Simple living in the country - back to basics

badmemory

The ones of the missing years which were when he was employed by the same employer, did he keep his P60s.  When things were manual people used to make mistakes with the NI number or the employers ref.

Cheery_Daff

Ha, no, there's no chance he still has P60s from 20 years ago 😂 I'll check if there's a way to request them over the weekend - the website said it might be possible to see them through online tax record (although perhaps not that long ago) or requesting from employer (oddly enough I now work for the same employer, so could just march down to HR and demand them 😂 assuming they have records going back that far, that is! 

I assume there are records somewhere - he's currently claiming his works pension so they must have a record of paying into that at least, which would demonstrate employment... 

Fun task for the weekend! 😂

Karmacat

Good grief, what a pig's ear they've made of poor Mr Cheery's records!  That's appalling and I can't think of a single thing that might help, except copying all your information into a single spreadsheet.

There was also this from the previous page:
"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."
I'm sure that smaller top up is worth it - but the more expensive one might be, too - after all, 4 weeks pension right now is £740 and pennies, that's what appears in my bank amount magically  I know it sounds a lot in isolation, but thinking about what it enables, it's not terrible.  But it's always a juggling act, and only you know all the parameters.

badmemory

Cheery_Daff said:

Ha, no, there's no chance he still has P60s from 20 years ago 😂 I'll check if there's a way to request them over the weekend - the website said it might be possible to see them through online tax record (although perhaps not that long ago) or requesting from employer (oddly enough I now work for the same employer, so could just march down to HR and demand them 😂 assuming they have records going back that far, that is! 

I assume there are records somewhere - he's currently claiming his works pension so they must have a record of paying into that at least, which would demonstrate employment... 

Fun task for the weekend! 😂

Pretty much no chance plus they are not supposed to issue duplicate P60s.

Cheery_Daff

Thanks KC. We'll prioritise whatever Mr Cheery needs to top up, since he's so much closer to pension age than me, but as you say, it may be worth me doing it too.

If only we had a crystal ball to see what the future holds! 🙄😂

Bluegreen143

Cheery, this is really interesting stuff for me as coincidentally I was looking at my state pension stuff last night.

I’ve got 16 full years and 2 part years and oodles of time to contribute the 19(?) more I need as I’m 33. For the next 8/9 years whether I work or not I’m guaranteed credits (until my youngest is 12). Though it’s likely I will be working anyway. So I’ll probably have 10 years min I need to work once Bambi is 12. I’ll only be 42 then so realistically I suppose while I’d like to retire super early, what are the chances that I’ll be able to retire before 52? So I’m thinking it’s not worth paying the contributions for my two missing years, one is £500ish but the other only £100ish. Like you, I was toying with paying the lower one 🤔

Haven’t looked at my husband’s record yet either 😬 

Interested to hear if you do decide to pay either or both of your missing years!

SusieT

Cheery, please make sure you speak to them before doing a top up. It may well be that those years (being before 2016) will not increase your pension, and only adding years after 2016 will do that. If you can top up it is well worth doing though especially if you can get to the full pension level early and can then retire knowing it is sorted out and you can forget it until you claim it.

Cheery_Daff

I'll keep you posted! It does make me marginally annoyed at myself - I did check all this before and I have a feeling there was an option to top up more years at that point and I didn't... Retirement always seemed so very far away... but at this point it seems a lot closer! 😂

Mr Cheery has a couple of years at about  42 weeks which is annoying,  as I don't think they count at all, but since they were in the early 1980s there's not much to be done about those now 😂😂

I think I've seen on the FIRE thread that if you do retire super early, they recommend doing something self employed on a relatively small scale and paying voluntary class 2 to get your stamps. This is inadvertently what Mr Cheery has ended up doing - not deliberately for that reason of course, as he would have been self employed anyway at that point, but an option that might mean you (or I, for that matter) don't have to stay in our big jobs right til the end.

Lots to ponder, and again, a crystal ball would be useful (although I'm pretty glad I don't have one really - not sure I'd want to know what's round the corner...)

Cheery_Daff

Morning again campers 😊

I got sidetracked this morning following the fine example of @Elisheba in making my own laundry liquid. 

I usually only use washing soda anyway, so it's not that expensive (especially as we don't do much washing! 😂) but it's also not that effective - some things regularly come out stained.

Anyway, used this recipe: 

https://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2007/05/make-your-own-laundry-detergent.html?m=1

Just made 5 litres, rather than the 10 in the recipe - I had been saving a 6 pint milk carton, and handily finished a 4 pint one yesterday so it's all fit nicely.

No idea whether it'll work although I can't see it'll be any worse than current regime! And even cheaper - a bag of soda crystals is about 99p, no idea how long that lasts, at least 6 months I'd say round here. This has used a quarter of a cup each of soda crystals and borax substitute, and a couple of little hotel soaps, and by the looks of the amount will probably last at least a couple of years 😂😂 Must put a date on it to check. 

I'm impatient, so just put a wash on without waiting it to cool and gel properly, so we'll see what happens.... (oh, the excitement!)

Karmacat

Oh, from Rhonda!  Thank you for posting the linkie too - I keep wanting to try this, and I never get round to it.  Another one earmarked for September and after (erm, I have two bottles of Asda's own brand to use up, hey ho).

On the pensions, that's an interesting point from Susie, that there may be a time cut off - I wonder if it's associated with keeping tax records or anything like that?  As a tangent - most of my tax records are electronic now, so every year I have to keep fewer pieces of paper, and throw away more, it's wonderful