Breaking Through, Travelling On

beanielou

Yes, will soon be only be 6months

Cheery_Daff

Gosh, 32 weeks?! :eek: That's not long at all!! :j :j :j :j SO excited (and impressed with the book case fixing too! :j )

Karmacat

Thank you both :kisses3:

Yep, I'm getting more and more excited - you wouldn't know it from the outside, as present day life remains extremely boring, but once I get my health back, I'll be on the razz

Today, dishwasher is on, then its cleaning, a session, and my business partner is popping along for a meeting. Oh, and I need to pay the credit card bills and check that my insurance premium leaves my account. That leaves me free after about 3.30, but I'll need a good long rest

Insurance will be a lot cheaper when I retire - better quote, and I won't have to pay for having clients here - that'll save at least £100.

Then I think I'll be scanning my French invoices and documents, ready to email to my French accountant - doing these current accounts has shown me how many ways I've cut down on incidental expenditure, and doing things online is one of them - bank fees, postal charges, a better rate of exchange, they all add up and make a difference.

I want to finish all the accounts and the CPD by the end of this week - next week will be monetising the blogs, then publicising them, and zooming up to the stratosphere in February :j

Karmacat

The cost of the French loan has gone down by another 0.05% and they've sent me a different sort of document - the rate changes every quarter, but they've now fixed it until the end of the mortgage? Can't help feeling they're taking advantage of a foreigner still, at the end of the year after next (2018 :eek:) it'll be free and clear. It'll never make money, the running costs are too high, but so it goes ...

Goldiegirl

32 weeks is no time at all really. You'll be free before you know it


If you had an English mortgage, it'd be really easy getting information about what the lender was doing with this fixed rate, as you could just ask on here. I wonder if it's worth finding a French finance forum to see if anybody can add any insight?

Karmacat

Goldiegirl wrote: »

32 weeks is no time at all really. You'll be free before you know it

My business partner noticed how much I perked up when I started talking about the end of the retirement countdown I'm feeling really wiped at the moment.

If you had an English mortgage, it'd be really easy getting information about what the lender was doing with this fixed rate, as you could just ask on here. I wonder if it's worth finding a French finance forum to see if anybody can add any insight?

I agree its a good idea - and I actually registered with a couple a few years ago, but the stress of focussing on that is bad at the best of times, and right now, it would floor me Just one more way having a French property doesn't work for me!



I *did* just manage to phone my English home and contents provider, to see why they hadn't taken the premium yet from my bank account - and I casually mentioned at the end how expensive it was (£267! because of the business visitors thing, its not a normal home & contents). Had to go through all the questions, and he pretended it made a difference, but I got a bit of *extra* cover - accidental damage to buildings as well as contents - and a £40 reduction for a low-rate 15 minute phone call thats good!

Karmacat

Still pleased about that £40 rebate yesterday - but when I retire, I'll be amending my insurance pronto.

I'm waiting for an mse news item about the parliamentary debate yesterday about women's pensions, and let me tell you, if the words "we don't have a magic pot of money" really were used, the person who said it is going to get an email rollicking from me Till then, I'm not going to obsess.

Right, today is about tax:
- one of the companies I have shares in has replied and said they don't give out annual information, I've got to add it up myself. That's a reinvestment scheme I'm on, which I'm going to change. And add the figures up.
- scanning French documents, which I didn't do yesterday.
- French tax declaration.
- CPD declaration.

I'd really, really like to get *all* that actually done today. I've been very good and only looked at the general threads I go to, my diary, and one other. So its now 9am, and I'm going straight to that list to get it all done. I *will* have a life :rotfl:

Karmacat

I've submitted the English tax declaration!!! Of course, I'm utterly paranoid I've done it wrong :rotfl: my current paranoia is that I've double entered the tax I paid in France... I don't think I have, but I'll go through the figures on Thursday, and resubmit if necessary.

Its good though, this lark - very nearly tax free in the end

Sunshine is definitely tax free, and there's lots on offer at the moment, so I'm off out for a little walk, hope all's well.

Goldiegirl

Well done on the tax declaration - I'm sure it's fine


We've wimped out on the walk today - when we went to do the weekly shopping this morning, it was so cold out there, we decided not to go out again today. But I'm doing half an hour on the rowing machine shortly


I'm also following the pension thing.


I think women born in the early to mid 50's have had a bit of a double whammy, the changes in 2011 mean that you have short notice of another increase in your pension age. I think this issue needs attention


But I find I can't support WASPI - they are calling for things like a return to a pension age of 60 for all 50's women. As someone born in March 1960, that seems to me that they are saying a woman born 31/12/59 should get their pension at 60.... whereas one born 1/1/60 waits to 66!:eek: I can't buy into that at all !

beanielou

As another 1962'er I cant support WASPI either.