What can be claimed as expenses

HOLsale

ok, got a few questions, bit long winded but would really appreciate your help

when it comes to buying new equipment how do you claim that?

it won't count for this year but for next year we'll have the cost of the new computer i'm on. we HAD to buy a new one as our old one just wouldn't play ball anymore, it was well and truly dying and it was an old pentium III 750mhz with windows 98se (that caused enough headaches as is) it barely ran the excel program that i had to buy for it, it was that bad... do i claim the percentage of use for work and then it depreciates 'X' amount each year?

also, i had to buy software and a digital camera, the camera we use about 50% for ourselves the other 50% is for ebay photos (yes, i do claim my income from that) and also jobs that required a camera (i'd have lost a lot of work without one). i take it that will have the depreciation thing as well but what about software?

i had to buy windows 2000 just to keep up to date more ( i had real problems with a lot of companies software and windows 98) and i had to buy excel. can i claim the full cost of these? the windows 2000 does get used for personal use, obviously BUT i wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't work issues that forced the sale.



also

i'm wondering if i can list my basic office supplies etc as expenses if i bought them BEFORE i became self employed (and therefore didn't keep the receipts) but then used them for my self employement (mainly due to being skint)

how does that work?

i just claim my printing costs as 7p per sheet so that covers that
i claim 5p per regular envelope so that covers that

but what about ink/pens
notebooks
pencils
paper (not printing)
file folders and tabs
etc etc

how can you claim these as expenses if you wound up using them for the business in the long run... i will eventually have to replace these items to use for my personal use however i tend to buy when i find a great sale and store away until needed so i had a really good stock of things for a very long time however they were meant for me to use for myself and i WILL have to cover that cost again eventually...