October 08 - Ooh fancy that!

[CantSleepWontSleep]

We filled up a thread without even noticing!

Primary school outcome for dd today . They say that the emails will be sent out by 6pm (though may take longer to get through to us).

tbh I just looked and thought yes I agree with this this and this... didn't actually think about how it would happen or where the money would come from. I'm much more savvy with american politics, unfortunately. If we plan to stay here long term I really need to get a firm handle on the system here before next election when I will actually be able to vote! I'm probably the worst person to talk to at the moment as I'm only comparing it to what I know and in America you are quite literally brainwashed by the bipartisan system. I would never vote conservative (republican) there because that would mean even worse things for the already crap health care...etc.
It's all a bit more fair and mixed up here. It seems like people still have a voice even if their party isn't elected PM. We have congress of course, but it's just not the same in the way things actually pan out in the end.

Well I started off conservative just because that's what my parents had always been (which still leaves me flummoxed as to why they have always been seen as the 'rich' party, as my parents certainly weren't), but then the more I have become aware of policies, and the incompetence of labour (and their mouthpiece with no thoughts of his own Blair for all those years), the more i find them aligned with my own beliefs.
To give a few examples of things that make perfect sense from those policies listed on the BBC site:

• scrapping the child trust fund for all but the poorest 3rd of families - great! Sure it means that we personally lose out, but it really is a totally unnecessary handout IMO.
• scrap labour's NI rise for people earning

Oh dear - I scared you all off .

Thought I had wondered into one of my other threads for a min then

50ft. Send a text to your "friend" and just say that she should check her phone lock as you heard her talking today after you left my house. No details are needed.
That should do the trick.
Pistachio what is wrong with you? Are you proper poorly sick?
Still sad, had to tell G tonight. She cried herself to sleep.

oh pistachio You poor thing. I hope you are feeling better this morning (and still sleeping). Q and I have been up for an hour and a half already. What a lovely rainy day
Poor G, Ronshar What a difficult thing you had to do.
50ft everyone else's suggestions are much better re: text. My passive aggressive idea probably wouldn't work so well
I wouldn't ever have the balls to do that btw, just would like to

and csws I agree that 35K threshold is very very low for the south. It is amazing how much cost of living varies in different parts of this very small country.

ah, pistachio, house prices are crippling and therefore mortgages are crippling. We live in Hampshire and it costs me £35 a day to get to work in London, childcare is astronomical, I pay over £700 a month for the two little ones at nursery, and £100+ a month for CM for DS1, more during holidays and thats just for the 2 days a week I work. I have an an excellent salary, but after travel and childcare I take home maybe £200 a month. It's a huge amount of effort logistically and physically for a relatively small amount of money. If you looked at my salary though you'd think we were rolling in cash...

Just dashing by but.... We live in a not too nice part of Kent but it's an hour to London. A tatty two bed terrace in the worst bit of town would set you back £125K a three bed-semi in the nice bit of town (with a pokey garden of course and no parking) is around £230K. Travel to London now costs around £4K a year on the train.

Oh and full time day nursery for just O used to cost £600+ a month. The prices have apparently increased fairly steeply.

Yes it's public transport, bus to station, train to town and then tube. We only have one car and whoever is at home has it, so DH cycles to the station. Bus is £2.90 return parking at the station is a gobsmacking £5.80 a day last time I looked.
DD is expensive at nursery at the moment as she's under 2 and no funding. DS1 is £40 a day at CM which is cheaper than nusery by about £3 a day, but of course mostly he's at school and after school it's £13 for pick up, tea and stay till 6 if you need.
They all get all their meals in that price, littlies have breakfast at nursery.
Anyone still awake ?

and I'm pretty sure you can't buy anything at all for less than £100k? Ekka might know?
Not even a studio flatlet! As a rule of thumb since house prices dropped you get one bedroom for every £100k depending on location. Posh villages much more! Aldershot Nearby towns prob a bit less.

The one bed maisonette we're trying to move out of so we can get another bedroom is £190,000. We're hoping for a fixer upper around the same price with another bedroom. Looks like slim pickings.
CM fees for Q are £800 per month (8 hours/day, 5 days/week and only half pay over the summer - that's monthly that I pay at the moment... but I do get £243 before tax, saving me £70 a month on that).
Then there's bills (I hear they cost more int he south, too). No, from what I've heard froma friend in scotland... outside the city is cheaper there.... but here it's cheaper than london in surrey... but not cheap... so, 35K doesn't go far.

