Last night I was casually looking over my upcoming commissions list when I realised that tomorrow is September. September! Obviously I knew that was the case, but September does seem much later in the year than August, don’t you think? Soon we’ll be pulling our boots and coats out of storage and battening down the hatches for winter!

The bright side of this rather rude awakening, is that it’s a good time now to cast your mind back through the sands of time to January 1^st. You probably made some resolutions. Some of them may have been finance related. Whether it was a savings goal, debt reduction plan, or whatever it was, now is a good time to reassess your progress for the year. Because before you know it half your paycheque will be getting sucked into the festive season void.

My big goal was a savings target, and thanks this timely prompting, today I made a sizable deposit into my ISA that will be a big help to reach my goal. It feels good to have taken a positive step in the right direction, and also good to know that I’ve put the money away and now can’t fritter it away on the new fall fashions!

What was your goal this year? Are you going to meet it?

Today is the last day of voting in the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards, in which yours truly has been nominated in the lifestyle section. If you haven’t voted yet, do it now! There are loads of great blogs nominated, so vote for your favourite!

We are t-minus four days until the move. Everything seems to be going smoothly so far, apart from a small hiccup this morning when the estate agent called to casually mention the landlord wanted to a ‘few’ pieces of furniture to stay in the new flat, before proceeding to list pretty much every piece of furniture in the damn place. Including two beds and a couch among other things! Um, am I mental or is that more than a ‘few’ things?

As we had told the agent while looking that we were specifically looking for unfurnished as we had all our own furniture, I knew that she had made the mistake by telling me the new place was unfurnished when it wasn’t, and was hoping I would just eat it and she could pass it off without any fuss. I had to be very firm and polite and insist that the mistake was hers and she should sort it out. Which she did, but who knows what would have happened if the landlord had refused to remove the furniture. A whole lot of storage costs for someone, I expect.

Anyway, that’s all sorted now and I am in de-cluttering heaven. A strange thing to get excited about, you might think, but you would be wrong. There are few things more satisfying that carting armloads of old Vogue magazines and broken laptop bags and crap that your husband doesn’t know he has and therefore won’t miss down to the rubbish and recycling bins. The sound of my paper shredder burning through reams of old mail fills me with joy, and the discovery of a good square foot of kitchen table under the keys, bills and general debris piled in poo corner – a sight to behold!

I have been really ruthless, and it feels so good to get rid of the junk! I feel so light and carefree! Picture me running along a beach in the fashion of a Tampax advert, if you will, because that’s what I feel like doing!

I have also made a bit of cash by recycling old mobile phone handset (I used this place, which has worked perfectly), and sold a bunch of DVDs to this place (free, and much easier than bothering with Amazon marketplace). Clothes have been donated to charity stores and terrible books (I’m looking at you, Dan Brown – why are you even in my house?) to Oxfam, and the world is generally a better place all round.

I am a renter at heart. I like the flexibility of renting, of knowing that when things go wrong, or you run out of space, or you want a change of neighbourhood, city or country, it’s far easier to find a new home to rent than to have to go through the trials of selling and buying a home.

That said, does buying a house still figure into my plans for the future? Most certainly. Do I sometimes really hate having to answer to (often inconsiderate and bullish) landlords? Definitely. I spend a lot of time day dreaming about buying a house, being able to put my stamp on it and make it my own. I save diligently, in the hope that one day, when we know exactly where we want to live, we will have a good deposit to put towards our first home.

But it might not be that simple. This weekend I read that the property analyst Hometrack has warned that the ‘golden age of home ownership’ is coming to an end, and that millions of young people face a lifetime of renting instead.

This is hardly news to me or probably anyone my age. You don’t have to tell young people that getting the deposit together to buy your first home is one of the biggest financial challenges they will face.

The reality is that young people who live in rented accommodation, who are professionals and not claiming any benefits, and  would ideally like to be able to get onto the property ladder, often simply can’t. A single person who is already having a large chunk of their wages eaten up by their rent, even on a good wage, will find it very difficult to save up the estimated £40,000 deposit needed in areas such as London to buy a home on the bottom end of the property ladder. Couples may have it a bit easier, but whichever way you look at it, it’s hard.

