Busy Mee's Last Leg

lulabelle1

Hi,

Just been catching up on some diaries and saw the pensions discussions, hope you don’t mind me commenting....

As a higher rate taxpayer, it works as follows:
Using the example of a 10,000 contribution
You contribute 10,000
The SIPP provider claims £2,500 from hmrc (standard rate)
You claim the additional higher rate tax via self assessment, usually after doing the self assessment and claiming the refund, your tax code is amended on the assumption that you’ll continue to contribute to your SIPP at the same rate.

As recommended by an earlier poster, I’d highly recommend reading The Simple Path to Wealth via JL Collins. Of all personal finance books this is a must read. It’s USA centric but addresses all of your questions, fears, doubts in regards to investing.

Good luck!

Busy_Mee1

Lots of great Pensions chat on here. Thank you everyone for your help and advice. For now I have put £20k in a fixed rate ISA for Mr Mee for this tax year. I want to be be a bit more adventurous with my allowance next year.

Anyway it is my favourite time of the month, all the accounts are up to date and tidy and so I can declare this month's progress:

Repayment mortgage. £49,138.79 :T We are in the 40's
IO mortgage. £168,000.00
Total Mortgage. £217,138.

Ring fenced savings. £210,000.00
Savings offset mortgage to £7,138.79
Total reduction. £1,434.34 :T

Odds and Sods account. £434.16
Principality regular saver £375.00
Total. £ 809.16/£2500
Saved this month. £138.04 :T

Although I have been rigorously Tilly Tidying and paying in other bits and pieces I have fallen short of £152.41 a month target needed to hit the extra £2500 target needed by the year end to push our mortgage total below £200k. So from next month I will pay all my work expenses into the odds and sods account too.

I love having targets for the small stuff as it really focuses my mind and ensures we don't get wasteful. :A

Work is still massively busy but I have a few days off next week, for which I will be very thankful. I have pre booked all my leave fairly evenly spaced throughout the year, so I get regular breaks.....who says I don't learn :rotfl: I know it is really hard to get leave when a programme is in full flight unless it is pre booked and you can plan around it

savingholmes

Enjoy your time off - have you got anything special planned?

Busy_Mee

Phew thought I had lost my thread then. This latest one is not showing under my profile since the forum changes. I have to say I am not loving the new forum but I suppose we will get used to it again.

We are being battered by storm Ciara here. We woke up this morning to water dripping through the ceiling downstairs. This was rainwater that had been driven by the wind through the french windows upstairs. We obviously need to get the windows resealed again. We managed to get it all mopped up and used the carpet cleaner to suck up the excess water and are now drying out. It smells of damp plaster everywhere now. 

Outside there is a lot of standing water and trees down. Even the dog wouldn't go outside and we eventually had to push him out as he hadn't had a wee in about 12 hours . I have just taken him for a quick walk as it looked like the rain had stopped for a bit, but it started again on the way back and I got soaked. 

I have had a lovely few days off work this week and spent a few days away with friends. I feel like I have got some headspace back and have put into action a new cunning plan for some cashback/switching bonuses. I have applied for a new bank account with TSB through Quidco who are offering £50 cashback for new accounts. I am then going to refer Mr Mee for another account and then if he switches, we get £100 each. The TSB also pay 3% interest on £1500 in the account = £45 each. Therefore this should reap £340 in total. Even Mr Mee, who wants us to reduce the number of accounts we have, couldn't argue with that. The referral bonus for switches end at the end of February, so I need to get on with it. That will be my wet weather job this afternoon.

Other than that, our normal frugalish carry on continues. I made a delicious minestrone soup on Friday to use up all the sad veg and then Jamie Oliver Sweet Potato, chick pea and spinach curry last night. That was also lovely and definitely a recipe to repeat. All very healthy and cheap. 

I hope the storm isn't too bad elsewhere and you have a good weekend.

julicorn

Sorry to hear you've been hit hard by the storm! It's pretty wild out there, isn't it? Hope it drys out for you quickly.

I'll have to look up that curry recipe, it sounds right up my street. Thank you for the recommendation

savingholmes

Ouch to the impact of the rain. It has looked bad from inside - but our  house hasn't been affected so far. Hope your dries out okay. 

Busy_Mee

Hello Juliecorn. Thanks for popping in. The curry recipe was a real hit here and if you like that one. Jamie also has a recipe for Sweet Potato and White Bean Chilli which is another favourite.

Thank you SH, we have thankfully all dried out now, although we are a bit concerned about storm Dennis now. At the moment the damage is just cosmetic and Mr Mee will be able to paint over the water marks on the ceiling. Fingers crossed Dennis won't be as bad

However it is a very dreary morning this morning. No sign of storm Dennis yet but it is very grey and blustery.

I have had a busy week this week, attended some training for the voluntary work I do and went on a very eye opening visit to one of their sites. It was really good to see the benefit of the work I am doing. I sit on the board of trustees and that can feel quite remote, so it was really good to see the work of the ground and made me think that once I am retired I will go and give some practical help too.
It has been busy at work too, which has meant NSD Monday to Friday 

We did however have a trip to the cinema on a school night ! We used Meercat movies and Mr Mee got an over 60 concession, so the total cost would have been £8.40 but Mr Mee was given a cinema voucher as a birthday present so we used that. Total cost nothing   

We have had a great week food wise and I have used up lots of freezer treasure. I made a Christmas Dinner on Sunday, using a half price chicken from Aldi ( the half a turkey crown didn't defrost in time), pigs in blankets and half a tub of bread sauce with stuffing. The turkey crown I used for turkey and stuffing sandwiches, a casserole and then I whizzed up the leftover casserole to make soup. I also inadvertently defrosted a tub of blackberry compote (it fell out of the freezer and the plastic tub cracked !) So I have been using that up with Greek Yogurt. We have enjoyed it all and I was glad I froze the leftovers at Christmas rather than trying to eat it up when you are sick of it. It has actually felt like a treat at this time of year.

In MSE news I have opened a TSB account via Quidco and the £50 has tracked. I have done the setting up, standing order for £500 in and out and set it for paperless. I have referred Mr Mee for an account but I am now just trying to get the timing right for him to open his account. He needs to do it by 28 Feb but he will be switching his Nationwide account that has a regular saver that doesn't mature until sometime in March ( I need to check when ). Fingers crossed this all works as it will really boost my odds and sods account.

Speaking of the odds and sods account, the Tilly tidies have been a bit sparse this week...which is the trouble on NSDs...nothing to round up. I did send over the second Barclays reward of £12.00 yesterday. This time of the month is sooo boring, financially.

In other news I have joined Fat Club online (WW). I can't face the classes but I thought this might give me a bit of focus. I am fed up on putting on and taking off the same 3 lb and would like to lose 10lb. However I have only lost 1lb on my first week, which is a bit gutting but I have hardly done any exercise because of the weather and being so busy. This week I am going to try for at least 10,000 steps a day, get back to the running and also try and do 15 mins of yoga a day.

I think that is all I have to report this week, we have nothing too exciting going on this weekend. I will be off out with the pup in a while and we are going to see FIL this afternoon.

Hope everyone has a good weekend x

PS still not loving the new style forum 

themadvix

Sounds like a good week and excellent use of freezer food, Busy Mee!

 What did you see at the cinema?

Busy_Mee

Ooo we just cross posted  We went to see 1917...not my usual kind of film but it was really good x

Busy_Mee

Anybody got any idea of how to change my signature. It seems to have resurrected a very old one. I wish I had lost 12lbs out of 14