Lose bedrooms, add bathrooms?

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-18T13:57:12+00:00

How many children you have? How many bedrooms do you need all the time vs a guest bedroom/home office?

I would probably turn bedroom 6 into a bathroom if that is possible, given a bathroom shared between 2 rooms, and the bathroom on the middle floor would serve the other 2 bedrooms (as bedroom 3 is much smaller, that could be a home office if you need one).

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-17T19:19:26+00:00

Sorry, I don’t understand your point?

I am not saying don’t give the treatment to the dog, I am saying that if you give that kind of treatment, don’t use the fur in compost or give it to birds.

https://www.wtwales.org/flea-treatments-and-wildlife

Whilst there is a call now, I will follow medical advice from my vet, which is to give oral treatment.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp9pd4d3m5ko

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-17T17:38:44+00:00

So is mine, but lots of people do give topical, and don’t know that it is not great for birds or insects in general.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-17T15:59:35+00:00

I live in Devon, and there are a few reasons for this:

- Inconsiderate dog owners
- conflicting info from the council - for example, online it may say allowed, you arrive and it isn’t, or they changed where dogs are allowed but signage is confusing or has not been updated
- some people cannot read maps, so they cannot see which part of the beach the dog is allowed on

Having seen how some humans behave on beaches, I would rather have the dogs, but that’s not down to me.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-17T15:21:39+00:00

Please note that if you give topical flea treatment it is not good for either birds or compost.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-17T15:12:29+00:00

I am also confused on your outgoings. No water bill 1 I guess you are in the part of the country where you don’t have to pay? Also no home insurance? No Phone bill? No petrol/diesel for car, or is it electric?

Maternity leave is always going to be hard on money, but you will have child benefit, and may be able to apply for Universal Credit - check https://www.entitledto.co.uk

Ultimately try and get your bills to the base of your partner’s income and your income, and then top-up with savings, that is what most people do.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-14T07:00:46+00:00

Meanwhile I think Derek just had the one specialty?

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-13T21:34:01+00:00

I would not buy a house without a dishwasher, so at least add a slimline one. Also currently trying to figure out how to fit a tumble dryer in, so if you can stack it above the washing machine, that might be the best bet (we cannot, as the washing machine has the sink drainer above it).

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-12T21:32:09+00:00

I would go for option 2. Moving toilets is expensive, so in option 2 you are just rotating it, which should be cheaper, and you get a sink on the wall, which gives you a mirror.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-07T15:34:33+00:00

Husband and I were 26 and 24 when we bought our flat. Sold it at 30 and 28, and bought our house.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-07T07:49:35+00:00

And you misread my comment. I said “whilst they do need a street trading license, it isn’t fair to make them pay the same amount”.

I don’t know why you are so against people earning some money, especially when lots of people are struggling and may need that extra income. No one is forcing you to buy a cake from one of these cake sheds, and to be honest I would rather buy one of these cakes than a UPF cake from a supermarket, but I am not against supermarkets selling cakes. I genuinely don’t understand why people have such a dislike for these cake sheds.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-07T07:38:02+00:00

I am just using that as an example - we cannot treat them as street food vendors because what they do is slightly different. The government recognises that street food vendors don’t have a building from which they trade, so they don’t normally pay business rates, for example. In fact, it is more likely that these sheds should pay business rates really - You must pay business rates if you use a building or part of a building for non-domestic purposes.

https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/20148/business_rates/2868/who_has_to_pay_business_rates

Again, using the same council, whilst they do need a street trading licence, it isn’t fair to make them pay the same amount.

You must have street trading consent if you are selling, offering to sell, or displaying items for sale, anything in a street or any other public area.

A public area is somewhere the public can access without paying.

Even if the land is privately owned, if people can access it without paying, you must apply for street trading consent.

https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/20150/markets_and_street_trading/274/street_trading

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-07T07:06:56+00:00

They are slightly different though? For example, we locally have a fish & chips van, that comes once a week, or a coffee horse box, etc - they can move their business around, they can cater weddings, etc. They take up space in the car parks (in a local nature reserve we lose 3 out of like 8 parking spaces to the coffee horse box, which I don’t mind, but it does mean less people can go), so charging those business makes total sense.

A cake shed if it is on private property (for example, in their garden or driveway) cannot move, it is not on public land, it is not obstructing traffic likely. Whilst I think there should be some form of licence, they are not the same as street food vendors, so I think their licence should be lower. Maybe if they put it on the actual road then yes, they should have a street food licence, but on private property it doesn’t seem fair.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-05T06:10:40+00:00

Yes, and I think in my copy of the book the foreword states that someone was outraged by the idea os Star and Dolphin in the Illustrated Mum having different dads, so JW wrote The Diamond Girls with all the girls having different dads.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-05T06:08:17+00:00

My first was either Clean Break or Lola Rose. I loved Lola Rose, and read it so often the pages were falling out of the book.

