The Ongoing Saga of Ruby Trying to Own A Home

ruby_eskimo

Fast forward 2 days and I have now purchased all but 2 Christmas presents - just call me Mrs Claus 🤶🎄! 

ruby_eskimo

And those final Christmas presents have now been purchased - some nice winter hats and scarves for my parents as they're off on a Christmas cruise next year and I know my mum hates wearing hats but will not be able to survive Scandinavian winter without one!  Now I have to work out what on earth we're going to do with them in May when they both have big birthdays...🤔

Work on the house has slowed a bit due to issues with tiling in the bathroom - turns out the new stud wall that's been built isn't straight so has thrown off the tiler a bit when he's come to the corner.  Plasterer is busy on another job for the next few weeks so can't come out to fix it and plumber doesn't want to start fitting until all the tiling has been done.

Went out for lunch yesterday with friends we haven't seen since their wedding a year ago 😳  Was a lovely time and was a lovely excuse to put on the one nice outfit I have access to and some makeup and actually do something with my hair that wasn't scraping it back in a messy bun 😂

Still haven't managed to make an OP to the new mortgage because it seems to be the most complicated system in the world if you don't have an existing account with this bank.  I've tried to make a debit card payment but it's refusing to go through.  Might have to just go into the branch to see what I'm doing wrong 😣😂  

ruby_eskimo

It's been a pretty non-eventful week and a half:

Building Work: bathroom tiling has been finished and looks great.  Plasterer came back to even out the walls and again looks great.  Then plumber sent his "apprentice / handy man" to fit the sink and the toilet and well after he left, the drawer on the sink vanity doesn't shut and has a massive chip missing from the front of it.  We think he dropped it when taking it out as heard an almighty crash at one point (I did shout up and ask if he was ok and he just said he dropped something).  DH was more annoyed than I was and now we're kind of at an impasse as the builder is saying the plumber needs to sort it was his sub-contractor who messed up but the plumber isn't available till next week to come and inspect and work out what they can do.  I'm going to guess it's going to involve someone (not us) buying a new unit as suspect the drawers aren't sold separately.  But other than that everything's great!

We've also received our huge blind order and DH has started putting them up around the house and they look good and have really made a difference.  Only 3 more to go, including the awkward one over the stairs...

Visitors!: We had our first visitors to the house over the weekend, some planned, others not.  Was a big milestone for us to feel comfortable enough welcoming people into a space that isn't 100% ready / finished but everyone was complementary and understood that certain bits were off limits (like the rooms of doom upstairs and the new bathroom due to wet plaster).  Now I guess there's no excuse to not have the parents over with their uber critical eyes 😂

Money: Somehow, despite budgeting for Christmas etc. I'm ending this month with not a lot of money left over 😬  Also not really sure where it all went but did end up spending a little more on food when we went away for our anniversary than anticipated.  It's payday on Friday so determined to keep a tighter control on spending in December.  We have a couple of things planned which have already been paid for or are definitely budgeted for so keeping fingers crossed that I can keep to it!

I also spoke to someone at the bank about our OP's and they said it looks like someone messed up when setting up our online banking so that's what's stopping us from overpaying.  Now I just have to wait for yet more log in details to be sent before I can check if it works now.

2025 Musings: Been having a ponder on plans and goals for next year and think I may have hit on my word of the year...Restore.  I feel like I've lost myself this year as it's been so busy and I've had to give a lot to support others.  Next year (or really from now) I want to get back to myself, to restore my soul, get back into good habits and probably get some of my sanity back.   

debtfreewannabe321

Great goals for next year and also great progress on the house! 

beanielou

To restore is good. 

ruby_eskimo

Right pay day today so have cleared the credit card of all the miscellaneous purchases (and a few house ones in there) and now I feel a lot more focused on a clean slate and getting back on track with the spending or lack of I mean!

South_coast

Lovely to have a clean slate. Now comes the tricky bit of maintaining it🤞!

ruby_eskimo

Definitely @South_coast but we can only try!

Had a productive weekend of just going to the dump repeatedly to get rid of stuff from the garden and garage as a result of the building work.  Mainly lots of cardboard and packaging plus old blinds and a sink.  Also located all the Christmas decorations and have put them in one place ready to decorate at the weekend.  DH also started re-boarding the loft properly - the old boards were actually doors, bits of plastic sheeting and random MDF offcuts 😬

Carpenters have been today to fit the doors in the bathroom and airing cupboard and the architrave so now we're just waiting on a bath panel, sealing around the bath and the fixing of the sink unit.  Then maybe I can actually have a bath at the weekend 🤞

beanielou

All sounds good. Hope the bath is finished soon. 

ruby_eskimo

Thanks @beanie, not looking very optimistic on the bath front as nothing has happened since Monday 🙄  The builder managed to track down the plumber, who we think is scared about coming back to the house but hopefully should see some action today and tomorrow.

I'm also taking some action on the work front and have signed up for some career coaching in the new year.  I am feeling very stuck at the moment and not very fulfilled in my current role, which management are aware of and we've spent almost a year laying the ground work to add some exciting things to my portfolio.  But with all the changes in the last 3 months, things have got a little weird around here and I'm rather paranoid that someone is trying to block this more positive change.  Especially when new big boss is asking me repeatedly to start this new project and doesn't like it when I say "not until it's in my job description".  I'm not being a jobsworth, it's just that my new JD has some stuff taken out and then this big massive project added in, and until that's official then I'm not going to be taking on something new that's probably going to lead to me being overwhelmed.  So because there's not a logical next step for me with the role I'm currently in (it's really niche and specialist and we think I'm the only person in the country doing this specific role...) I'm going to call on some external help to see if I can find a path forwards, just in case what we're trying to achieve here doesn't work out.  Feeling the pressure though as we can't afford for me to jump to another job that doesn't match my current salary so there's that...