The Observer wrote: “Richard Donnell, director at Hometrack, said that, while the ‘long-term’ aspiration for people around 30 was to own a home, increasing numbers believed it would not happen in the next three to five years. “The argument is that we are moving towards a more European model, where first-time buyers are in their late 40s and come in with 50% deposits.”"

This may be all well and good, and perhaps entering the housing market at a much later stage is not so bad – much better than stretching yourself to unrealistic financial commitments to do it earlier. But what really gets me is that I feel like my section of society – young professionals, without kids, who earn decent money and are, really, a very slight drain on the resources our taxes pay for – aren’t being helped at all by the government to overcome this issue.

I don’t want a handout, what I would like to see is significantly increased stamp duty tax on second, third and fourth homes, so that the people who are buying reasonably priced properties out from under the feet of prospective first time buyers might think twice about it, and be disinclined to do so. I would also like to see better protection for renters, so that young people don’t feel the need to rush to buy because they are sick of the (often unpleasant) realities of renting in this country, compared to European models that are much more protective of tenants’ rights.

Do you ever doubt that you will be able to buy your own home?

Well, the shortlist is in for the Cosmopolitan blog awards, and I’m on it! *cheers*

It’s all awfully exciting! You can see the shortlist and cast your vote here:

If you are so inclined to vote for moi, you will find me in the lifestyle section. There really are a bunch of excellent blogs on the list written by a bunch of very talented and inspiring women (and some men, too). So go on, get voting!

I’m always on the lookout for tips on transforming not-so-big spaces into well-organised and useful spaces. Anyone who lives in a city like London where space is often at a premium (and storage space – forget it), will appreciate that sometimes there’s a bit of creative thinking involved in getting the most use out of the space you’ve got.

As someone who works from home, I have a soft spot (read: slight obsession) with seeing how people have transformed small spaces into home offices. This is particularly helpful if your second bedroom is your home office, and it also has to double as guest room, junk room, storage room, or you lost it completely when you annoyingly decided to give into the urge to procreate.

There are loads of things you can do to sneak an office into other living spaces in your home, here are a few of my favourite ideas, that are far cheaper than moving to a bigger flat.

Use a closet as an office

Steal space in another room:

Hide a desk in plain sight

Create a pretty desk as a feature

Utilise unused bench space

Use available wall space

If you have carved an office space out of an unlikely spot I’d love to see your photos, as my office in our new flat is very cosy!

{photos via Apartment Therapy}

Exciting news: Cosmopolitan UK is launching the first ever Cosmopolitan Blog Awards this month, and, um, how do I put this… I’d be awfully chuffed if you voted for me..! They are looking for your ‘must click’ blogs in all different categories, from fashion to lifestyle to news/current affairs. If you haven’t voted yet, it’s worth getting involved – there are loads of excellent blogs out there that deserve recognition (including this really good one I’ve heard about called FruGal..!)

To cast your vote, just click the icon below and fill in the form with your favourite (*cough* FruGal *cough*) blog’s details.

Happy voting!

Now that we have a moving date I am starting to remember how much I hate moving house. The mess, the expense, all the things to remember. They say it’s the second most stressful thing ever – I’m not sure that it’s quite that bad, but there’s always that moment on moving day when you find yourself neck high in half-packed boxes, searching for a vital lost item, having some sort of mini-breakdown because you’ve been up since 5am and there’s at least 15 hours and a trip to Ikea ahead before you can fall into bed… yeah. Fun!

I think the key is definitely to be as organised as possible in the lead-up. I have a month before the big day, and plan to do a LOT of clearing out junk in that time and basically doing everything I can to prepare, so that things will go as smoothly as possible.

Here are some things I’m thinking will help keep things pain-free (or as close to) and also help keep costs down:

Do it yourself The first time we moved house, we did it ourselves. Hired a van, packed, lugged boxes, the works. It kept the costs way down, but I had a moment of clarity on my, oh, 209^th trip up to the third floor carrying crates of books that I would NEVER DO THIS AGAIN FOR AS LONG AS I LIVED. Stressful and tiring it is, but yes, it is the cheapest way to do it. Worth it only if you don’t have lots of furniture, or you can rope lots of friends into helping (just be prepared to return the favour some day in the future!)

