It's the final countdown...£10k to go

t2rry

mark55man said:

It mainly depends on your company payroll system rather than HMRC, but I would expect the following
* You would pay NI on most of the amount at 12.5% (anything that is over the Higher earning limit - £962 pw £4167 pm will be charged at 2%) - so you might benefit from that 
* if your normal annual salary + the lump sum is not in excess of the Higher rate band, I don't believe they would charge you any higher rate tax on a monthly one-off basis (if they do you can claim it back, but I don't expect they would charge you)
* Pension is likely to be pro-rata so a larger amount
* I don't know about student loan (I'm old) but I believe its 10% flat rate over the lower limit for that

I think the one most likely to make an unpredictable difference is the NI, and I think just using a normal salary calculator will give misleading results.  I would do the following - start with your normal payslip then
* NI - knock 12.5% off the gross amount for the amount of the lump sum that takes you up to £4167 and 2% over that
* Income tax - knock 20% off the gross amount of the lump sum
* Pension Contribution - knock x% off the gross amount of the lump sum 
* Student loan - knock 10% (??) if the gross amount of the lump sum

Then add this to the net amount from your previous pay slip - that should do

That is amazing, thank you Mark!! I had no idea about the difference in NI contributions, nor that they still wouldn't take 40% tax automatically...the lump sum and my annual do not push me above the higher rate tax band, both of those make quite a big difference.  That's exactly what I needed and I've learnt something useful too!

mark55man

no problem.  If you do go over the HEL of £4167 then your employer has done you a favour by delaying the back payment as if it had come earlier you would probably have had to pay 12.5% on all of it.

Some self employed people arrange their own salary payments to be in 2 large months and 10 small months so that they get all the NI contributions they need, but pay a block of it at 2%. At the lower end of the scale you need to earn £130pw to earn an entitlement but £180pw before you start paying 12.5%.  Your employer pays 13.8% without cap so they don't care

t2rry

I'm feeling pretty awful today I must admit.  I have had a stomach ache since last night and it has surprised me how hard this hit considering it was totally expected and we did just power through last year.

Anyway, needing something to occupy my mind for a short period I have switched our gas & electricity. It recently went up to £90 a month, so switching down to a promise of £65 per month.  We'll see.  I'm a little concerned that the old suppliers have only ever done estimated meter reads and when I came to look earlier to see if they're close to accurate, our smart meter won't show any readings.  Then I realised the new suppliers never put in their own smart meter, so maybe our old (british gas) one isn't suitable.  Now I'm wondering how I'll get anything close to an accurate read number for the switch.  Because even this wasn't simple today.

In other news we've switched our broadband too.  It's been out of contract for a while and yet somehow still the cheapest we could find for decent speed for a while, but seems like there are some deals now so we've done it, the new supplier should give us a £75 bill credit too, so we should get a few months 'free' and then it'll be around £18-£19 per month rather than the current £27.50.  So hopefully those both come through properly and without too much headache but only time will tell.

I've also found a £100 in the budget from various ways, mostly covering gift costs of the month in other ways, either by re-gifting (shockingly poor behaviour I'm sure but also less wasteful) or by cancelling one out with funds owed to me by the same household.  I'm going to keep hold of that £100 in case i need it for the gas/electric settlement, which I always expect is the case.

Tomorrow is another day.... chins up

Sarahwithlove

Usually when you switch you pay twice in the month of the switch as one likes a final bill and other a first bill so good idea. 

joedenise

Regifting is perfectly acceptable - just as long as you don't regift to the person who gave it to you, LOL!  I thought everyone done it, I know I do.

ceremony

There's nothing wrong with regifting if you think someone else will appreciate something/get more use out of it than you did!
That's an amazing broadband deal! We haven't switched suppliers in a long time so you've inspired me to take a look too.

t2rry

Thanks for the re-gifting support!  I think you're right of course, they're brand new items and it would be wasteful for them to not get used.  Plus they're totally appropriate for the new recipients!

OH credit card bill landed, so I've paid off £70 for the purpose of rounding it down to a nice £5,500.  Next month, if I don't pay off the balance, I'm going to pay off £500 so it's again rounded down.

Food budget is almost spot on so far, I set £500 for the 'month' which is actually from payday last month so a 37 day month, we're 19 in and have spent £244, so slightly under which is always good.

We have, however, dipped into the £100 buffer I found already!! Warm clothing required for kids after a couple of pieces lost to the break from schools, £24 down but I'm hoping we might find that in the food budget if we keep going as we are and maybe a little better.  I also need to get some things listed to sell... I will try to find some time to do that this coming week.

Nothing else to report, to be honest, just waiting for payday now to see if my rise comes through.  If it does, after taking off the remaining CC balance, I think I'll have a leftover/excess amount in savings of about £500-£600.  That will be our first little pot of plus funds to build on.  I can't wait!

t2rry

I knew I shouldn't have typed it out - my pay rise isn't coming through this month as promised and I'm feeling really very disappointed, let down and a little taken advantage of.

Anyway, moneysaving doesn't stop and without it I'm a month further behind than I feel like I should be, but I'll still get there. 

Our gas/electric switch is mid-completion, the new co. have taken their first payment so that's wiped out the buffer I had built, though I knew this would happen so it's okay, just glad I found that buffer to begin with!  I'm sure I'll have a final bill from the old guys come soon enough too, which will be a decent chunk since it's going to cover the depths of winter!  I can absorb that next month hopefully.

Speaking of next month, my home insurance renewal quote came through at £12 more than last year, which I thought was quite good.  I did the usual MSE trawl of comparison sites (and those who don't use comparison sites) and I can't find it any cheaper unless I cut out some of the cover (legal/accidental damage etc.) so for only the second time since I've been old enough to have insurance in my name, I'm going to take the autorenewal!  It's also over £80 cheaper than the amount I originally budgeted for, so that's good.

I think come payday I'm going to have about £1,900 - £2,000 I can save (either by putting into banked funds or paying off cc)

Sarahwithlove

Might be worth giving them a ring to see if that's best they can offer you 

t2rry

thanks @Sarahwithlove I have done and they can't beat it.  Sometimes getting another quote but switching which of us is the main policy holder makes a difference but again not this time, it comes out more expensive as a new customer.  It is pretty cheap too, I must admit, so I'm happy with that.

I have been on the selling pages and made £65 so far out of just 2 items and I have a PILE of other things too, some furniture and some kids clothes.  I always find I have more motivation for this when I've started off with a couple of big sells.  now the £2 here and there feels like it is building up quicker whereas if my pot started at £0 the effort would feel way too much for the return! I'd like to build up enough to cover the double month of gas/electricity coming so that doesn't interfere with my savings plan for that month.

Otherwise I feel in that little rut again when I'm just living for paydays, constantly working out the long term finances and speculating what I will do with it.   I'm sure I'm not the only one to do this....?!