Turning Straw into Gold: Creating Long Term Security & A Solid Home

foxgloves

We had to have a new roof in January, @MillQueen. 3-bedroom 1930s semi-detached house still with the original 1936 roof....which had multiple problems. Your roof could well be a lot bigger or need extra stuff, but just as a comparison, given that ours was replaced so recently, we paid £12k. Thank goodness for 'seeing the light' re-budgeting early enough to have built a resilient emergency fund......which after that, as you can imagine, is looking very much smaller.

MillQueen

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82016060#Comment_82016060

12k seems quite reasonable and makes me think I ought to have bought a sensible house. All the quotes were coming in high, as it's a listed building so the materials have to be replaced to match the originals. The roof has quite a complex structure with various hips and valleys and a big surface area. Apparently the Welsh slate it has to be done in is quite a bit more expensive than other types of tiles. It's a lovely house, but if I get another it's definitely going to be one with a more manageable roof. The 6.6k I'm now paying is to stop the chimneys from leaking and rectify some issues with the stacks and the pots not being safely maintained. He said it needs about 200 of the tiles replacing to make it ok, but that ultimately it will need a whole new roof at some point, as it's not been well maintained. It's been continuously patched up after reaching the end of its life and the house seems to be having some structural problems based on the roof issues.

Thank god for your emergency fund! If I stay here, the plan is to have lodgers to pay for mine.

MillQueen

Today I am having a no spend day. I have nowhere to be, so the plan is to do a bit of tidying, drink 2 litres of water, and get on top of my work emails. I have self-employed paperwork to do. I am extremely tired.

MillQueen

I have done some washing up, emptied the bin and sorted the recycling, then hung some laundry up to dry. The bathroom needs cleaning, but I am not sure I have it in me to do that today. I'm having a break from house tasks in order to submit that paperwork I need to do for my self employed work.

Whilst I was washing my hands, I was thinking about how to optimise the cost of hand wash soap (it's an exciting place inside my head), as I have been using up some little heart shaped soap bars I got as a gift. The solid soaps are lasting way longer than the liquid hand soap I normally use.

Anyway, for your information, my searching tells me that the cheapest soap available in the UK is the Tesco Essentials soap bar at 35p for 125g. I'll be switching to that once I've finished my liquid hand soaps. I still have a couple of bottles in the cupboard to use up, as I tend to buy a few when I see them on offer.

MillQueen

I saw a video on social media of a woman who eats very cheaply because she buys everything she can from yellow sticker reductions and stores it all properly. She had colour coded bags in the freezer, where she had chopped everything up and frozen anything she couldn't use immediately. It was very inspiring, but I am no where near consistent and organised enough to manage that.

Today I've eaten "things I already have", so that was my contribution to MSE efforts. Out of interest I asked AI what would be the cheapest way to eat and it suggested the plan below. Very minimalist! I might give it a go for a week at some point, just out of curiosity. I like an experiment and I'd probably lose weight.

Breakfast: oats + water = ~£0.10

Lunch: rice + lentils = ~£0.30

Dinner: potatoes + beans = ~£0.40

liselle

Sounds like a recipe for ‘how to acquire a bloated stomach……!’

MillQueen

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82017038#Comment_82017038

ha! 😂😂

I might modify it a bit to avoid that. I'm sitting here making a four week plan that I won't be able to stick to for even one full day, but I nevertheless wrote it all out based on things I already have at home, as though I am someone who will do this. I am procrastinating on work I actually need to do.

Week 1

Breakfast: oats + water

Lunch: spaghetti + tomato sauce

Dinner: rice + lentils

Week 2

Breakfast: pinhead oatmeal + milk + seeds

Lunch: jacket potatoes + baked beans

Dinner: frozen veg + eggs

Week 3

Breakfast: smooth oats + milk + date syrup

Lunch: rice + veg + beans

Dinner: scrambled eggs + toast

Week 4

Breakfast: oat bran + frozen fruit

Lunch: egg fried rice

Dinner: tinned fish + buckwheat + veg

liselle

That all sounds good!

MillQueen

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82017075#Comment_82017075

I may as well give it a go. Even if I only manage a day or two and it's one meal, then that's an extra little bit of eating things I already have and not buying more. I have begun today with the oats, although I used milk, since I have some and it would be a false economy to use water whilst letting the milk go off. I've got a bag of plain oats but it's not open yet, so I am instead using the box of flavoured overnight oats that's already opened. If I eat that all week, I will use it up, which is good, as it's been there ages. Despite the "overnight" title, you don't have to leave it overnight - you can soak it for 3 minutes. I could realistically make a week's worth of the spaghetti and tomato sauce today. The lentils/rice is where the plan will probably fall down.

MillQueen

I’m doing the rice and lentil thing, as if I don’t make it now I’ll have lost motivation by tonight. I have no idea whether it will turn out edible, but I fried some chopped onion with tandoori spice, then added a tin of chopped tomatoes and a random amount of long grain brown rice, with water and a stock cube. Now adding a few scoops of red lentils and simmering until it’s turned into something.

I’ll eat it with a bit of kimchi, a sprinkle of nutritional yeast, and maybe a bit of sliced up avocado, as I have got one that’s been in the fridge a while and is looking sad. I could add a slice of sourdough toast so I can have a smaller portion and make it last all week.