Crazy Cat Lady Chapter 4 - The Aftermath

apple_muncher

Will the exam board furlough you again? I lost out on approx £3k last year - no furlough for me!

Whatlifeis

Just echoing everyone’s advice. Recommend that you tell HMRC as soon as you can squeeze it in, otherwise next year’s predicted tax code will be wrong too. If you don’t mind spending 40 minutes or so on hold, you can call them and they usually correct it on the spot for you, or you can do it online (but no guarantee that a real person will look at it any time soon, although to be fair to them, they usually do sort it within a few weeks) https://www.gov.uk/tell-hmrc-change-of-details/income-changes

f0xh0les

It is on the weekly email today to check your tax code, so I guess the phone lines will be very busy for the next few days. 

badmemory

The best time to call used to be just before the phone lines are supposed to be open.  That was of course before any of us had heard of this virus.  It will be on this weeks email because this is about the time they issue the tax codes for the next financial year starting on 6th April.

crazy_cat_lady

Hello all
Another couple of days of stress here, as the broadband went off very suddenly on Tuesday afternoon and has been off since. Engineer arrived just after 1pm today but the broadband had suddenly reappeared within about 10 seconds of him phoning to say that he was on his way. He spent a long time being really thorough and promptly announced that he could find no problems at all with anything. Touch wood, the internet seems to be up and running for the moment and long may it continue... I won't hold my breath though - I've dealt with Bee Tee and their issues for too long to expect it will be fixed first time. We shall see.
Can you imagine the joy of remote teaching and learning trying to use a mobile phone hotspot? It's been quite ridiculous and then there was the hilarious nature of Bee Tee customer services trying to get me to pay to upgrade my broadband while I didn't actually have any. Anyway, it's been on for just over half an hour without cutting out so fingers crossed, but it is very slow. Nothing is working as fast as you would expect it to when you have super fast broadband. But at least I can make a start on catching up with some of my work backlog now. There's plenty to be getting on with.
Other than that there has been very little going on chez CCL - more of the same. Me nagging ds to work, him falling back to sleep in the morning and not getting anything done. Me trying to juggle teacher, home educator, mother and running the home. At least I'm cleaning up way less cat poop than I was. The kitten is doing much better thankfully.
I haven't contacted the tax people yet - I can see why they've set my tax code where they have. But I think they have significantly over estimated how much I will earn from the job this year, unless a big lump of £5000 makes it's way to me before April anyway. I will contact them as soon as I have the proof of how much I earned when the P60's come through. I can't estimate my actual income from the second job because it's new and I don't know how much ongoing work there will be with writing and reviewing (that's why I can't be furloughed apple - there's still work to do - just not as much as in an exam year). I hope that the consultation throws up something useful for all of us poor examiners and the poor teachers who are expected to do what is effectively an examiner's job for no extra money.
I've also made it to the day before payday of the longest month of the year with £25 left in my purse so I am calling that an absolutely massive win.
I take back what I said about the phone. It's not working again and t'internet is getting slower so I suspect it will go in a sec. Best post this while I can.

f0xh0les

I've also made it to the day before payday of the longest month of the year with £25 left in my purse so I am calling that an absolutely massive win.

I would celebrate that!  I have £6.50 in my purse and nothing coming in until Monday.

beanielou

I have nowt in my purse & money coming in tomorrow which is all going out again!

Buffythedebtslayer

Bloody hell on the internet front. I have ended up going in cos mine is patchy! 
Good luck with it all CCL XXXX

badmemory

He will have fixed the broadband at the box before he even got to your door.

crazy_cat_lady

Boo hiss - internet is not fixed.
I have had a new box, 2 engineer appointments and am getting approximately 10% of the speed I used to get before breakdown. I have a minimum guaranteed speed of 43MB and am currently averaging about 6MB. So waiting for the next phone call. It is very slow work, and unfortunately I'm not allowed to go into work at the moment. The Head and Deputy Head won't let us come in at all without good reason, and I have internet - just rubbish internet.
On top of that, I had an exam board deadline moved forward by 6 weeks so had to spend the whole of last weekend working on something quite urgent there rather than rest and relax. 
And I had what I consider to be quite a threatening phone call from ds head of year on Friday last week about his lack of work and motivation. She wasn't pleasant at all - threatening to go for fines and make him go into school. Could not be less supportive than dd's head of year. Keep wanting to scream that we are in a pandemic and that survival is key rather than making sure every piece of work is completed every single day, and by the way I am a single parent also working two jobs and running the house as well. She has marked her card with me now though - I have a long memory for people like that who are threatening rather than supportive.
Anyway - put all that together and we fast forward another week without me having any clue what is going on... it's Friday again, ds work is done and handed in, I've finished all of my stuff and hoovered through then been out to the butchers to stock up on February meat. It's been raining for days - we were even on the news the other day because my town was flooded - which is something that never happens. I've lived here 16 years and never known it. I'm on a hill so there would be a pretty major disaster before I was affected but there were a lot of closed roads - good job I didn't need to go anywhere.
February budget all done and correct. I'm pleased for the month off paying council tax, which is making up for some of the shortfall in my wages.
Not much else to report considering I've been absent for over a week. Just work! Hope you're all doing well - I'm off for a catch up. Well - after I've caught up on The Bay.