Pepper, the only thing I can find is a studio appartment for £85k in Aldershot...

£4000 a year for the train.... £900 pcm for one toddler in nursery.... 20 quid a week on takeaway

If I used a nursery, I would be paying £50 / day, so £250/week, and about £1000/month or more because many months have more than only 4 weeks.
85K for a studio sounds good!! In our area 2 years ago, we looked at a studio and it was £199,000 .
Oh and gas/elec is £96 / month then there's all the rest.
I pay petrol not transport as there is no good transport to my job and I have to bring Q to cm and there's no bus or train near her, either. So, that's about £40/week (well, every 8 days actually) in petrol. Then car insurance.... ugh, when you think about it, the bills never end!
I think twice and three times before buying clothes or anything unnecessary.

Sorry, to clarify. I have a friend who lived in Scotland for 4 years just outside of Edinburgh (doesn't live there anymore - was an expat) and everything seemed cheaper there. I was very . Maybe someday we can move to Aberdeen - there is an Int'l school there . We would love that. Mountains!!! DH would be in heaven.

Ok so today, we saw 2 properties... 1 looked amazing online. Gorgeous. It was a dump in real life. Less space than we have now and a 2 br. . Also wasn't clean and was really cluttered and overcrowded with stuff... couldn't move anywhere. The next one they said they "thought we'd like"... but it was in a really yucky area and we just knew we wouldn't even consider it so we declined to look inside. I was but why waste their time? It was also 10K over our budget. The agent was a ditzy 22-24ish girl who seriously didn't care about her job... was obvious. And she did not like children... shame poor Q was with us!

Well, it makes us appreciate what we have for now at least I so wish we could convert our loft into another bedroom and just stay here!

You know you're getting old when the estate agents look young star!
Seriously, it's so disheartening looking at houses. You think it'll be exciting but it's just grubby - and I have low standards!

Our one-bedroom basement flat in a poor part of east London is worth around £180K (the people upstairs paid £230K at the top of the market and have an extra bedroom but no garden). We're fine at the moment as I bought the flat 11 years ago so the mortgage is pretty small.

But if we move anywhere more "desirable" and rent a 2-bedroom place, it's going to cost us at least £1200 a month. Our CM is £40 a day. Dp cycles into work (in Shoreditch around 1/2 hour) which saves him about £120 a month.

We've talked about selling up and moving to Leeds as we could have a 2 or 3-bed house without increasing the mortgage. Trouble is dp wouldn't be able to get a job in his line of work.

How are you feeling Pistachio?

So, 50ft. Did you text your friend back?

I am finding this discussion very interesting, and hope that you are finding it enlightening pistachio!

We are not in London, our mortgage cost is relatively low (not sure of exact figure at the moment, but def less than 400pcm (interest only - we hope to be able to pay off the capital just from 'spare' income when times are better, or from inheritances) because we borrowed only a small proportion of the current value of the property), have no childcare costs (as we've paid the final term of dd's nursery and don't have to put ds in yet) and yet just to cover regular mostly 'basic' expenses (without trying to economise on food and stuff, which obviously could be done to some extent), we need a net income of £3k per month, which amounts to around £55k gross per annum.
If I take out non-essentials such as a holiday, charitable donations, broadband for both sets of parents and my reflexology then we could cut that back to £47k. Great .
(and irrelevant to political discussion, except that state of economy is largely reason why dh hasn't been able to find alternative contracts, but think about the fact that he has been out of work for 10 of the last 16 months, during which time we have had to live entirely off savings and you can see why we don't feel so flush these days, despite still having more than many!).
Oh and we don't have private healthcare and I've forgotten to include my cleaner (luxury obv) in the above figures. Because of being so remote it's hard to get into a decent state secondary school round here, so at some point we might have 3 sets of private school fees to cover too, which at the moment would amount to us needing an additional £45k per year net .

Anyway, I'm digressing too much now!

Hope that you are feeling better today pistachio.

And I'll second the question re a loft conversion star - would you not get planning?

coconutfeet, interesting, i bought a 1 bed top floor flat in central hackney in 2000 for 88K, then sold it in 2007 for 230K at the top of the market... its the only reason we can afford to live where we are now... even then we now have a mortgage of 270K to deal with because obviously we also bought at the top of the market...

we wanted a house with at least 3 beds with a garden for a family... but ironically to have that i have to put DD in nursery and work. Still need to do the sums re the second child to be honest!!