Debts, Diets and DIY.

A question about : Debts, Diets and DIY.

Hi everyone.
Decided to come back here and start a fresh diary as I haven't posted in my last one for four years. Our house has got to an age where we need to start spending quite a bit of money on it so our debt busting might slow down a bit.

Since I last wrote in my old diary there have been a couple of changes in our lives. There was a new addition to the family taking us up to a family of five. Earlier this year I went from working five half days to four full days. Starting next week I will be doing some new work based training two days a week which will then give me the skills I need to cover the last piece of the puzzle at work meaning I go full time five days from April. This will allow us to do some more to the house and pay more to the debt too.

So that covers debt and diy. The diet part I though I would add here too because if I allow others to read it hopefully it will keep me more on track. My weight has fluctuated by two stone since before my last pregnancy. I am currently 7lbs lighter than at my heaviest ever but I really need to lose at least 4 stone. I would need to lose six to get to my pre children weight but with being hypothyroid I am going to find it hard enough as it is. A four stone loss would bring me into the normal bmi range so that is what I will aim for. The kids are on holiday this week and there is a birthday too which will involve cake so I am not anticipating any loss but if I can not put on any I will be happy.

Right, that is enough for the first post this late at night so I will update tomorrow with the diy list and some debt numbers.

SM

Best answers:

• Happy shiny new diary!
  I too have 4 stone to lose and could do with a kick up the derriиre buddy so if you're game we could egg each other on? These kids have a lot to answer for, ruining our bodies
  Good luck on your journey, looking forward to sharing it with you
• Good luck on your challenges xx I wonder how many of us have the 3 D'S to look forward too this year
• Thank you both of you. Fonz please do join in - help keep me on the straight and narrow.
  Well the debts including my mortgage come to just over Ј83k. I have included it because it will clear before my DMP so I wanted to be able to say I was mortgage free when the time comes. When I (should be we because DH is part of this too) started on the DMP we were told it would take us to 2034 to clear it but we have already reduced that to 2029 and with the mortgage hopefully finishing in nine years time, we will be able to throw a lot more at the DMP. The mortgage should actually still have 11 years still to go on it but because we can overpay on it we add what we budget on our DMP for maintenance and emergencies. We then have a cheque book that allows us to take the overpayments back out if we need to, in the meantime they are reducing the interest and length of term. So far we have completely cleared a store card, two credit cards and an overdraft. Unfortunately there are still another 11 creditors on our dmp. We will get there eventually.
  So DIY - this is where we may have to start writing some of those cheques. The biggest thing we needed done was a new boiler but thankfully we got in nice and early on the free boiler scheme and not only did we get a new boiler and insulation they replaced the radiators too. We did have to buy two radiators and associated pipework because there were two rooms that didn't have them previously but now we are almost all toasty and warm. I say almost because the thing we desperately need now is a new back door. It is so old that the gap at the bottom has worn and rotted away so badly that my DH screwed a piece of skirting board to the bottom and there is still space for the local mice to get in
  The other things needing done are a couple of electrical things and some patching on the roof. Trying to get quotes from tradesmen has been so difficult. I thought the country was in a recession and that people would be crying out for work. So far in total I have requested quotes from 16 tradesmen, had 8 turn up but only had 7 quotes back. Some of the quotes have been ridiculous. I have gone through Ratedpeople, Trusted Traders and through recommendations. There is a highly recommended guy coming about the door tomorrow and an electrician too although I have been warned he might be expensive. Just need to get this work done.
  Right, off to chuck another log on the fire then hopefully get peace to read some more diaries on here.
  SM
• Good grief, that was a bit of an essay.
• Well done your DFW progress so far. I've subscribed to follow you....and I'm another DFW that needs to lose LLBs at the same time as losing Јs on my debts
• Hi January. I'm already subscribed to yours but only read the first 3 pages so far - off to read the rest.
  At this rate we can have our own dieting group
• Diet group on a tropical island ... I'm there dude!
• Thank you Monks. We were very lucky with our mortgage. You just can't get them like that now. It is a 1% above base rate, lifetime tracker. As long as the base rate never goes too high we don't ever need to shop around.
  Can't say I've seen snails come in but slugs and ants definitely.
  Well door man turned up a bit earlier than expected and his quote has come in at Ј200 less than our budget so that is going ahead. Our doors are weird sizes so he will get them as big as he can without needing to get them especially made and build a new frame around them. Electrician was half an hour late but his quote isn't too bad. We did have another electrician come on Friday and he says he'll phone on Monday with his quote so looks like we are finally getting somewhere there. DH said a roofing guy came on Thursday so we are waiting on his quote too. Thankfully it sounds like our roof does not need as much work as we thought.
  Debtwise every weekend I log into the bank account and round down the account to the nearest Ј5 and transfer the extra across to a savings account so today that was Ј4.86. That and a Ј2 savings tin is what pays for our summer spends so doesn't really come off the debt but it means we are not needing to find other money for that. Really not sure what we will do this year. We have gone camping a few years and hired a cabin one year but this year I fancy staying at home and having day trips to do more adventurous stuff like Go Ape or trying our hand at windsurfing or kiteboarding. DH wants camping again. Will just have to see how much has been saved by the end of June.
  As for the diet well there was a birthday so there has been cake and chocolate. Then there was valentine so more chocolate. So I am not going to say anymore on that point
  SM
• The house of my dreams has just gone on the market. At half the price of the previous house of my dreams but still Ј600k more than we would get for this place. I can dream can't I.
  Well 2nd electrician quote came in more expensive than the 1st so think we will go with the first but with a tweak regarding one of the items he will be supplying. He could also do it sooner so better in that regard too.
  Other than parking at work today was a NSD. Not so for DH because he needed to buy some pva to seal a wall we replastered but hopefully we can now get the lining paper up next weekend. Once we get that wall painted that will be 2nd of 7 rooms complete.
  Up early tomorrow so restricting myself to just another 15 mins of diaries then off to bed.
  SM
• Glad to hear things are gaining momentum and quotes lower than anticipated are always a good thing! Hubby and I have had our eye on a house here since before Christmas and it has just dropped from offers over Ј260k to offers over Ј230k. It is everything we have ever wanted but we'll never get a mortgage right now or be able to afford something in that price bracket, booooo!!
  I think my diet has been going as well as yours by the sounds of it. I've decided that March is the time I'm getting serious. Too many things happening in the next week and a bit for me to be serious and if I go off plan I'll get annoyed at myself and grumpy! I'll be happy to give you a poke up the derriиre in March
• Well it's been a busy week here. Have done some plastering and some sanding and moved ourselves out of the bedroom so we can use the bigger bedroom to store a lot of stuff out of the other bedrooms so we can get them rewired - downstairs had been rewired before we bought the place but upstairs still had the old Bakelite fittings so finally getting round to getting new fittings and wiring up there. He should be here next week.
  Door man has been and made a start. Looking good so far. It will take him another day to finish but we are not here tomorrow and he can't do Thur or Fri so might turn up Sat.
  Money saving wise, well the change we made to the electrician's work has knocked Ј24 off the bill - every little helps. I volunteered to work an extra Sunday last month which has shown in this weeks pay so that can be thrown to the debts.
  I managed to save my parents thousands of pounds by recommending someone to fit solar instead of the cowboys that would have been bothering them, instead they are bothering me. They had filled out an online solar request which had three companies get in touch with them. I had told them to use my mobile so I could question them. I had made an appointment with the first company to go see them, explained it would only be my dad there which they were ok about. 2nd and third company would not come out unless both of my parents were there so I told them we would not bother making an appointment then - if they request both home owners then they are in for the hard sell and won't leave until they have a signature. The guy from the third company then started shouting the odds and I told him that if the company employed people like him then I definitely would not be making an appointment and put the phone down. That afternoon I ignored 7 missed calls, he then tried another tactic and used his mobile which I answered as I was expecting someone else to call. I gave him what for. The guy for the first company turned up at the time he was supposed to but my dad said it was obvious if mum had been there he would have given the hard sell too. He left his quote on a two by three inch piece of cardboard and only gave dad a glimpse of the paperwork that he had filled out himself. The next time I had access to the internet I checked the three companies out and lets just say reading the reviews I can't see how they ever get custom. One company had quoted someone nearly Ј10k for a Ј5k system which they then put on finance which took it to over Ј27k The company I recommended have done a lot of work in our area and have great reviews and the quotes they have given mum and dad look good so they are going ahead with that. I am still receiving at least six calls a day from the cowboys
  Haven't had a chance to read any diaries all week and still don't have time. Once we have upstairs clear I will hopefully be able to sit down for a bit to catch up with everyone.
  Don't ask about the diet!
  SM