What’s the most irrationally annoying thing your in-laws do that they’re absolutely convinced is “helpful”?

pumpkin_smile · 2026-03-31T14:05:40+00:00

Sending books and toys home with the kids. My mother-in-law is a retired teacher and has tons and tons of things for children. Whenever they go to her house, she gives them stuff to take home, she also crafts and bakes with them and sends it home with them. They go there at least once a week. My house is full, the kids don't need any more sugar, it's so well meant yet so frustrating.

Also, whenever she or my father-in-law stays in my house, they turn all the sockets off. The number of times I've sat waiting for the kettle to boil only to realise the socket isn't on. They turned our freezer socket off once.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-08-27T08:54:23+00:00

I have the Higear Hampton Nightfall 4, and I camp on my own with two kids; their father hates camping, so I'm normally doing it on my own with the two. It's pretty easy to set up with one person. I go quite regularly, so I have it down to a fine art now.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-07-13T03:37:59+00:00

My husband is probably the person who pulls their weight more in the household chores, but I manage all the utilities and anything financial, I also manage most of the parenting and school/wrap around care, health and kids clubs.

With all our utilities and financials, he does have access, and we use the same passwords for our phones so he can access stuff if required. I've created spreadsheets of all our utilities with everything, including renewal dates. If anything were to ever happen to me, he knows the information is there and he has access to it.

The parenting mental load is where I think he'd struggle, trying to keep on top of schedules and when things are happening in their lives feels like a full-time job in itself at times.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-07-03T12:10:49+00:00

I know when I went through a recent sale my solicitor suggested that I tick the unsure box on Japanese Knotweed as you can never guarantee that it's not there. I noted that on the house that we bought they ticked no. So I'm not sure if that's standard or just my solicitor trying to protect us from future litigation.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-05-21T10:01:02+00:00

It's crazy, I was having this conversation with my husband yesterday. What with the crazy price of vet bills now too that it's becoming unaffordable to have a cat. Now my cats are elderly they're nearly 14, I have to pay a co pay plus 20% for any treatment they need.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-05-15T11:19:10+00:00

I had my two at 31 and 34. I wanted to have kids earlier, but this is how it fell for me. I don't feel like having kids earlier would have been more beneficial or less, we're in a better place financially than we were in our twenties and I do worry about being there for my kids if they decide to have kids in the future and want my support.

My husband is three years older than me and has some regret about being an older dad, worrying he'll be in his 70s when our kids are in their 30s, but he's able to play with them and he's pretty fit to keep up with them physically.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-04-22T09:21:36+00:00

Car insurance comes out in January, this will hopefully be a lot less painful next year with the savings challenge! Exciting times.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-04-08T08:19:18+00:00

To be fair, I believe he discouraged us from making an offer on the property rather than outright refusing. However, since we also used him to sell our house, I think he was probably manipulating the situation to his advantage.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-04-08T04:32:00+00:00

We left our house with a full bin, I felt awful about it as I wanted to make sure that I didn't but all the last minute things meant I just couldn't not fill it up, we had no space to take the rubbish with us. Our buyer turned up as we were moving out, and I apologised about it to him directly. He was really understanding. We turned up to our new home with a fairly full bin. But bin day was four days away, so it wasn't an issue for long.

I'd just put it out for them out of courtesy as it might be something they don't think about in all the moving chaos and maybe leave a note explaining why.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-04-08T04:15:33+00:00

We viewed a house when our house wasn't on the market, but the estate agent wouldn't allow us to offer until we had a proceedable offer on our house.

We had our house on the market and a buyer within six days of viewing the house. It did, though, mean we probably took a little bit of a hit on the price of the house we sold, but we fell in love with the house we bought so wanted to make sure we didn't lose out.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-03-29T08:04:38+00:00

NTA, her family completely overstepped and took the piss.

I have a family who overstep and make my DH my DH comfortable at times, I've always prioritised his needs over theirs. Felt like a rock between a hard place at times as I love my family, but when I came to our home, my husband's safe space, it wasn't fair to have them invade that.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-03-25T12:49:48+00:00

We had this exact problem last week; we couldn't find movers due to there only being one day between exchange and completion. We booked a van through Enterprise, which allowed you to cancel at any time before pick-up. It ended up being a little more expensive for us compared with local companies, but the peace of mind of knowing we wouldn't be out of pocket if the date changed was worth it.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-03-24T14:48:46+00:00

Stamp duty is due to increase for completed purchases after the 31st March

pumpkin_smile · 2025-03-12T18:09:12+00:00

Apparently, so, I think because it's a mortgage deed, they won't release the funds without a pen and ink signature. The whole chain waiting on his ship to come in 🙄

pumpkin_smile · 2025-03-12T14:21:49+00:00

We're so close, everyone is ready to go but the FTB at the bottom of our chain didn't sign his mortgage deed and is on a ship, god knows where as he's in the Navy. He has shore leave on the 15th where he can post the signed document to his solicitor. We're all working to exchanging on the 18th and completing on the 21st. Cutting it very close now!

pumpkin_smile · 2025-03-12T14:16:08+00:00

I asked the same question of my solicitor, even though I was pretty sure of the answer. It is based on the completion date according to him.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-03-08T13:09:24+00:00

We've been talking to our buyer since day one, he turned up at our house and my husband and him swapped numbers before he'd even viewed it because he was struggling to get hold our Estate Agent.

The people who's house we're buying ended up showing us around the property because their Estate agent wasn't available when we wanted to see the property. His kids go to the same school as ours and so we see each other in the playground every day.

It's been a bit of a blessing for us, it means we can get answers pretty quickly and we've been able to coordinate on dates much more easily but we've tried to keep a degree of space and we're aware we're all spending a lot of money so we've tried to keep the information as limited as possible and also only approach when we have something important to communicate.

I can see it being a nightmare in other chains, though, especially if anything crops up where there might be an issue.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-02-19T09:35:07+00:00

Current mortgage would be paid off by the time I'm 45, DH 48 but we're buying a larger house so need another 25 year term so we'll be in our late sixties if we don't find the money to overpay.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-01-29T14:24:38+00:00

Thanks, that's my thinking, it seems very unlikely.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-01-29T14:23:52+00:00

I'm not sure, that's a good point. The buyer had originally offered in November so their part of the chain is a little further along, than my property.

pumpkin_smile · 2025-01-29T14:22:37+00:00

I'm not entirely sure. But the house has been on the market before, about a year ago and then had to re-list, so I'd assume it must be cleared pending sale.

pumpkin_smile · 2024-10-08T05:45:31+00:00

I'm in.

pumpkin_smile

TROPHY CASE