Simple living in the country - back to basics

Karmacat

Good grief  Well, as the saying goes, it is what it is - I don't know how long I'll be able to run a car (unless I win the million £ premium bond!) so I'll enjoy it while I have it!

Cheery_Daff

It's down to just over £200 per car now (for both of us) so you'll probably be alright soon enough! 

Right. Banks and YNAB sorted for the week, and nearly up to the end of the month. All looking ok for now. Mr Cheery's pension paid on Monday so can do some more fiddling then. 

Currently sat on the sofa in solidarity with Mr Cheery who is filling in his tax return. We're not having much fun... I'm trying not to get too involved since it's not even my tax return... 

Also trying to pay some voluntary class 2 NI contributions, which seems to be quite a baffling process. I remember we thought we'd paid them the year we moved house, but then they sent a letter giving us a refund of the amount we'd paid, and then Mr Cheery never bothered chasing it.  I don't think he's got quite enough for the full state pension (I did check a few months ago and am not checking again this evening). This says he owes £158 (presumably one year) but that it's optional to pay. We've ticked the box again this time and hopefully they'll actually take them this time.

Mr Cheery takes to bureaucracy like a cat to a bath... I generally have more tolerance, which means I end up doing pretty much ALL of it - this is the one thing I can legitimately offload! 

Think we might both need a stiff drink now  

beanielou

Passes raspberry gin.

badmemory

Cheery_Daff said:

Think we might both need a stiff drink now  

You should have seen the size of my stiff drink last Sunday after I'd filed my friend's for him.  He got annoyed with one of his pension providers & shredded every piece of post from them.  That's the P60 & every single payslip.  I've told him if he shreds this years he is filing his own.

Cheery_Daff

beanielou said:

Passes raspberry gin.

Ooh, the very thing, thank you! 😃😃

badmemory said:

Cheery_Daff said:

Think we might both need a stiff drink now  

You should have seen the size of my stiff drink last Sunday after I'd filed my friend's for him.  He got annoyed with one of his pension providers & shredded every piece of post from them.  That's the P60 & every single payslip.  I've told him if he shreds this years he is filing his own.

Good lord 😮😮 Don't blame you for passing it back if he does that again!! 

We are all done now, thank goodness. Fortunately in the grand scheme of things, Mr Cheery's is very simple - just pension, SEISS grants, and the rest infitessimally small. He's run me a celebratory bath 😂😂

Suffolk_lass

I am so pleased I don't do a tax return (never have). As a former PAYE employee who stopped work and moved seamlessly to their occupational pension and modest other complications, they said I don't have to. So I never have

themadvix

They really aren’t that bad SL (if you don’t shred your documentation! 🙄). Also much less stress if you do it in the summer instead of at the end of January. 

Glad it’s done and you got a bath out of it Cheery!

greenbee

I was always suspicious when HMRC told me I didn’t need to do a tax return so did one anyway… and usually got a rebate those years 😉 I started working life self employed so was doing them from the outset, then my brother and I had a house we rented out, and after that I supplemented my income with freelance work until I was earning enough not to. Now it’s mostly pension contributions and charity donations that I need to claim back for (and I always confuse them by doing something different each year - last year was putting my redundancy money into my pension!). Sometimes there’s a bill, but more often than not there is money back.

badmemory

You need to be careful if your state pension is involved in the calculation is you don't file SA as the DWP do not give HMRC the correct figure for it, just 52 times the new weekly figure when normally it should be 51 times the new & one of the old.  It probably won't make much difference to someone retiring on the new state pension only, but if you have SERPS plus a 5 year deferment, so increased by 52.2% like mine it can be over a £ & I don't see why they should have it when they are not entitled.  After all they wouldn't overpay me would they?

Karmacat

Yep, my self assessment is so much easier now - no more income and claiming things back, French mortgage is paid off, and this year I'm going to finally put my SSE shares into an ISA, so that will help too.  Raspberry gin sounds exciting