The Frugal Hearth: Stories of Simple Living and Living Well

Elisheba

fionaandphil said:

Good news and lovely of your mum to help out with Skye, every penny will count while you're buying the house. 

I hope the travelling up and down the M6 isn't too onerous.  Big roadworks taking place over Christmas somewhere in north Lancashire/south Cumbria so watch out for them as the detour is quite large.  There is also a big train project going on from just after Christmas until mid January so I think there will be more traffic than usual.  Living near the motorway, you become very aware of how often it is closed or there is a big accident.  Shut for several hours yesterday so the traffic spills out onto all the surrounding A roads.  Our local police are also having a big push on drink and drug driving and publishing the stats each week - quite scary!

Have you got a heat pack that you can put on your shoulder to help with the pain? Or can you convince the cat to lie on it quietly and warm it up?!!

Hope you have a lovely Christmas and New Year x

Oh I wish I had remembered you said this when I drive back - the detour was indeed massive!!!!  Still all managed safely in the end.  

Elisheba

Cheery_Daff said:

Well this is all extremely exciting!! So pleased for you (not about that commute though!) Is your car at up for camping? We used to have a Kingdom with a bed in the back (I think you may have similar?) which was great to sleep in,  but propping in the front seat might not make for a very good day's work 😬

Can't wait to watch all this unfold!

Thanks, Cheery.  It is an estate car, so when the back seats go down there is enough room for sleeping, and I have a foam fold out bed to sleep on in there.  Will need to get something to cover the windows as the ones I had were especially made for my old car so need new ones.  

Elisheba

foxgloves said:

Well, @Elisheba, I popped onto your diary just to see if there were any pre-Christmas house buying updates & what do I see? STC!! Fantastic news! I do hope everything proceeds smoothly. As you say, not a lot is going to happen until after the festive shutdown, but how lovely to go into it with an accepted offer. I expect you will be very busy sorting everything out for some time to come. Shall look forward to reading your updates as & when you are able to chat to us all.
Another thought about storage....I can't think of the name of it, but there is a FB group devoted to using various units from the Blue & Yellow Swedish Emporium to create customised storage/furniture. Some of the ideas were very good & although I don't follow the group, I think I shall do when it eventually comes to moving time for us because we will be wanting affordable, attractive solutions for storing all our books & Mr F's vast CD/AV collection. Some of the solutions made me wonder why I had never thought of doing something similar with some of these very standard units.
F

Thanks, Foxgloves.  It was so useful you said this.  I hadn't even considered the yellow and blue company, having never had one near me.  However, I've had a look online now and there should be some stuff there that will suit :-:smile:

Elisheba

ThriftyPrincess40 said:

Fantastic news!!! I’ve been keeping an eye out for your updates, I love them!! And good news on holiday spends, that will help ease the pressure abit! Eeeek so excited for you! Have you thought of cheap flights down south from Scotland? Save the drive? You can get good discounts at times. Trains aren’t cracking though, just a thought x 

Thanks, Thrifty Princess.  With silly dog, driving was the only option and it was a total nightmare driving back - especially Skye and the Highlands last Saturday with the snow and ice.  Some lovely people in Dunvegan had to help get the car up a tiny little hill at one point as it just wouldn't get to the top.  Can't than them enough tbh.

Elisheba

Thanks, @Humdinger1, @peb and @Moorviews. It does feel like things are coming together now, and it had been such a long journey!  Date wise it'll probably be close to Easter - maybe a week or two before but nothing is set in stone yet.

Elisheba

Howdy, everyone and Happy New Year.

A long delay with posts again, but that was mainly because I was away.  Skye was lovely, but as I mentioned above the drive home was not.  Probably should have left a day early to get safer roads, but we left on the Saturday and it was really scaring driving it that.  The main roads were gritted but we got stuck on a back road at Dunvegan, and even with grit some of the roads weren't great.  One road in the Highland was utterly terrifying - its a horrible feeling when you know your brakes and steering aren't working.  I'll definitely have to consider winter tyres or all weather tyres next Winter, as where I'm moving is at 1300 feet and gets a lot of snow.  Possibly snow chains as well just to get to the motorway (about 7 miles) when I need it.  

In good news everything seems to be progressing with the house buying.  I've had to provide sooooo much paper work!  I have a mortgage in principle, but just need to see if they need some more paper work due to some difference with maiden name/married name.  I have never legally changed my married name back but pretty much all my other paperwork is in my maiden name so I guess its a bit of a mess.  

I decided on a 5 year mortgage over 15 years, and I feel rather bad as I didn't go with the most ethical bank, but it was a question of money and I will need it for getting things done around the house. Its not great but I need to be practical, and there was a significant difference. 

