Nervous new diarist with not one but two mortgages to clear!

Thanks Runders. Must admit I haven't even started doing it up yet - had a plumber round and have chosen taps but not had the quote for fitting and I need to get the shower checked as it's electric and has no isolator switch so is possibly dangerous.



Spent a whole day yesterday looking at paint colours and tiles and all sorts of house stuff. We pretty much have a whole house to do as we bought a house we didn't much like inside (love the view!) Decided that if I keep to a colour scheme for the whole house of just six colours, all of which blend pretty well together, I can economise by buying less paint and the house will flow better too. So our bedroom will have a darkish blue feature wall and the house bathroom will have the same on all the walls (it's mostly got white tiles so some dark blue should be fine!)

Making slow progress though as we need some work doing before I can decorate or get furniture and getting quotes from tradesmen is really difficult, let alone finding anyone half decent to do the work!



Have done nothing recently re paying mortgages! Can't pay off the first till fixed rate ends and might not pay all of it as little sister is buying a house and is £25K short so I might see if I need to bale her out. Mum has helped me on numerous occasions so it feels only fair to pay it forward.



Had a few bargains recently which feels good. Had loads of Tesco clubcard points so I used some to buy a Two Together railcard then converted the rest to RedSpottedHanky vouchers. We are effectively having a free trip to London this week: found a cheap new Travelodge which gets good reviews and is near to where I used to live in London so convenient for us and got opera tickets for Regents Park as a treat!



Cooking a special, very non-budget meal for hubby today. He's veggie and when we eat out, always ends up with a fairly dismal meal. Restaurants don't do good veggie food unless they're specifically veggie and I always want to eat meat when we're out as I don't get much at home. So today trying to up my game in the cooking stakes and instead of doing one dish and then very boring sides of veggies and rice, am doing a veggie tagine with harissa couscous and a carrot and orange salad. Spent a fortune on ingredients, largely because I went to Sainsburys instead of Lidl as it was more convenient. Nearly fainted at the till!



Can hear the Archers Omnibus calling so am going to go and start cooking whilst I listen! Happy Sunday!

Thanks for reading, Newgirly. I feel my thread has been resurrected in recent days which is lovely!



Runders, no, done nothing about the taps. Chosen them! Might pop round to my neighbour's today and ask if he'll help. I bought a new toilet seat from Wilko though! That's a start! And blput some tester colours on the wall. On the one hand, I think testers are a big waste of money. On the other, think they've saved us an expensive mistake as both the grey and the blue tglhat I tried look awful!!!



Runders, you're right about eBay. I gave up partway through my listings at the weekend and took a heap of stuff to oxfam. It feels nicer somehow. But there are some things that they probably wouldn't sell eg wallpaper rolls. And then there's the nearly new pairs of shoes that I spent far too much on and would like a bit of money back. Having said that, maybe it's the heat but very little interest in my stuff.



Trying to get furniture sorted for this house. We were living on the boat befire this so have very little actual furniture. Husband paying and he's got more money than me. Still want to be frugal in the sense if making wise investments that will last us. Got my enormous sofa back from being stored at a mate's. It was £800 twenty years ago in the john lewis sale. Was hoping for a similar bargain in either John lewis or next but found nothing yesterday. Off to a furniture outlet on Friday and if there's nothing there, I'll buy an IKEA ektorp but get a custom made cover. I think that'll be a cheap option and their ektorp range are cheap but last quite well.



It's exciting buying furniture. Had put it off hoping to get the work done on the house first but we're getting nowhere with that!