Nice People Thread No. 14, all Nice and Proper

tom9980

LydiaJ wrote: »

:mad:

Yesterday we had a bloke come to give a talk to us teachers after school about changes to the teachers' pension scheme that came in at the beginning of this month. It turns out that they have introduced some new flexibilities, one of which will allow me to put more money in now and mitigate the effect of only working part time for most of my career and therefore building up fewer FTE years in the scheme than I would like. I've done the sums and for somebody in my particular circumstances this particular option sounds like a good deal. However, the deadline for applying is the end of this month (ie next Thursday), otherwise I need to wait a whole year before I can start. So today I've just tried to apply for it, but the website is not working properly so I can't. The phone line said the office had already closed by the time I rang up about it, so it will have to wait until Monday, when I shall be v busy and it will be hard to squeeze in ringing them during their office hours.

Dont you love stealth deadlines?

Last year the LEA sent emails to head teachers a few days before the summer holidays telling them the system had changed and that they all had to reapply for funding for new facilities such as building classrooms, this isnt a small job. Given lots of teachers go on holiday and the new deadline was two weeks away it caught a fair few schools out and saved the LEA a bundle of money.

Thanks for bringing this up though in a few years i will run the numbers when my wife goes part time when we start having children of our own.

ukmaggie45

Photos for lemonjelly. Took these pics yesterday, but totally knackered after weeding to post then, and today been to lottie where OH planted the 1st early spuds (Maris Bard I think) while I did weeding. Then we went to MiL's 92 birthday at her nursing home. Which was a bit strange, fairly depressing on the whole. Hmm, anyway to get onto more cheerful stuff here's the blossom!

Apple blossom in bud

Apple blossom in bud by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Crab apple blossom in bud

Crab apple blossom buds by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Going to finish catch up now!

Doozergirl

The forum is flip flopping constantly between old and new. You may never see me again if the new one takes over - I caanot get my head around it!

zagubov

Happy Birthday Sue! :bdaycake:
And congratulations Percy and Mrs Percy!:beer:

Your electrical issues remind me of the first two houses we bought which had dodgy wiring. My BIL found a light bulb and pressed it against a tear in a bit of wallpaper in the living room and it lit up.:eek:

vivatifosi

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party, but happy birthday Sue!

Congratulations Percy too!

Yorkie1

Doozergirl wrote: »

Here's a picture of Poldark for your birthday, Sue.

Mmmmmmmmm, lurvely :T

michaels wrote: »

Not been a home owner long have you....

Happy Birthday Sue, I feel so much younger now knowing that some of the NP are much older than me (by 2 months)

Happy Birthday Sue from me too - you're 7 months older than me :D

Spirit wrote: »

I was gifted an 8'x6' poly carbonate 2nd hand green house. .free green house I thought , how mse. We then need someone to lay foundations and build a brickbase for it to stand on and a concrete path up the middle. Not a job for OH as he is running on empty at present OH has bought black membrane and pea shingle to make the beds either side of the path. So far my MSE green house has cost about £350.Still a bargain though and I am really looking frward to using it. I am going to grow tomatoes, cucumber and peppers in it, and bring on some other veg, before planting out.

It'll be worth every penny :beer:

LydiaJ

tom9980 wrote: »

Thanks for bringing this up though in a few years i will run the numbers when my wife goes part time when we start having children of our own.

It may be more worth her while to do it now.

It's called Faster Accrual. I joined the scheme in 1993, so up until this month I was on the 80ths of final FTE salary deal, but as of this month I am on the 57ths of career average deal. That means I have this month in which to decide if I want to opt for faster accrual starting now - normally you have to say before the end of March each year (and I believe preferably before the end of the previous December) if you want to do a year's faster accrual starting in April of that year. If you opt for it, you pay a bigger contribution (the extra that you have to pay gets bigger if you're older - there are big tables of numbers about it) and then you can make that year accrue 55ths, 50ths or 45ths of that year's salary instead of 57ths, which will then be compounded in the usual way.

They've introduced some other new flexibilities too, but they didn't look to me to be as useful for my circumstances.

Doozergirl

Morning. My little girl is 10 years old today. Where does it go?

It will be mmy 10 year anniversary on here in a couple of weeks. I joined and would read while breastfeeding. For the record, I stopped that a while back!

GDB2222

Doozergirl wrote: »

Morning. My little girl is 10 years old today. Where does it go?

It will be mmy 10 year anniversary on here in a couple of weeks. I joined and would read while breastfeeding. For the record, I stopped that a while back!

Happy birthday to Doozergirlgirl.

LydiaJ

Happy birthday to Doozergirlgirl and congratulations to Doozerirl.
:bdaycake: