My 5 year plan

Homegrown0 · 16 July 2018 at 1:47PM

Hmm, yeah that's strange that it's not shifting more quickly.

With our letting agent, nothing would get done if i wasn't on top of them chasing things and making them do things. The last time our tenant was moving out, the letting agent pretty much railroaded us into waiting until 2 weeks before they moved out to advertise it to new tenants and we waited 3 months to get someone who wanted to take it.

Again, our flat is in great condition, in a desireable area etc so it must have just been the time of year but this time I told them i want it listed 2 months before with a clear statement on the website about what date the flat is available from.

If you don't feel like they're doing what they can to promote the place well enough, then you might need to push a bit harder for explanations/ solutions/ creative plans to get the place noticed.

Especially if it's the fact that there's little interest (i.e. viewings) rather than lots of viewings but no offers. It's frustrating when you don't know what's going on and why people aren't biting.

Egon76 · 19 July 2018 at 3:57PM

I am just catching up with your diary again.

On the flat front, I agree with Homegrown0. Push the agent to move the sell of the flat forward.
It is your money they are "wasting" by having it up for sale for a longer period.

Good luck with loosing the weight. I am rooting for you on winning the challenge.

fatrab · 20 July 2018 at 11:08AM

Still nothing much to update so far this week, everything is just ticking along until payday then I'll get the shock when I see what a basic wage looks like!!

On the weight loss front, I am in the lead after week 1 but only by one pound! One of the guys actually put weight on! I'm determined to win this but I have strong competition from one of the guys who has a bit more than me to lose and seems very determined too. Game on!!

Mrs fatrab is going to speak to the estate agent today, I think the most probable outcome will be to drop the price. UPDATE - Estate agent says it's holiday season and they're quiet all round, but on agreement have dropped price and will re-promote to see if anyone bites.

5 sleeps til payday....

Have a great weekend

Homegrown0 · 23 July 2018 at 10:52AM

Glad the estate agent is looking at other options, even if it's not the most preferable one (i.e. lower the price). Sometimes it's just good to have it in a slightly lower price bracket for the search function on Rightmove etc. Lots of potentials might be missing it because it's £500 above what they think their upper limit is (or similar).

Good going on the weight loss - keep up the momentum! My exercising is going well here, but what I'm shoving in my gob is not. Must do better.

LegBeforeWicket · 24 July 2018 at 11:01AM

Morning Rab,

The weight loss challenge is a great idea and I'm happy to hear that you've made an early claim for the lead - I'm sure with your determination you can see this through to victory. Are you still using MFP to track calorie intake? Completely understandable if not, it's another layer of activity to the day when you've already got a thousand things to be dealing with. The only reason I manage to keep up my use of it is because my diet is fairly repetitive.

Do you like the system in Scotland with the 'offers over' element and the Home Report valuations? A friend of mine from down here is buying north of the border and he seems to think it can be a bit laborious.

fatrab · 1 August 2018 at 2:45PM

Afternoon diary!

I've been really quite on here recently - not because I've stopped moneysaving or fallen off the wagon - things have been absolutely hectic.

I've now lost 5lbs in the challenge at work but I'm not in the lead! 2 of the guys have lost 6lbs each so I've got some serious competition! Work has been intense for the past few weeks, being in head office, finding the way things work and not having anyone to point me in the right direction has been a challenge. The guy who was supposed to show me the ropes was on holiday for the past 2 weeks, so I was somewhat thrown in at the deep end.

Mrs fatrab's house still isn't sold, in fact we've not had any offers and only 4 viewings. It's starting to worry us a little. Estate agent is still reassuring us that the whole market is quiet but if there's still no sign of movement by end of Aug we will need to have a re-think.

As some of you will know, I like to "firtle" with cars. Well last week I came across a car for sale that I couldn't resist. So I decided to buy it and I've now put the small car that I bought earlier this year up for sale. The small car served it's purpose very well when I was travelling up to Inverness every week but now that I'm based in head office I felt that I wanted something a little bigger and more suited to someone my age. The small car, albeit very efficient and in nice condition, is a younger persons car.

