Life is a minestrone as the song says - my new diary

Karmacat

Ooh, that's brilliant that you're finally getting your pension!  I was thrilled to get mine of course, mine was during the tight lockdown we've just had, so the only difference it made was that I upped the size of the Christmas presents I buy - a very small number, for immediate family only.  It was a nice feeling.  Enjoy  

teapot2

beanielou said:

Hope everything with your pension goes well 
My mum is still working in her very late seventies!

Thanks Beanie, your mum must enjoy her work, I think for some folk they'd miss the social contact depending on what kind of work.

teapot2

Karmacat said:

Ooh, that's brilliant that you're finally getting your pension!  I was thrilled to get mine of course, mine was during the tight lockdown we've just had, so the only difference it made was that I upped the size of the Christmas presents I buy - a very small number, for immediate family only.  It was a nice feeling.  Enjoy  

Thanks KC, glad you feel the benefit of yours [as will the present recipients ] it will make a big difference for me in terms of security as its always a bit up and down being self employed.

Karmacat

Absolutely with you in the sense of having a bit of security in terms of self employment, its such a huge risk. 
Enjoy the income  

teapot2

I try not to think about self employment too much as the idea of earning enough money to support myself just from 'myself' makes me feel a bit light headed even though I've been doing it for nearly 30 years with the occasional bit of part time PAYE work thrown in 🙄🙄.  It will be good to still have income if I'm ill or taking a holiday though!

badmemory

If you are going to carry on working for a while, have you considered NOT taking your state pension just yet.  Just delay for 9 weeks & it goes up by 1%.  5.8% for a full year.  If you don't pay tax it doesn't take too many years to be ahead.  I didn't find pensionwise much help to be honest, I felt that things I'd read on here were more use, even though a lot of it on here is about people with an awful lot more than I have.  Incidentally the 3 yrs NI you have at the time were given to everyone, even people who weren't even in the country at the time so definitely not a mistake.

So a question to ask yourself.  Is taking your SP going to mean that you pay more tax (& NI just for the first year) & are you going to just try to put the SP into savings for that first year?  If so deferring your SP during this first year until you won't need to pay any tax MIGHT be a good idea.

Karmacat

badmemory said:

So a question to ask yourself.  Is taking your SP going to mean that you pay more tax (& NI just for the first year) & are you going to just try to put the SP into savings for that first year?  If so deferring your SP during this first year until you won't need to pay any tax MIGHT be a good idea.

Excellent points about deferring in your first para, badmemory, but these sentences should be engraved somewhere, what a good point, and what a good solution, if there *is* an issue!  

teapot2

badmemory said:

If you are going to carry on working for a while, have you considered NOT taking your state pension just yet.  Just delay for 9 weeks & it goes up by 1%.  5.8% for a full year.  If you don't pay tax it doesn't take too many years to be ahead.  I didn't find pensionwise much help to be honest, I felt that things I'd read on here were more use, even though a lot of it on here is about people with an awful lot more than I have.  Incidentally the 3 yrs NI you have at the time were given to everyone, even people who weren't even in the country at the time so definitely not a mistake.

So a question to ask yourself.  Is taking your SP going to mean that you pay more tax (& NI just for the first year) & are you going to just try to put the SP into savings for that first year?  If so deferring your SP during this first year until you won't need to pay any tax MIGHT be a good idea.

Hi Badmemory thanks for commenting, I really appreciate the input.  I have thought seriously about not taking my pension just at the moment but decided against postponing it.  I'm going to give up one of the biggest bits of my self employed work in the next few months and one of my other bits of self employed work is under threat from lack of funding and I suspect it won't survive more than the next few months.  So my work income will reduce by well over half I should think.  I'm also going to make a conscious effort NOT to take on more work when it comes my way!  I know I have the self employed mindset of taking on work when it comes my way for fear of there not being work in the future but I have to have a reset of my thinking and remember that I'll have a secure source of income going forward.  So, my plan is to use the SP for living expenses and any income I have from work will supplement this.  I know I'll probably have to pay some tax initially and I'm ok with that and my work will reduce naturally over time as people move on.
Another reason to take my state pension now is that my OH didn't live long enough to claim his and I don't want to defer but enjoy the money I've worked for all these years.  I know some people might not understand that thinking but I really do feel life can be too short.  I've had a rough few years since about 2015 and this will just give me some security and hopefully freedom and some choices.  Due to the pandemic there is still quite a lot in this 'plan' thats a bit fuzzy and not firmed up but there is so much uncertainty around still that I feel I can't be definite about how everything will pan out.

beanielou

Goode thoughts on SR pension.

teapot2

Wow sunshine and warm weather today - not used to this!  Paid £200 off CC in addition to the minimum DD this morning, plan is to clear it before the % runs out.  I've got a couple of hours free this afternoon so hoping to get some salad, radish and carrot seeds in and some weeds out.  Did a Pinecone survey yesterday and its been paid in this morning, Prolific is up to £15 including pending.
Been listening to Texas live on the radio this morning, bit emosh, the last gig OH and I went to in 2017 was to see them in Embra.