Today I shall be Mainly...

[Moh]

Hope he is lucky.

[Sue]

I agree Liz. Too much coffee makes me feel sick, especiall early morning. Water has become a favourite!

[PanBiker]

Hope he is lucky.

Thanks Moh, he has shared with mates in a couple of rented properties and then with his ex girlfriend. He has been back at home for a while and is trying to get on the bottom rung as a homeowner, which is the difficult bit. He knows how much he can afford to borrow and we are helping with the deposit so we too have fingers crossed. The vendors have a house to move into and Jack has no chain of course being a first time buyer so it looks promising.

[Stanley]

It was a lot easier in the old days when houses were cheap and we had no money to do improvements. If the roof didn't leak you moved in and lived with what was available. This isn't a criticism of modern buyers, just a comment on how things were... I can still see that bloody carpet flapping because of the draught coming in under the back door....
Sue and Liz, the problem in the States with the coffee is that most of it used to be lousy as well! I can still remember the best coffee I ever tasted. It was in a shop in Perth which sold nothing but baking ingredients and the coffee in their café was to die for....
Not sure what I'll be doing today, I have an article in mind.....

[Marilyn]

The first house we rented, Stanley, had no heating and no hot water. Washing was done on the open back verandah. Though there was no power out there so I had to run a lead into the house.There wasn't even insect screens on the windows (which are needed here) but that was ok because the windows had been painted shut and we couldn't open them anyway! The worst bit was the outside loo...
Kitchen ( if you could call it that), consisted of a "kookaburra" gas stove and one three foot kitchen unit that had a sink ( oh the luxury!) and a cold water tap. Hubby had to boil the kettle to have a shave, and I had to boil the kettle to bath our baby.
We were happy enough, but there are many who would turn their noses up at living a bit rough.

[Stanley]

Times have changed Maz. Young people today are convinced that they deserve all mod cons as soon as they move in, like carpets, hot water, heating and even an inside loo!

[Marilyn]

We lived like that because it was cheap and we could save for our first home, which took us nearly 2 years. Neither of us had the option of living with family/parents like a lot of kids do these days ( and the answer would have been a resounding NO if we had the courage to ask.)Nor was there any monetary gifts or bank-of-Mum-and-Dad interest rates.
We have helped all our ( collective) kids out, but I have to say they expected us to, and they very quickly forgot we did.
That's ok, but we just smile now and say "no more...you have had your lot".
Time for us now.

But the secret is to accept what you can afford (and get the best you can for your money) when you start out. The second secret is to take care of whatever you buy and keep it nice. I've seen many a nice home ruined by lazy slobs.

[Stanley]

Maz, I have a very strong memory of visiting two newly weds in their new home, impeccably furnished in the most modern style but freezing cold, they couldn't afford the heating! They had a modern kitchen but an empty larder, and lived on expensive take-aways. Given the choice I think I know the way you and I would go!
I wrote another article yesterday, they are flowing well.... Could do the same today.

[Sue]

The coffee tasted fine Stanley it's just that too much coffee makes me feel sick.

[Stanley]

The high point of the day is that the gas man cometh this morning to install my free smart meters. They tell me that this means my meters will be read ever 30 minutes and so should mean the end of manual reading and estimated bills. This could mean that at last I get rid of the prepayment meter that was here when I moved in 15 years ago.... I've never used it, it just sits there cluttering up the distribution board.

[PanBiker]

Interesting Stanley, when I surrendered my meter readings this month I clicked the link on the BG website for smart meters. I was given a short yes/no survey about my service points, i.e accessibilty, (both easily available) whether I was a dual fuel customer etc. The survey reported that my property was not suitable for smart meters at the present time?

[Tizer]

Houses....We've just come back from a week in a holiday cottage near Hayle in Cornwall, high up above the north coast in a secluded spot down a long winding very narrow lane. It's a bungalow and was very comfortable except that the double glazed units are old and leak draughts badly and the heating was night storage. For several days and nights the heat was being blown out of the house by a strong north wind coming in the front door, straight through the lounge and out of the bad seals on the French windows. We put cushions along the bottom of the lounge door but it came in around the sides and top! It's great to be back with our up-to-date glazing and central heating. If the cottage owners put in modern double glazing and CH their energy bills would fall dramatically. They'd probably say they can't afford it but it would pay off in the long run.

[Sue]

When Bob and I got married our home was furnished with cast off furniture from our two sets of parents. each week we bought food for simple meals for 6 days and they resided on our one shelf in the kitchen. Such delicacies as macaroni cheese, shepherds pie, a tinned steak and kidney pie were the norm. On Sunday we went to my mums where she treated us to a traditional Sunday lunch. I was a student at university, had no income and no grant. We went to the laundrette once a week but could only afford one load so colours cottons whites and synthetics were all mixed. Eventually we had ruined so many clothes we bought a second hand twin tub washer from the paper. I was so proud of our first purchase.