So now I'm just doing what they need me to do, when they need me to do it, and fingers crossed it all works out.  I haven't handed in notice on my current property as I want things to be more certain - I need to give 3 months notice so there will be some crossover.  Not ideal financially but will be less stress for getting the old house cleaned and whatnot.  

Other than that, I left the cat litter tray in Scotland so had to buy a new one - £20.  I bought a pile of sugar free chocolate and used an Am£zon voucher for the bulk of it (which I got from some company that harvests my mobile phone data that was mentioned on this site ages ago.  Over 20 weeks I get a £20 voucher) - £14 odd.  The head on my D!son V10 broke and its £40 for a new one so I'm going to see how the duct tape mend I did works for now.  

Bills wise, I managed to cancel my energy transfer in time so that should be fine - at the moment I've paid twice for the last month so one of them should refund me at some point, but now I can get the best deal when i move with no early exit fees. I have finally switched mobile providers so that's now at £1 a month for a few months and I'll reassess when that runs out.  My water bill has gone up, but that's based on usage so nothing i can do there.  previously i was trying to shower every other day and sink wash in between but i decided that I feel so much better for a shower every morning I would take the hit on my water bill.  A little gift to myself!

The house was at 7 degrees when i got back and even when i put the heating on it was very slow to heat, so I needed to use my electric heater for a few hours as I had washing that needed to dry.  So that'll be a bit more in energy this month, but what can you do?  I'm hoping I have enough oil so see me to my move, as I'm not filling it up if I'm moving.  It was empty when I moved in and I'm not filling it up and spending £800 odd for someone else's use.  It should be fine and if not I have the multi fuel stove and electric heaters.

You may recall I normally decide what I'm going to spend annually for each category and then break it down into 12.  However, basically every penny I don't spend from now until the move will be going towards the house move so all annual pots are cancelled until then, although my monthly s/s is the same as usual as that's bills and food and things.  The money i already have will pay for conveyancing, removals, cleaning and a few other bits and bobs. The money I don't spend between now and then should give me two or three thousand to play with for the house, and then I should be getting £1.5k cashback from the mortgage and £850 old house deposit back, which will pay for other things.  Storage, fencing for silly dog, the roof and some immediate repairs to the shed are the big things, but I have a s/s with everything I can think of written down, with estimated costs and what sort of time frame they will need.  

In an ideal world I would have waited another year or two before I moved which would have made my finances more secure, but that would also have been over £9.5k in rent, so swings and roundabout and I can just about manage it all.

Other than that I have done loads of washing since I got home, taken down everything but the Xmas tree, and need to do some hoovering and clean the bathroom.  I finally feel like I have gotten things back in order just about though, so that's good.  The weather forecast can't decide if I'm going to get snow or now, but if it is snow not rain it might be quite bad so I'll make sure I'm stocked up.  If the roads are okay I am going out for breakfast with friends from my old house on Saturday, about 2 hours away, but I'm waiting to see how the snow goes. I do not feel like driving in it again for a while after Skye and the Highlands!

Hope everyone is doing well and cooried up if the weather where you are is cold or white.  Now I'm back to my usual routines I should be posting more often.  

foxgloves

Interesting update, Elisheba. Best of luck with everything - all sounding exciting, & I can see your point about shelling out another several k in rent if you wait longer to buy.
F

ThriftyPrincess40

Elisheba said:

ThriftyPrincess40 said:

Fantastic news!!! I’ve been keeping an eye out for your updates, I love them!! And good news on holiday spends, that will help ease the pressure abit! Eeeek so excited for you! Have you thought of cheap flights down south from Scotland? Save the drive? You can get good discounts at times. Trains aren’t cracking though, just a thought x 

Thanks, Thrifty Princess.  With silly dog, driving was the only option and it was a total nightmare driving back - especially Skye and the Highlands last Saturday with the snow and ice.  Some lovely people in Dunvegan had to help get the car up a tiny little hill at one point as it just wouldn't get to the top.  Can't than them enough tbh.

It’s heart warming when people help 💕

fionaandphil

Lovely to hear from you @Elisheba and sorry you had such a rubbish trip back and had to drive in that awful weather.  I have been very glad that ours has been milder and I've not had to go too far recently.

The house move seems to be progressing nicely so keeping my fingers crossed for you, Easter will come quickly.  I did laugh when I saw hot cross buns and valentines day cards in the supermarket this morning.

Elisheba

fionaandphil said:

Lovely to hear from you @Elisheba and sorry you had such a rubbish trip back and had to drive in that awful weather.  I have been very glad that ours has been milder and I've not had to go too far recently.

The house move seems to be progressing nicely so keeping my fingers crossed for you, Easter will come quickly.  I did laugh when I saw hot cross buns and valentines day cards in the supermarket this morning.

I know!  I was gobsmacked when I saw Easter Eggs in the C00p on Hogmanay!!!!!