Breaking Through, Travelling On

Karmacat

Done: 14 items
- ensure insurance company have deleted my card
- check money in English and French bank
- make notes on the ratesetter account emails
- inform savings accounts that I don’t pay tax
- send money to France
- pay French accountant
- check on refund from hmrc
- update work website for colleague
- English accounts
- French accounts
- spend bonus vouchers at iceland
- open little isa
- check on NI bill – I don’t think its taken by dd any more!
- sort paypal: am now only using one account, but how do I use the US$10, as well as the sterling?
- tried to log on to hmrc the other day, and the ringback (an added security feature) isn't working **again** - need to sort that

Done, but finish or make sure: 7 items
- check French management company: have my cheques been credited?

- change their direct debit if necessary
Sent an email asking for their new details, they snuck in a smaller charge without me noticing, so they may well answer this email.

- check the french accountant has been paid.
Yes, but they only get access to their updated records once a month!

- spend boots points, mine and mum's.
Done a bit more.

- probate forms finished and signed, make sure we receive it back.

- decided how much additional pension payment I can make: it's only £2,500, to keep things simple, got to do that in the first part of this week.
Money transferred, will do this today.

- remember to spend £1 and £5 coins and notes.
Doing.


Still to do: 15 items
- ask french accountant if I need separate insurance, or does management company pay for this?
- spend my nectar card points
- existing regular saver only has one more payment to make, remember to start a new one asap.
- sort talktalk bill, change provider, booster for router, state of the wires, complaint
- sort mobile: orange or giffgaff, unlock mobile
- cash the little cheque in the desk
- split "other isa" into two.
- check again on how much of my pension funds are in cash and stocks, adjust proportions appropriately.
- I let a cahoot account go dormant, reactivate it and do the next point on here instead:
- open a 2nd current account: opening bonus, interest rate, Reg Saver, no of dir debits
- online selling, some postal, some collect only.
- rejig my ISAs – some have matured, they’re now on the worst possible rates.
- shall I invest in Brighton Energy?
- dehydrator book: even though it might be easy to buy, I might instead research the particular items I want to dry, and print out each one, or put it on kindle, I really don't want to buy a whole book on dehydrating, its very offputting for some reason.
- soon coming up to *next* year's accounts. Get them ready, if not done!

Its going well :j And in addition:
- asked for two little pieces of sheeps wool insulation on freegle, walking distance from me, as there's a cold spot in my loft near the hatch.
- must buy lots of postage stamps - apparently they're going up before the end of the month again.

Karmacat

Quiet day yesterday, needed a bit of a break after all this - but paypal is not only sorted, but a lot of it *used* - I bought a whacking great delivery from Wilko for the garden, soil, compost, bark chippings, some first aid stuff I was missing, and a hand tool - should have paid extra for a one-day delivery slot (this one is **four** days!) but I'm very pleased in general.

Today is going to be bits and bobs I can do while watching for a delivery, finishing things off, looking for low-key stuff I can start, that sort of thing: new direct debit to the French bank, the sheep's wool insulation thing is going to happen, re-start the pruning of the front border, that sort of thing.

Abbreviated list will be used in future posts that big one's too unwieldy now

Karmacat

Yesterday's ta-da list:
- cutting back the leylandii from next door, back to the border. Got to use a stepladder for the rest, but that'll be next week now. And then I'll have to have a chat with them about the bits shooting up on their side, my view of the horizon is getting blocked - I know they'll cooperate, they have before.

- actually spent a couple of hours in the evening scanning and arranging scans in the computer, the genealogy stuff and photos. Its a hobby, what can I say. I enjoyed it too, computer nerd that I am

- checking and rechecking the bank details of the French management company, the details my bank had were identical, and they sort of ... shouldn't have been, which is weird. At least they have English staff, so I can just fire off emails and not have to work on translating first, oops.

- tidying. Good Lord, how long does tidying take? Till the sun goes nova, I should say. Ridiculous! And its still not tidy. Or clean


So, today:
- tidying!
- might well do half an hour at the far end of the garden, extending the pruning of the other hedge along the boundary, it will give the bulbs beneath some much-needed room. And I won't have to strain my back
- freegle lady might be contacting me today to hand over the little pieces of insulation. She won't save herself time by letting me turn up at her door, I'm sure she's worried about internet axe murderers. MSE is so safe!
- got to pop out anyway to pick up some stamps, as Martin says they're going up again - its the principle of the thing, rather than the amount they're going up
- might do a bit more scanning etc on the computer, as an excuse to sit down.

Its a work day, isn't it ... I really want the focus on work to end by the end of this month, just a few days to go, and I'm out at my sister's tomorrow all day anyway, so it'll be fine.

