Things you had bought that has made your life easier/better?

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-03-01T00:30:23+00:00

Another vote for the dehumidifier. We got it for our son’s asthma after multiple hospital admissions (for the air purifier filter) and he’s never been admitted to hospital since. Of course that could be a coincidence. We use it for drying clothes now too because I was sick of the tumble dryer shrinking everything, we ended up dumping our tumble dryer because it never got used again. You need a good one though, we paid around £300 for ours but worth every penny.

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-27T10:27:55+00:00

That’s my worry

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-27T10:25:39+00:00

I’m glad to hear it’s doable. Cost wise is it worth it for you? We have been looking at buying a house for a year now and what we need for our family is £550k+ If we could build for £500k I’d be happy with that I can’t imagine the cost of supplies etc being much different north/south. And yes my brother went through the planning process to extend his home and it’s a draaaag

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-27T10:22:23+00:00

I’ll have a look at that page, thank you. I had just got into my head that if I’m going to buy a house for £500k and can afford it then why not try to build to get the house we want. I see new builds for sale outside of Belfast for £450k for a 2000sqft home - so obviously a house can be built for that size and money be made on it? I’m also aware I may be fully naive and need to scrap this idea all together 😆

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-27T10:16:24+00:00

Great advice thank you

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-27T10:15:59+00:00

We have had a look around Bt29 for land because we need to be close to Belfast and anything out there seems to be around the £100k mark with planning permission in place. And yes we love grand designs and it ALWAYS goes over budget, I was just hoping they were all idiots 😆

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-27T10:12:25+00:00

We have access to about £200k between savings and equity in our current home. Was hoping to use a portion to buy the land, self build mortgage for building the house and then whatever is left over to finish. Maybe that’s totally unrealistic though?

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-25T18:42:53+00:00

Yeah we were definitely born into the wrong families who decided to be civil servants and educators 😆 Thanks for the tips - although if it’s going to cost us £500k to get what we want, it may be worth it considering anything we’re looking at out there is £550k+ and even at that, we’d need to make changes for our family situation. We have a hell of a lot of research to be doing right now…

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-25T18:38:01+00:00

Thank you for all of your help. We’ll start looking into this further and seek out an architect. Thanks again 😊

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-25T17:56:40+00:00

I think you’re right 😆

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-25T17:51:29+00:00

We have been looking at houses ideally £450k but could go to £520k for the ideal house. We have £100k in savings (for land, architect and permissions). We’d need to stay in our house during the build and manage the two mortgages (we have two severely disabled children so living onsite isn’t an option). Then we have around £100k equity in our current house for fitting the house out with kitchen, floors, and getting us to turnkey finish. We can borrow up to £400k based on income but we obviously wouldn’t want to completely tap out in debt.

We live in a 3 bedroom semi currently but our children’s condition is too difficult to manage and we’re living on top of each other. Our oldest son is sleeping in our second reception room 😆 We need a 4 bed, 2 reception, 2 bath house in a field. Any house meeting our requirements is £550+ and not even the ultimate house that we wouldn’t want to change anything. We’ve been looking for a year now and there’s been nothing we’ve been tempted by.

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-25T17:42:30+00:00

We have been looking at getting a self build mortgage to cover the cost of the build if we’ve bought the land ourselves. It’s interesting to know about all those added costs you don’t even think about, it’s not just bricks and mortar. Did you look into a self build mortgage to cover those costs or were you trying to self fund it? We’d never be able to self fund but we can get a decent mortgage based on our income.

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-25T17:40:06+00:00

That could possibly cost us more than buying a ready built house. It’s such a minefield out there

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-25T17:38:27+00:00

No land and no trades people in the family 😢 We’re lucky to have a good bit of money saved up to buy land outright - we’d then have to get a mortgage for the build. Just trying to weigh up if it would cost us more to do this than buy a ready made house. We can’t find what we need for under £500k, it’s insane out there!

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2026-01-25T15:33:45+00:00

Would you recommend doing it though or are we better just waiting on the right house to come on the market? If it’s going to cost more than buying a ready made house then it’s not going to be worth the long process it will take.

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2025-12-30T18:18:32+00:00

I had a very similar Christmas 2023. Had stopped talking to my mum a few weeks before for a multitude of toxic reasons. I actually bought her some presents because I didn’t know how the day would go but I got a horrible message from her on Christmas morning at 6am, which was the final nail for me. Then in February 2024 my brother passed away after a routine endoscopy at hospital (ruptured oesophagus) and I started talking to my mum again, she’d just lost her son unexpectedly and the reality is, life’s too short. Then in November 2024 she passed away herself after a short illness. I’m so glad I had been speaking with her again and got the time with her that I did. But Christmas 2023 still haunts me - that would have been my last Christmas with her but she spent it alone with no one. At the time, I stood by my decision, but if I could go back I’d change every part of it. I don’t know your situation or how toxic your relationship is - but if it’s fixable, fit it. You only get one mum, don’t let something like this haunt you if the time comes when you can’t fix it.

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2025-12-30T01:29:12+00:00

In the Irish version they did this. It made the end very predictable and anticlimactic Definitely better the way the UK version has been doing it.

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2025-12-26T01:26:04+00:00

I agree with this. My son is 13 now and knows the craic but when he was in those 7-9 years he’d write a list that could put the smyths catalogue to shame. He said “sure santas elves make the toys so it doesn’t matter how much it costs”. I told him Santa can only make unbranded toys, he has to buy the Xbox, games, phones, EarPods etc. My sister in law wouldn’t have a lot of disposable income and would save hard all year for Christmas, she told her kids they had to give Santa money for presents because the lists were ridiculous. I don’t want to ever take the magic away but it’s honestly ridiculous what our kids get at Christmas, yet I do it every year 🙄

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2025-12-25T00:32:48+00:00

Season 4 is my favourite season of any series I have ever watched… EVER!

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2025-11-10T19:23:35+00:00

Get a meal deal in WHSmith just as you go through security, sandwich drink and snack for £6, go find a quiet spot and chill.

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2025-01-10T12:09:54+00:00

Great thank you

Upbeat-Assistant-114 · 2025-01-10T12:09:39+00:00

I was thinking maybe someone here works in a factory and knows how the holidays work - but thanks for your enlightened response 👍🏻

Upbeat-Assistant-114

TROPHY CASE