Learning to walk before I run

Suffolk_lass

pavlovs_dog said:

themadvix said:

Lovely Christmas present from MIL there. 

Can you translate 'stoorie' for the southerners? 😉

hoaching was another new one for me too. Every day's a school day

That one I do recognise from here

Suffolk_lass

I don't give every month to charities but I do stretch us, and this year I concentrated on homelessness charities at Christmas, and I take regular donations to a food bank. Ironically, not food. I have two large packs of toilet rolls every other month which are not multi-wrapped, so easy to just pop one or two in each bag. I'm also a trustee for three charities, which takes up a lot of time!

rtandon27

@edinburgher - I too love Wateraid, and have given to then quite regularly in the past.  In a former life, I worked on a project with them and agree that the work they do actually does make a difference!

For charity donations these days , I keep a certain amount aside each month as a tithe, but I don't necessarily give it to the church & it's definately not to the same charity or the same amount every month.  As a minimum, we put a weekly amount towards a foodbank donation each week, usually to the place I get my groceries as it actually goes to our local foodbank as well as our church's food program and the grocery place matchs whatever we donate. 

There is also charitable giving at my workplace & this contributes to the wellbeing of staff who work towards a collective goal so I really do love putting money towards this every year.  Overall it's about 5% of my gross, though oneday I'd love to up this to 10%.

I had completely forgotten that there is tax relief for higher rate tax payers but g00gled it and found this....

• Example for a 40% taxpayer: On a £100 donation (which becomes £125 with the charity's Gift Aid claim), you can personally reclaim £25 (£125 x 20%) in tax relief from HMRC. The net cost to you is effectively £75, and the charity receives the full £125.
  

edinburgher

I am feeling a wee bit flat as the end of the week approaches, I suspect it's just the bitter cold and the fact that I am not 100% adapted to being at work 5 days! 

I've had a very positive week, with a piece of work I was primarily responsible for described as "brilliant" and "fantastic" by my senior managers. I don't deal with praise particularly well, so was sitting there with a beamer (another Scottish expression for you all) and half of my brain thinking "Really? Is it that easy to make a good impression?!" It really reinforces just how toxic my old team was. Thanks and praise were given from time to time, but it always felt performative, hollow and non-specific. Getting good vibes for hopeful extension at the end of March. We've also got a couple of draft reports and committee papers out with plenty of time to spare, which would seem to be something of a miracle in my new team Again, joint working but I'm happy to take my share of the credit for trying my damndest to provide at least my share of these, usually a good bit more than my share

£27 £31 paid to the Extension today (£20 switching bonus from the MSE Cheap Energy Club that I had forgotten about + a wee bit of virement). It feels like we are in the doldrums of the month already, not a lot happening financially.

KajiKita

" ... a piece of work I was primarily responsible for described as "brilliant" and "fantastic" by my senior managers. I don't deal with praise particularly well, so was sitting there with a beamer (another Scottish expression for you all) and half of my brain thinking "Really? Is it that easy to make a good impression?!" It really reinforces just how toxic my old team was."

Oh this is so very familiar and still hasn't left me over a year since leaving crazy-job ...

We are, of course, both amazingly talented, hard working, awesome people ... But it is kinda hard to see it at times, yes?

KK 

Suffolk_lass

Maybe the praise is also in the context of recognising that you were feeling downtrodden and abused in your previous role and they want to restore what they see in you. Brilliant can also be in the context of "at this stage of your time in this team, this far exceeds what we were expecting" take it, and enjoy it. Sounds pretty bl**dy marvellous to me (but I have always been a fan!)

edinburgher

Thanks both, nice to go into another weekend feeling cheerful about work

A wee bit of financial admin required today.

• Santander closed a fixed-term ISA that I opened. I didn't realise that you were only allowed one cash ISA with a provider in any given year, I thought multiples were ok when it was a mix of easy access and fixed term assuming you didn't exceed your limit. My mistake! Santander, however, decided to close the fixed-term ISA and then pay the money back into another fixed term (taxable) product that I had opened with them? This was inexplicable to me (send the money back to the funding current account or one of my Santander current accounts, dummy)! Anyway, a quick complaint led to the desired outcome and I'll need to transfer that money over to my Tesco cash ISA.
• Update YNAB to show transfer from T212 to Tesco, close T212 account in YNAB.
• Pay childcare bill.
• Review which of my credit cards I wish to close. My available credit has got a little too high after a recent AMEX came with a £15,000 limit. I think I'm going to keep the AMEX because someone (I think @greent possibly?) pointed out that it's a decent source of Nectar points.
  
  Edit: closed CCs with Barclays, Natwest and Santander, £22,200 cut takes me below where I was pre-AMEX

Suffolk_lass

I must say, I was really impressed by Nextday's fraud response. I appreciate the rewards for JL vouchers are less good than they once were, especially for non-JL purchases but this keeps me with them and the odd JL vouchers is cheering. Good reduction. I hope the rewards are good with your Amex (not counting Nectar points, which are always a disappointment to me)

edinburgher

@Suffolk_lass - I love JL but rarely shop there as they are definitely the sharp end of expensive! 

Nectar points can be a bit underwhelming if you don't use them. If, however, you optimise them/lock yourself into the Sainsbury's/Argos ecosystem, there are quite a few tricks to build them up quite quickly. For example, 3x points till spits/nicking other people's are common, and you're getting 2-3x points from the CC. So 5x points + weekly bonus offers and fuel. As most of my Sainsbury's shopping is on real food (fruit/veg/milk/meat etc.) It works out ok for us. I think I earned 28,000+ points for taking out a new card and booking our Chrismas break on it. It adds up. 

One thing I haven't considered is travel hacking, apparently the Nectar to Avios conversion is boosted periodically. More travel is something I'd welcome when the girls are a little older.

turtlemoose

I got caught by the double Santander thing too. It annoyed me that they closed the one with the highest interest 🙄