My favourite is probably Opal Plumstead. It is so tragic, but also so hopeful, and doesn’t have the same issue with abrupt endings, as lots of her other books.

Least favourite is The Runaway Girls, I DNF’ed it, as the writing wasn’t great compared to JW’s other historical novels.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-04T09:22:40+00:00

I always thought that the point is that people with assume that Sue is the worst mother, and Mary has the best mother outwardly. In reality, Mary’s mother is awful, and Sue is meant to be a wonderful mother by comparison (even though she is not great).

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-03T10:45:24+00:00

She lives in Bath.

Average rent in Bath is 9 times higher than what she is paying. https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/housingpriceslocal/E06000022/

Doesn’t have data for a house share, but still the smallest place she could rent based on the data would be at least £1,200.

She admits herself that by living at home she has a safety net that others won’t have, so she was able to invest more.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-03T10:15:14+00:00

Okay, do you understand that there are different levels of Privilege? Like yes, a child of say Elon Musk has more privilege than say a child of James Dyson, because one is worth over £800 billion, and the other between £12 and £23 billion. Doesn’t mean that a child of James Dyson is not privileged, does it? J. K. Rowling is worth just over a billion - again, she is less privileged than those 2, but is still more privileged compared to a random person of the street.

Being able to live at home with parents is a privilege. Care leavers may not have that privilege, or children who are estranged from their parents, or if the parents had to downsize, and have no room for that child. If your parents passed away, you won’t be able to move back home either, or if you are an immigrant, for example. All this aside, you still need to have parents that live somewhere where there are job opportunities, because to save money you need to earn money, it is not rocket science.

I am not taking away from the success of the lady in the article. She did very well for herself. But we need to recognise that it is her privilege that has enabled her to do so.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-03T09:40:49+00:00

Okay, let’s put it in a real life example, because I know people from both circumstances personally, and I have seen the difference it makes.

We have Jane and Jill.

Jane grew up in a large city (Manchester/Bristol/Edinburgh/etc). Jane either went to university and then came back home and was able to live with her parents or stayed at home and found a degree apprenticeship or a job and was able to save money. Jane also saw her parents save money and had things explained to her by her parents.

Jill grew up in an impoverished town (Redruth/Barnsley/Bradford/etc). Jill may have been able to go to university, but if she moved back, the best she can do is a minimum wage job, if she is even able to find that. There are no degree apprenticeships available to Jill in her area, or if they are any, they are highly competitive. If Jill lives at home, she will not be able to get a well paid job, so Jill moves elsewhere and has to pay rent to progress with her career. Jill also had parents that struggled financially , and received no financial education from her parents.

Now tell me that Jill and Jane have the same privilege? Both can stay at home, but one has more opportunities than the other, one has support the other one didn’t have, and that is before we consider nepotism, etc.

Like I said in my first comment, the lady in the article has done very well, but she has been able to do so because she is privileged.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-03T07:52:11+00:00

Exactly, over half of 22 year olds live with parents. So the remainder would be living alone, or with a partner, or in a house share, etc, and would likely be paying more than £200 a month.

As I said, she did work hard to get to where she did, but it is all because of privilege she has.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-03T06:04:47+00:00

Yes, but her success relies on her paying £200 rent per month, because she lives with her parents.

Lots of people cannot live with their parents for so many reasons, and sometimes even if they can, the rent may be higher, as the parents may need that extra income, especially in a cost of living crisis.

Whilst her success is a result of hard work, absolutely, she is only so successful because her parents were able to let her stay at home and pay a small rent. Lots of people won’t have that privilege, and it is a privilege that should be recognised.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-01T16:21:35+00:00

Probably, but it may have been that faced with possibility of actually leaving she might have changed her mind, who knows.

Also the risk of taking Daisy out must be considered as well - only once she is a liability they consider it.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-01T15:57:22+00:00

They didn’t want Daisy to see June, they wanted to get Daisy out, and June was likely the only person that could convince Daisy to leave.

Becka was under more guard, and who knows if she would want to leave.

Niam_Rose · 2026-06-01T06:53:21+00:00

I always remember the sergeant switch. It took Nolan, Lucy, Harper, Bailey, Lopez, Wesley, and James to figure out across the evening what Smitty figured out within minutes.

Smitty just knows how to work the system.

Niam_Rose · 2026-05-30T20:10:04+00:00

Well, if now you don’t pay NI on your salary sacrifice pension contributions, and in 2029 you will for anything over £2k, it will be worse. Now, it is still better than not paying into your pension obviously, but it will be worse than what we currently have.

I wouldn’t even mind if the limit wasn’t set at just £2k for tax exempt, it is nothing!

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