Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

Hmmmm .... I have started tracking electric and gas readings (as best I can based on the data I have retained - not much) and the readings I am getting from the meter (non-functional smart meter) are nothing like the ones E*F are using on our estimated bills .... (the estimated bill numbers are 5 digits long, the one I am getting from the electric meter is 6 digits long.) The other weirdness is that although I know I have submitted gas readings on time (its an old fashioned on the wall outside in a box meter - would never have been smart meter enabled i don't think), that cost seems to be missing from the bill altogether ..... or may be estimated as well, I can't really tell  - the bill is as clear as mud tbh. 

I really, really don't want a new smart meter (I don't like the tariff control that hands the utility companies or the lack of security on our data) but I can't see how else this can be resolved. 

Not happy.

I think I will wait until this latest bill comes in and then really focus in on this issues when I come back from holiday (early July) - I have a further week off then, so a few hours taken out of that second week's leave to really focus in on this, will be well spent I suspect ....

Any thoughts, comments or suggestions on this would be appreciated. I will go and have a read on the forums on this too.

KK 

badmemory

Question time!  Are the numbers on your electric meter really 6 digits long & not 5 & a decimal?  Are you reading it right & pressing the right buttons.  There are people on the energy forum that will be able to tell you how to read the meter if you tell them the kind of meter you have as they tend not to be intuitive.  Ever since I was with british gas the last time (a few yrs ago) & bills were a rarity, I have been making my own bills once a month.  I think they make bills hard to understand on purpose, but if you make your own first it makes theirs easier to follow.

KajiKita

badmemory said:

Question time!  Are the numbers on your electric meter really 6 digits long & not 5 & a decimal?  Are you reading it right & pressing the right buttons.  There are people on the energy forum that will be able to tell you how to read the meter if you tell them the kind of meter you have as they tend not to be intuitive.  Ever since I was with british gas the last time (a few yrs ago) & bills were a rarity, I have been making my own bills once a month.  I think they make bills hard to understand on purpose, but if you make your own first it makes theirs easier to follow.

Hi Badmemory,

All very good questions!  

I will check the 5 digits and possible decimal tonight - it is very hard to read at 8 feet in the air and above a stairwell - I will bring a headtorch to bear on the matter!  

Pressing the right buttons? Honestly I don't know. I have printed off instructions but they aren't that user-friendly tbh .... I think I am ....

I haven't had any luck finding the energy forum as yet. I will try again and ask to check whether I am reading it right or not.

Totally agree with the "making my own bills once a month.  I think they make bills hard to understand on purpose, but if you make your own first it makes theirs easier to follow" - this is what I am aiming for!  

I showed the online version of the bill to hubby last night and he couldn't see any charges for the gas either .... argh! 

KK 

badmemory

Energy comes under mortgages & homes, it is quite low down.

KajiKita

Good afternoon All,

It's been hectic! Just come back from a week in Dorset with Hubby and although I seem to have acquired a stinking cold en route it was lovely and restful and I feel like my head is clear.

I've started working through an online procrastination workshop type thingamee whilst I was away and it made me realise that one of my 'too difficult' things is pensions. So, I have made a start!  I have got my forecast from the HRMC website and I will move onto looking at all the other occupational pensions I have collected over the years. One of them has c. 20+ years worth of contributions and was a finally salary pension so probably not worth moving but the others are scratty little bits, so I will need to look into getting my cash out of them or transferring the value from them to my new work pension (if they allow that?), or possibly into a pension of my own .... (yikes, that sounds quite grown up!   ) 

Also, have c. 2 weeks of budget updating to do - all got thrown about horribly by the fact that my expenses after the Italy trip (£1100!) were so delayed in being paid back and I have had to move some of my savings to clear the balance on my personal credit card (Grrr!). I do now have a work CC, so when I next go away (September probably) at least all the liability will be on that and not MY card!

Garden is a complete jumble of bindweed and overgrown-ness so the rest of this week, which is holiday for me but not hubby, will be spent alternately out there and on here.  

Catch you later! 

KK 

Suffolk_lass

It's great that you have started to look at your pension provision.

Maybe have a bit of a read of this Fireside Chats thread that @edinburgher started which is not in the pensions part of the forum. Before moving any pensions into other schemes you need to reflect on when you want to stop work and if that is before your state pension is payable, consider how you will fund it. If you want the flexibility to draw down cash to support this, look carefully at all the little scratty bits (when you can get them, how much they are taking to look after the funds, and so on). Generally if you are in an occupational scheme, there is a limited time window for you to move other funds to that scheme (6 months for teachers, I happen to know as DH missed the opportunity).

