Learning to walk before I run

Baileys_Babe

edinburgher said:

I have purchased a couple of lottery tickets this week, Euromillions appeals Vs the general dullness of work. Paid a fiver into my SIPP as a sin tax, topped up to £6.25 by gummint.

*Edit: just noticed there's a £2 bonus on a £10 spend at Topcashback today 👍🏻

Thanks, Ed, for the heads up about the Topcashback £2 bonus. I've bought a gift card for our usual supermarket, and both the cashback and bonus are ready to claim.

Watty1

Tried to claim the £2 bonus so popped on to TCB then to VioVet and ordered the hoof and nail disinfectant needed (for a horse obvs) then clicked the try coupons on the off chance and ended up with 50% off so didn't get the bonus but did get a lovely £11 off

edinburgher

Even better @Watty1 🥂

Suffolk_lass

Gosh yes, ten years ago you were in "Only freedom will do" diary. I remember that. As if it were yesterday!

edinburgher

Haha, my diaries have terrible names

Parenting is proving tough this weekend.

DD1 came downstairs in floods of tears this morning. Long story short, she had buyer's remorse about her birthday activities (bowling and friends round to our house, some of her pals were a wee bit "show offy young girls in a public place" and she was a bit embarrassed). I don't think they were too bad to be honest (I was hovering at a discrete distance at the edge of the bowling restaurant where I could just about see them without cramping styles). She said that the only bits of her birthday she enjoyed were the family ones (opening presents and Eurovision takeaway on the couch). It probably doesn't sound like much, but there's something about that very real sense of loss when a wee one feels they've lost out on something "my birthday's gone and I didn't enjoy it" broke my heart just a little bit   

Tried to bring her round with cuddles and some gentle chat about resilience but think we'll end up doing another family activity next weekend with a few pocket money presents to try and give her back that excitement about being another year older. I don't want her takeaway from her 10th birthday being that friends can be a pain in the !!!!!! and that we usually don't get a do-over... It will fade, but I can't bear to see my little girl miserable.

Lessons learned - don't do party activities on her actual birthday and stick to my guns when Mrs E claims 6.5 hours of friend activities isn't too much

DD2 also trying to get in on the high maintenance act - just spent 5 minutes thrashing around her bedroom floor as she didn't want to go to bed. Proper screaming tantrum - punching, kicking and smashing herself off toys. After 2-3 minutes of being repeatedly punched and kicked, I told her that I was going to give her a little slap on the hand if she punched me again. Cue a flurry of slaps, and a very small "air slap" from me that was apparently the worst thing ever Anyway, screamed out now and I'm her best pal again

Managed to fit in 2.5 hours of overtime today as well, £100 or so gross as we get paid more on Sundays. Thank bleep we're in the second half of May, my wallet is crying! 

edinburgher

Completed my tax return. Apparently I owe them £700+ on just under £3,000 of self-employment income, even after the trading allowance? Barely seems worth the effort As I've set aside IRO £300 less than that, I'm going to let them take it through my next tax code. What a faff, will be sticking to overtime if available or under the trading allowance in future.

teapot2

Is that because you used up your allowance on your PAYE job so the SE is charged at a higher rate of tax?

edinburgher

Essentially all of the self-employment income was HR tax, yes. Annoyingly so.

Suffolk_lass

Any way you can stash more in your SIPP to stop that HR tax threshold being exceeded?

edinburgher

I think I'd have had to do that by the end of the tax year, no? This is all new to me, I will be avoiding it next year!