Man and Van The last time we moved we did man and van. It was far cheaper than hiring professional movers, but it was really only like having a couple of friends helping, because they had no specialist equipment or anything. I think I carried more boxes than the pair of them put together, because I wanted to pay for as few hours as possible, and well, it suited them to be as slow as possible, didn’t it? But it’s good to have that extra help for the heavy lifting.

Professional movers This time I’m going professional movers all the way baby. I want two big, burly men to move everything while I ‘supervise’. It’s the most expensive way to go, but I think it’s worth it in the reduction in stress and fatigue!

Get organised In the lead up to the move, get organised. Book movers far in advance so you aren’t scrambling at the last minute (especially if you are moving on a Saturday), organise restricted parking with the council outside your current and new homes for the removal van, and start eating the food out of your freezer because you’ll have to entirely defrost it a couple of days before the move.

Clear out the junk Be ruthless. Go through all your closets, cupboards, attic, and chuck out or donate all the stuff you no longer want/need. Remember that everything you get rid of is one less box to move on the day. Start doing some deep cleaning so you don’t spend all of moving day on your knees scrubbing the oven out.

Check your inventory Go through your check-in inventory and make sure there are no repairs you need done before the move. The landlord will charge extortionate rates for anything that needs doing and it will come out of your deposit; so if you, for example, have a husband who drilled a massive hole in a wall to hang a mirror and then simply covered it up with said mirror after a large patch of plaster crumbled off (grr), fix it up yourself or your landlord will make you pay!

We got quite a good deal on our new flat, for no particular reason other than we made a slightly lower offer on the price and it was accepted.

A lot of people forget that the price a rental property is listed for is really only an asking price – exactly like buying a home. You can always make a reasonable offer and negotiate when it comes to paying the price you actually think it’s worth. In my experience, landlords ask for a price above the market worth in the off-chance that they will find someone prepared to pay it.

If the market is tight and demand is outstripping supply, you’ll be less likely to be able to secure money off the rent, but there are still things you can do in order to get the price down, such as offering to sign a longer tenancy agreement. If you are signing for two years instead of one, the landlord will be more likely to take some money off the price because of the expense and hassle of finding new tenants every 12 months.

The best asset you have when it comes to presenting yourself as good tenants (and therefore more likely to be able to secure a discount) is good references from your past landlords. Everyone knows that landlords can be a royal pain in the ass (god knows I’ve had some shockers), but it’s worth your while to have a good relationship with them by doing simple things like keeping the property in good order, and always paying your rent on time.

It’s also very important, when you’re moving out, to be flexible with viewings taking place at your flat so they can find a new tenant easily, and do everything you can to make the moving-out process go smoothly, not just for the sake of getting your deposit back, but because if you leave on a pleasant note, the landlord will be happy to provide a good reference to your new prospective tenant.

However, be careful of making verbal unofficial agreements with your landlord when it comes to getting money off your rent. Make sure everything agreed is written into your tenancy contract before you sign, otherwise you won’t have a leg to stand on if things don’t turn out as planned.

I’m so psyched to move! Goodbye crappy neighbours!

We found a new flat! Very excited! It’s lovely and I can’t wait to move in.

It was actually quite a pain free process in the end. I hate house hunting, it is usually so awful, but this time it wasn’t so bad. Of course there was the odd viewing of places you’d rather die than live in, and the dealing with real estate lingo – understanding that ‘charming’ means ‘needs modernising’, and ‘cosy’ means ‘tiny’. But all in all, not so bad.

The best thing about the whole process was the estate agent at who found us the new flat. How many people can say that about the house hunting process?! She was very helpful and seemed to know just what we were looking for. Rather than just showing me everything and anything like all the other agencies did, she actually listened to what we wanted. Seems simple, but most estate agents I’ve come across don’t seem to understand this fundamental point.

Estate agents certainly have a dodgy reputation, but I’ve never understood why some people think they can treat estate agents like crap and still walk away with a good deal at the end of the day. I’ve learnt that if you are friendly and can build a good relationship with them it certainly works in your favour. They will remember you and call you first when they get a new listing that might suit you – which is exactly what happened, we were the first to view the new flat and took it pretty much straight away. They are also more likely to help you negotiate a good deal so you can save yourself some money, and the process will run more smoothly for everyone involved – and given that moving house is one of the most stressful things ever, that’s important!