Simple living in the country - back to basics

Baileys_Babe

The ceiling is looking great, hopefully, you will be able to get the final bits done soonish and then that frog will be vanquished, yippee.

Karmacat

Great stuff!  So nice to see it reaching completion, very freeing.

And as to the yellow coat ... I've just been rewatching the 3 parter Greta Thunberg docu, with her bright yellow coat very obvious and it turns out it belongs to her dad, no wonder it looks big on her  Hope yours is more suitably sized 

greent

Yeay to finally getting the ceiling done! 🙌🥳

Cheery_Daff

Thank you all! I will indeed be pleased once all the niggly edges are done! 

Ha, my coat is indeed suitably sized, thank goodness! 

Mr Cheery is on hold to HMRC. I'm giving moral support 🙄😂 He's tried unsuccessfully to pay Class 2 contributions through self assessment and they keep sending them back 😂 Now they've sent a letter wanting £78, but the web address they give to find payment options doesn't work, and the only place that does actually give payment options wants an 18 digit reference that doesn't appear anywhere on any of our paperwork. 

Wish us luck... 🙄

Cheery_Daff

Well, that was a fiasco. The guy gave Mr Cheery a number to ring - which was the same number he'd just rung on 🙄 

Then he insisted we'd have to ring another hotline to see if it was worth paying extra contributions. We've already worked out it is, in principle, although we can't work it out specifically because none of the years that are missing actually give an amount, they all just say the calculation is in progress (same as when I checked last year). The guy didn't know whether the other hotline would give him the actual calculation, or whether it would just be general advice.

Wouldn't give him the 18 digit number to pay online til after he'd rung the other hotline- which he did, but by that point it was closed for the weekend, so he's got to try again on Monday.

What a palaver! 

In the meantime, I'm going to sit down with the list for both of us and work out exact missing years etc. Might as well see it through now we've started.

Then the farmer turned up so we spent an hour outside talking to him which was far preferable to talking to HMRC.

badmemory

Does Mr Cheery actually NEED to pay anymore contributions.  His account may well say you have ### you can't get anymore than this.  Talking to HMRC is always "interesting".  Try at 7.59.  If you arer really lucky you get a long time employee who knows what they are doing & not the usual phone monkey, who don't get any real training so get a lot of flak.

beanielou

Ooh a lovely yellow coat 
I used to have a lovely yellow jacket!

Cheery_Daff

I'm really looking forward to wearing it Beanie - sadly it's too warm at the minute! 😂

Badmemory - yes, he does still have some years to contribute, we just checked. 

29 years of full contributions
8 years left to contribute before Aug 2029 (which is only 7 years away)

Pension based on amount currently contributed = £141.79.

He's self employed on a low income and pays Class 2 voluntary - or at least tries to. Last few years he's ticked the box to pay (which we have a record of) and they've not taken the money 🙄 A few years we did manage to pay it, but they refunded it 🙄 He apparently owes £78 for NI contributions for 2020/21 for example - no idea where that figure comes from, but whatever.

He'd rather top up the last few years in one go than HAVE to stay self employed for the next seven. But it's worth ringing the pensions forecast people on Monday just to check implications.

Cheery_Daff

I'm in a different boat. As it currently stands, I'll get £104.32 a week, so clearly I need to contribute more. I've got

19 full years
16 years left to pay (and 26 years left to do it - I'm a young'un compared to him)

I've got two years that I COULD top up:

2006/7 at £713.25
2007/8 at £285.30

I can only top these up until April next year.

If I don't, I have to contribute for another 16 years from now, which takes me to age 56. I'd love to retire by 50 😂😂 But in reality it's probably likely I'll be doing something at least part time until I'm 56. 

I suspect it might be worth paying off the year at £285, but not the more expensive one. 

I might ring the pension forecast people myself on Monday! 

Cheery_Daff

Hmm, there are clearly some discrepancies with Mr Cheery's record 🤔

He was employed doing the same job with the same employer from the mid 1980s until 2008. Most of those years are full - but 2001-2 and 2004-5 say 'no contributions were made in this year'. Why? I can only assume that's a mistake, and one which they themselves should surely have a record of somewhere. 

Also, since he left there and became self employed, several years are full from voluntary contributions, but others are NOT full, and say 'we are checking whether this year counts towards your entitlement'.  As far as we can work out, he hasn't done a single thing differently in those years, so why do some count and some not?? And why are they still working out whether 2013-14 counts?? Surely they should have decided that by now! 😂

They're mixed up as well - I do remember we used to pay Class 2 regularly, and then the system changed, but the full and not full years are fairly randomly mixed up. We definitely have a receipt from the year we moved house when we tried to pay (because it was showing as owed on the tax statement, and we were trying to get a mortgage) - it disappeared from the statement, but then we got a refund, and we got fed up of trying to work it out in amongst the house move.

Anyway, blah blah blah. Hopefully there will be an illuminating conversation on Monday, but it just goes to show, it's well worth checking!