Travelling On 2 January 2018 at 3:38PM edited 30 November -1 at 12:00AM in Mortgage-Free Wannabe 5.9K replies 262.5K views

Karmacat

SL good grief - they'd give you compensation these days, which is right in your case, I think.  Heavens above.  Your interview sounds interesting too!

madvix  aww, that's a great description!  Not mad, no   We had lovely blue sky here just an hour ago or so, but it's now clouded over.  Not before I put the washing machine on, though!  Ah well.  I'll do the premium bond thing right now, then phone my sister, *then* do the English accounts.  I'm just scared of pressing that final button to submit, I always am.  Nothing for it, though, mustn't prevaricate and have it hanging over me.

themadvix

I know what you mean about the final submission - although I always do it a bit precipitously and probably should more carefully check it over first! I take the approach that I've filled it in carefully in the first place, so it should be fine!

Karmacat

I'd like to think like that, madvix, I really would.  It's the French stuff that's the problem, even now that the mortgage is over.  Slight differences in the way it's submitted, every year, because of changes they make in the forms, the terrible service I've had from English accountants/ technicians over the years, my shaky grasp of financial French, it all adds up to a background of **oh bleep, this time it's all going to go wrong**.  It hasn't, never has, but I keep checking, just in case!

Anyway, the deed is done, woo hoo, English accounts submitted - 10/115 items on the Big List, 8.7% woo hoo.  

The French paperwork is scattered between English tax years, it has to be at first, so now I'm free to collect it all up, and just see if I have any later log in details for the maintenance firm that will enable me to log on as I used to, and check what I need to pay (its often different from what they invoice me, sigh ....).

Sister phoned me as I was picking up the phone to call her, always nice when that happens  

Karmacat

My French paperwork has suddenly disappeared - I can only find the things I only just found the other day, the stuff I always had has disappeared.  This either means that a hole in the fabric of space-time has opened up in my house, or I've looked at too much finance paperwork over the last few weeks.  So I'm stopping now.

One last victory to report: the maintenance company replied at lunchtime, I managed to get onto their website, all good.  Except that just as I thought, the amount I owe according to their website is very different from the invoice they sent me - its about E100 less.  Very puzzling, but I can't sort it in the next week, so I paid the higher amount, via my French bank, E192.  Very confusing.  

Before I send in the French accounts, I need to find the stance of various companies on the TVA, the French VAT - do I need to show it on invoices to claim against tax?  I think the accountant's website said I did.  Can't sort it today, I'd quite like to get my proper shoes on and go out for a walk.

beanielou

Suffolk_lass said:

It was my first year at College - I applied last minute when I was made redundant - post clearing I just rang and asked, went in, demonstrated my sporting prowess (🧑‍🎓🏃‍♀️💃🥾) across a number of activities and they said yes (the most hilarious was doing a handstand, which I had never done - ever - in front of a GB gymnastics coach - I digress) - applied for my grant and then my bed broke so I went into Nit-Wits and explained and they advanced an overdraft.

Bought the bed, three weeks later went in to get cash and was asked to go in to an interview room where they locked me in and called for the manager who threatened to call the police. Fortunately I was able to describe the member of staff who had advanced the OD and they had the good grace to confirm and admit they had omitted to record it properly (but they had got their notes) - so they let me go.

A friend reported it to the local paper and the next thing was my Mum telling me about a student locked in a bank interview room and do be careful dear...

Blimey norah!!

Suffolk_lass

beanielou said:

Suffolk_lass said:

It was my first year at College - I applied last minute when I was made redundant - post clearing I just rang and asked, went in, demonstrated my sporting prowess (🧑‍🎓🏃‍♀️💃🥾) across a number of activities and they said yes (the most hilarious was doing a handstand, which I had never done - ever - in front of a GB gymnastics coach - I digress) - applied for my grant and then my bed broke so I went into Nit-Wits and explained and they advanced an overdraft.

Bought the bed, three weeks later went in to get cash and was asked to go in to an interview room where they locked me in and called for the manager who threatened to call the police. Fortunately I was able to describe the member of staff who had advanced the OD and they had the good grace to confirm and admit they had omitted to record it properly (but they had got their notes) - so they let me go.

A friend reported it to the local paper and the next thing was my Mum telling me about a student locked in a bank interview room and do be careful dear...

Blimey norah!!

It was 1982 so I have (now finally) let it go (more of a dining out story now - if I ever get to dine out) but I'll take @shangaijimmy's advice on whether this makes them a zombie company for me. The bank account I opened with TSB in the nearest town will have to move as the monthly payment stops next month and then the branch is closing this June. I've just read that HSBC are closing the branch where DS lives in June too so we should both consider where a physical branch is. There is a Nit Wits branch on an industrial estate less than 10 miles away

shangaijimmy

I haven't had a bank with a branch for about 18yrs now thinking back!

Karmacat

I'm afraid I moved *to* NitWits (love the name) because their regular saver was offering good value, and they had a branch in walking distance  - I wanted to be *able* to walk there if I *had* to - and it was convenient last Sunday when I went there to update my PIN, I must say.

It's a briliant dining out story, SL  

I've resolutely refused to look at any papers today - put the dishwasher on, bit of tidying, and then my keys surged up in front of me and demanded to be sorted, ie I found another two stashes of keys, and I had no idea what worked and what didn't.  It took literally about two hours, but I now know that I only have *one* key that fits all my new double glazing, 5 windows in all.  I'll have to get a couple extra over the summer, it's not an urgent thing.  But honestly, if I needed to give someone spare keys, it would have been troublesome - my shed has a lock now, for instance.  Good little piece of work, there's clarity in that.

apple_muncher

We seem to have a drawer full of keys. Dh reckons he can ID them all...!!!

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, excellent key detective work there! At least you won't do what we did in the summer - lose our only set of car keys, then while the key magician was here, get him to copy a key which we thought was the front door key, but was actually the key to the old lock we'd thrown away

(We later found the original car key anyway, so the whole thing was quite an expensive and pointless palaver!!)