I made all my own clothes and used to buy fabric from a warehouse in Salford. It was all off cuts and I bought it by the pound weight.

We were broke, in debt but very happy.

[Wendyf]

Same here Sue. When we got married we had one room with a mattress on the floor in a shared house. We had a record player, a box of records, some bedding and a "cheese" plant. Col had a bike and a old Reliant Robin he was in the process of fixing. After a few months we rented a small flat and were given old bits of furniture by parents. Col made us a double bed and a coffee table out of chipboard. Life was good!

[Stanley]

Ian. The gas man installed the new meters yesterday and got the gas meter to talk to the leccy meter after a few tries. My gas meter is outside in the back yard and the leccy is in a cupboard in the front room, just about as far apart as they could be. It took three hours and was complicated by the fact that the fitter had an auditor standing over him all the time! Even so, it's an expensive job for them in terms of time. I didn't ask for the meters, I was offered them free and understand that later there will be a charge. I suspect they are feeling their way at the moment. One thing I have noticed is that the monitor isn't reporting this morning.... The meters still have a visual display so I will be able to check the bills....
Sue and Wendy.... I love hearing about early struggles and you're right, it was hard but it was fun because we knew we were doing the right thing and heading in the right direction. We were lucky with furniture because my mother and father lived with us for the first five years and so we had theirs. We gradually got secondhand furniture and some carpets as we went along and eventually got there. I can remember all the highlights as we made improvements and you wouldn't believe the hours I worked but in the end we got there!



Today I hope to get back to normal!
Layter at just after 6AM. The monitor has come on, I wonder whether it goes into sleep mode during the night and re-establishes at 6AM?

[Tizer]

Sue and Wendy's experiences sound familiar. I lived at home with my parents in their council house for a few years after leaving school, paying them rent from my wages. Then while an undergraduate I lived the first year in a single room in a boarding house, then spent a while at the YMCA until I managed to find a one-room bedsit with a gas ring in the corner. In all cases it meant sharing the bathroom and toilet with many others. When I was doing my PhD Mrs Tiz and I had a room in a friends house and paid them rent until we were both in work and then managed to buy a flat. We started with secondhand furniture and a really old gas cooker, one of those with no bottom in it, just open to the floor. And of course driving an old rusty car!

[Marilyn]

Which is why (regarding the above posts about starting out in life), I have absolutely no sympathy when our kids complain they are broke!
It is this "must have it now" and "whack it on the credit card" mentality I think.
We have always expressed the joy of not owing money, but they just don't get it. (which is fine, and they are welcome to live life any way they want, but then don't bellyache about it.)
We have sat down with each of them and shown them how to follow a budget. There is nothing magical about it.

[Stanley]

I agree Maz and posted the same in Flatley Dryer yesterday. We did get a washing machine and a gas fridge on the old Drip System but it was pence a week and we had the use of them while we were paying. That felt OK. Of course we were in debt to the bank for the loan to buy the farm for I think it was 15 years. I still remember the feeling when we made the last payment!
Today is Butcher's day and I need some veg so shopping will loom large. I want some cider as well to boil a big ham hock in..... After that, a small session in the shed.

[Sue]

I see it's our tomorrow with you already Stanley. We are back in San Francisco and catch the plane home tomorrow afternoon. We should arrive back in Rochdale on Saturday evening, tired but full of holiday adventures and stories. Not too keen on San Francisvo . Just another American city full of sky scrapers and, as they say over here, trash. Not the cleanest place I gave ever been too. It all looks a bit dingy and tired after the drought they are having. Horrendous fires have wiped out over 70 000 acres, 1200 homes and 3 deaths. I think I would be very afraid if I lived where my cousin lives. They are about to pack emergency evacuation bags just in case.

[Cathy]

Wouldn't it have been nice if 60 minute makeover was available when each of were starting out, we could have nominated each other.

[Marilyn]

True Cazza...though I would always be second guessing the choices I made for you...as you are Libra...and one can never be sure with a Libran's true "likes".
( though I would confidently choose a big blue and white jardiniere pot in one room...cos I think I would be on a winner there....but oh dear...what to put in it?????)

[Stanley]

The last two posts lost me completely.....
Sue, sorry SF didn't come up to scratch. Long time since I was there but I loved the place even though it was cold and foggy compared with Southern California....

[Cathy]

Stanley, it's an English tv show where they send out a team of decorators to your home and change it from drab to fab in 60minutes. You have to be nominated by family or friends.
I referred to it thinking "Wouldn't it be nice if that had happened to us when we were first starting out in our first homes".

[LizG]

Picking up my favourite (only) Grandson for a week during school holidays. We pick up our Granddaughters on Wednesday as well. Will be exhausted by the end of the week but looking forward to having them all together.

[Wendyf]

Assisting Col to cut, split & stack logs. He can't do much lifting at the moment so that's the bit I'll be doing. We have invested in a wonderful hydraulic log splitter and the only effort required is to lift the slice of trunk onto it.