:j

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Karmacat

Morning all!

MSE is getting quieter as the days get more active - people are out and about doing their thing :j another week and I'll be focussing on joining them, instead of focussing on house and garden. Still doing lots, but getting out and about will move up the priority list.

Today, anyway, there are 11 items on the list:
- talktalk - see if that appeal against the engineer charge got anywhere, check on what deal they can do me, check what contract I'm on, if they can't deliver what services I've got for less than the £35 a month they're currently charging me, then I'm off to sky, same deal for £27 for a year. My niece found it for me
From the finance to do list.

- go to sky if talktalk wimps out.

- how much to include the mobile?
From the finance to do list.

- pay management company in France, checking the direct debit details again.

- download pix from camera (won't take long, just fiddly)

- back up computer.

- dishwasher on, when my coffee is finished

- clear the front border (so I can watch for the Wilko truck at the same time).

- clean front window (ditto on Wilko truck).

- establish net worth - mostly about updating, but I also need to work out value of this house and my French apartment (impossible, just a guesstimate). Will do the house thing as per Ed's workings.
From the finance to do list.

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Karmacat

- talktalk - see if that appeal against the engineer charge got anywhere, check on what deal they can do me, check what contract I'm on, if they can't deliver what services I've got for less than the £35 a month they're currently charging me, then I'm off to sky, same deal for £27 for a year. My niece found it for me
From the finance to do list.
Done! Stayed with talktalk, same capabilities, but £8 less per month

- go to sky if talktalk wimps out.
Didn't need to, hurray.

- how much to include the mobile?
From the finance to do list.
Not done - will do it tomorrow.

- pay management company in France, checking the direct debit details again.
Done - I suspect I didn't start paying them online until they'd changed banks anyway, as the old information I had was the same as the new information they were giving out, sigh ... but its all done now. Hope the payment gets through

- download pix from camera (won't take long, just fiddly)
Done, nice and easy.

- back up computer.
Done. When I've done lots of scanning etc, I always feel better that I've got a backup.

- dishwasher on, when my coffee is finished
Done

- clear the front border (so I can watch for the Wilko truck at the same time).
A binbag full, though there's more there that needs to get cleared. Shoulder's playing up, no more today.

- clean front window (ditto on Wilko truck).
As above, no more of that today!

- establish net worth - mostly about updating, but I also need to work out value of this house and my French apartment (impossible, just a guesstimate). Will do the house thing as per Ed's workings.
From the finance to do list.
Done the price of my current house on zoopla - within £500 of where I thought it was, but local houses selling for £20k less in the last few months, so we'll see.
I can faff around now finding out how to value the French flat - I'll look on Rightmove International After chatting with my sister, it doesn't look like there are many charges the seller pays in France, I'll build in E1000 or so.

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themadvix

Super productive day there KC! Hope shoulder stops playing up soon.

Karmacat

Thanks madvix! I'm trying to do as much as I can so the backlog isn't hanging over me ... just been looking at net worth, for instance, in relation to the French apartment, and this is why I don't do it much - my apartment is in a pretty little village near Chamonix and Mont Blanc, totally given over to tourists, from the sound of it. The apartment has one bedroom and a bunk room (an inside room windowless, which is the norm for bunk beds, they seem to be stuffed in anywhere ) and in that village in that layout, there are flats going for £95,000 to E139,000, and I have no idea where mine would fit in that spectrum. Add in how low the offers are as a percentage of the price - say, 60%. Convert back to sterling. And you get approximately tuppence ha'penny. Or put it this way. I'll never have to pay Capital Gains Tax ...

E120,000 hypothetical value x 30% off the asking price x currency conversion = maybe £70k? Currency conversion carries its own ups and downs, of course.

Huge loss in time, energy and peace of mind, I'd have done much, much better by buying a terraced house in Liverpool. Such is life. I still have options - and one option I'm exercising is not to bother with property again in terms of Net Worth It would be quite nice to be a millionaire, still, which is another reason I'm getting all this out the way
Cuppa tea :coffee:

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ZTD

Karmacat wrote: »

Huge loss in time, energy and peace of mind, I'd have done much, much better by buying a terraced house in Liverpool.

Though had you done so, this flat would have been a decent hedge. Different location, different county. Only thing they share is the western banking system.

Karmacat wrote: »

Such is life. I still have options - and one option I'm exercising is not to bother with property again in terms of Net Worth It would be quite nice to be a millionaire,

You probably are in the black market rate of Venezuelan Bol!vars...

beanielou

Hope the shoulder is on the mend soon.

themadvix

The wild variation between asking price and actual price seems crazy KC! No wonder it's hard to estimate! Best not to think about the exchange rate....