitable, two of the bedrooms have half the walls missing from old damp problems 😆 and the bathroom had a huge hole to almost outside. So although I dreamed a little as I walked around sensible head is still on and we are sticking with the one we have offered on...he still hasn't found anywhere though and I am getting impatient so I will keep looking.....just incase anything nearer to that end of the city turns up.

This month I've aimed for another 15 NSDs, I am also aiming to make another £100 somewhere so that I can top up the savings accounts. I've worked out I need around £500 again saved for removals and conveyancing. Not too bad considering 😁 not looking likely that we are moving imminently anyway, so will probably have a couple more paydays to top it up so will be fine.

DDIL birthday before DD I am thinking of sending her £50 so her and DS can treat themselves to a meal. He's been away in America for over a month and gets back on her birthday, and I know they've been paying down debt so they are able to save to buy somewhere, so I think a little treat is in order... and I have the money in the birthday/ Xmas fund to do this. Another thing I'm very grateful for 😃.

Right think that's all. Need to clean kitchen ready for Mr T shop, so I will be off for now.