It's been a long time
Wow, I haven't updated here for a good while. I was going to start a new blog, but I figured this is still relevant, so why bother?Anyway, what's been happening?
Well...I'm still single. I had a few 'things' with girls, but nothing that's gone anywhere. There are a couple of awesome people in my life, who I'll update you on in due course. Still working in the same place, but now living in Shelton, another part of Stoke on Trent closer to where I work. Which brings us nicely to the reason for starting blogging again actually.
See, last weekend, me and Hel (one of the aforementioned awesome people) stayed in an apartment in Manchester. We loved this apartment, it was amazing. We both agreed that we could totally live there quite happily. And that got me thinking....
When we got home, I did a bit of research. Turns out, an apartment like the one we stayed in, in Stoke, can be picked up for about £60,000, and the mortgage would be less than I’m currently paying in rent. However, if I want to move, I need a 10% deposit plus moving costs. Realistically, that’s pushing £10,000. Right now, I'm £3,000 in debt. That's £13,000 I need to get together if I want an apartment.
I do want an apartment.
And so to the blog. This isn't going to be a short journey, but by tracking my progress here, hopefully I can stay motivated. There are a few distinct areas I need to work on to get my apartment.
Declutter
Right now, I'm in a two bedroom house. That's 4 main rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and 2 storerooms. I want a place with 1 bedroom, 1 lounge/kitchen area, 1 storeroom, and 1 bathroom. That means I'm looking to get rid of probably 90% of my stuff. So I'm going extreme. I intend to try and get into a position where I'm moving a single van load to the new place. So my target is:
Front room: empty apart from the fridge/freezer. I have a side-by-side fridge freezer that I love, but it doesn't fit into my current kitchen.
Main Lounge: 1 sofa, 1 TV, 1 laptop, 1 ADSL router, 1 nest of tables.That's all I should need.
Bedroom: 1 bed, 1 small wardrobe worth of clothes (my current wardrobe is too large to move with me, but I'm buying a whole new bedroom set for the new place, so I'll just downsize for now), 1 TV, 1 laptop.
Front Bedroom: Totally Empty.
Upstairs Storeroom: Totally Empty
Kitchen: Microwave, kettle, small mixer, washing machine. All my gadgets (toaster, breadmaker, George Foreman Grill, dishwasher) are going. They're overkill.
Downstairs Storeroom: Hoover and ironing board.
I have never been so tempted just to set fire to a place and claim on on the insurance!
Budget
I'm terrible at budgeting. The argument in my head goes: "Oooh, shiny things." "Wait, you have debts to pay off." "Why do I need to pay off my debts?" "So you can buy shiny things" "But I can buy shiny things now" "Fair point, go ahead"
Now that attitude works fine when the shiny thing is a £2-300 toy, but doesn't scale so well to a £70,000 apartment. That in itself should help me budget better. I'm using the YNAB methodology to help me get on top of things for good. So far, it's going well, but it has only been 4 days. Again, I'll update the blog on deviations from the budget.
Lifestyle Change
This goes hand in hand with the budget. It's no good keeping on top of things if I'm just gonna use the extra money to hang out with my friends or buy new toys. I've got to start consciously saving the money, and getting into the mindset that every pound I spend is taking away from my house money. That means:
- No wasting money on things I don't need and won't use, like gym memberships or kitchen gadgets
- No more drinking on a school night. I'll allow myself the weekends, but I need to grow up and stop spending as much.
- Every non-food purchase needs to be justified in terms of "Where will it go in the apartment?" If I don't have an answer, I can't have it. If I'm buying clothes, I need to nominate something for those clothes to replace, and the replaced clothes get given to charity.
I'm going to blog my progress on all fronts, as well as reinstating my occasional rants about women and dating. Things are gonna get interesting around here again.
posted by TimB @ 1:40 pm
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