I don't think the seller of the new car knew what it was worth so I bid him a cheeky offer and to my surprise he accepted. I bought it through the trade and it's always a gamble with older cars, but I've had a few of the same make & model in the past so I hope I've checked everything and it's as good as it appears. So if all goes well I should make a little profit from the small car and the new car won't have cost me very much at all!

We may also have some uncertainty heading our way, Mrs fatrab might be taking voluntary redundancy as she's been messed around terribly by her current employer over the past 4 months and VR has been offered. Not a pleasant situation but her current employer has moved the goal posts so many times recently and the current proposals are simply unworkable with childcare in mind, especially if I end up working away from home again.

Looking forward to the dust settling and some normality (whatever "normal" is!) when everything is finally sold/resolved.

Hopefully August brings some better luck than last month......

fatrab · 1 August 2018 at 2:53PM

LegBeforeWicket wrote: »

Morning Rab,

The weight loss challenge is a great idea and I'm happy to hear that you've made an early claim for the lead - I'm sure with your determination you can see this through to victory. Are you still using MFP to track calorie intake? Completely understandable if not, it's another layer of activity to the day when you've already got a thousand things to be dealing with. The only reason I manage to keep up my use of it is because my diet is fairly repetitive.

Do you like the system in Scotland with the 'offers over' element and the Home Report valuations? A friend of mine from down here is buying north of the border and he seems to think it can be a bit laborious.

Hi LBW,

No, I've stopped using the app as I'm also on a repetitive diet (a 4 day cycle of meal plans) so I know what I'm eating. I'm still hitting 2000 cals some days and having the odd take away so I know where I'm going wrong. Bad habits are hard to break but I've managed to stop snacking which is really helping.

The "Offers Over" thing up here can be really frustrating. A friend of ours missed out on 6 properties before managing to buy their house and they had to go in with a bid well over the asking price to get it. The general rule used to be to add 10% to the asking price, IIRC they were 17% over on the property they bought. Wish we had folk bidding that much!! In fact, I wish we had any bids at all!!

jwil · 3 August 2018 at 10:21AM

Well done on the weight loss, hope you get some viewings soon.

Well done on the car shuffle too!

LegBeforeWicket · 5 August 2018 at 11:20AM

jwil wrote: »

Well done on the weight loss, hope you get some viewings soon.

Well done on the car shuffle too!

I agree with jwil.

For me, there is nothing worse than things being up in the air, so I hope the house and Mrs Rab's employment situation get resolved quickly.

Well done too on the continued weight loss. I know it's never fast enough but I think you're doing brilliantly and you can still nail the victory in your challenge! I too have an eating plan, but over 7 days, and the main reason I still log my calories is because occasionally I will substitute something else in; the numbers don't change much in terms of how much I eat but logging makes me feel like I'm doing something.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

fatrab · 7 August 2018 at 1:27PM

I feel like I've taken my eye off the prize again recently. Probably because there's so much going on in RL I've forgotten the basics.

So I've reinstalled spending tracker on my phone to begin with. I consciously had a NSD yesterday but I had to buy a few bits n bobs from LIDL this morning (£2.71). I should have a NSD tomorrow as I cooked a big lasagne last night and have everything I need for lunches and breakfast for a few days at least.

I need to get back into the habit of posting daily, just to keep me focused and hold myself to account.

Some potentially better news, I have someone interested in the wee car and hopefully he's coming to see it on Friday. He seems keen and is making all the right noises - fingers crossed! I'm enjoying driving the new car but the fuel bills are going to be a bit heavier than I've become used to with the wee car.

And still no news on Mrs fatrab's house or work situation, so I'll shut up about both of them until there's any development!

Otherwise it's going to be a quiet month, except for a party we're having on the 25th for the wee one's first birthday. Suppose I better re-do my SOA with some spending included for presents!!

My 5 year plan

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