If some of those bits were occupational schemes you might be better keeping them going so they increase through index linking (some had RPI in the rules, with reserved rights for frozen already-earned benefits) - mostly CPI or a set percentage. I saw the Chancellor was considering changing the basis on which RPI is calculated.

Be aware that your Gov.uk forecast is dependent upon you paying all the years from now until you reach the April before you reach state pension age - the years you have that count are on the screen that details by year what you already have.

Also, you mention that 20-odd years was in an occupational final salary (defined benefit) scheme - be aware that if you were opted out of SERPS (most of us were) then those years count towards the basic pension, not the new state pension. So, were you to give up work early, you may want to do something to make those last years count. This can be credits (such as carer) or voluntary contributions and it is worth reading about the different types how much and the criteria for each (class 2 if you can)

KajiKita

Thanks for all the input @Suffolk_lass It is really appreciated.

" .... have a bit of a read of this Fireside Chats thread that @edinburgher started which is not in the pensions part of the forum."

I will do - I have it bookmarked. 

"Before moving any pensions into other schemes you need to reflect on when you want to stop work and if that is before your state pension is payable, consider how you will fund it. If you want the flexibility to draw down cash to support this, look carefully at all the little scratty bits (when you can get them, how much they are taking to look after the funds, and so on). Generally if you are in an occupational scheme, there is a limited time window for you to move other funds to that scheme (6 months for teachers, I happen to know as DH missed the opportunity)."

Ah, hadn't considered as an issue at all! Thanks for the heads up

"If some of those bits were occupational schemes you might be better keeping them going so they increase through index linking (some had RPI in the rules, with reserved rights for frozen already-earned benefits) - mostly CPI or a set percentage."

So the first thing i need to do is make a list of them along with references, contact numbers / emails etc and ask these questions. Cheers   

"Be aware that your Gov.uk forecast is dependent upon you paying all the years from now until you reach the April before you reach state pension age - the years you have that count are on the screen that details by year what you already have."

I had assumed I would carry on working and paying, but again a useful thing to know. Hadn't seen the screen that details by year what I have - another action to do is to go back into the portal and check that. I probably need to get Hubby onto this as well. 

"Also, you mention that 20-odd years was in an occupational final salary (defined benefit) scheme - be aware that if you were opted out of SERPS (most of us were) then those years count towards the basic pension, not the new state pension. So, were you to give up work early, you may want to do something to make those last years count. This can be credits (such as carer) or voluntary contributions and it is worth reading about the different types how much and the criteria for each (class 2 if you can)"

Whoa ... starting to get to information overload here!  ;-)  I don't know whether the SERPS thing kicked in when I was there .....  I think the last 3 years may have been ...? Again, good questions to ask and then I can decide how to action it going forward.

It really feels like I might be able to get my head around this. So helpful, thank you 

KK 

KajiKita

Hi All,

It's been a long time since I last posted. I nearly did several times, but I haven't been doing too well so I didn't feel able to .... but things are a bit more stable finances-wise so I feel able to post again.

There were a couple of things that derailed me:

1. A holiday, our first in 4 years. Being out of routine meant I spent more (eating out etc.) but also being 'on holiday' seemed to nudge my spendthrift ways back into life and I spent money on 'stuff' that I didn't really need or could really have lived without .....

Hubby and I agreed that, although where we stayed was lovely in many ways, we would rather have two weeks off at home to a) get things done and b) keep the money we spent on the holiday for *the getting things done* and having the odd meal or day trip out across those two weeks. I don't expect that we will have a holiday-holiday again for a very long time and we are both okay with that.  

2. Unanticipated recurring annual subs fees for things I had signed up to but didn't actually want any more. Soooo frustrating! I have checked my PayPal and my CC and that shouldn't happen again. I am trying to put that down as a learning experience and appreciate that I have only been trying to get my finances back on an even keel again since Christmas, i.e. less than a year, so the odd glitch is allowed. 

Having Covid for a second time also really impacted my energy and ability to focus too. I ended up not making all my lunches and breakfasts as often as I usually would do, or even forgetting them once made and leaving them in the fridge (Doh!) which has led to a certain amount of unplanned, additional spend too.

However, on the positive side!  (there must always be a positive!  )

1. I have masses of shallots, the cucumber and tomato plants are producing really well and the new beds in the garden are doing surprisingly well in spite of the parching weather, partly because of the mulching I did when planting i think  The baby leeks are struggling in the heat, but they are holding on and i hope will romp away once the cooler weather comes in. My experimental raspberries in the very shady part at the bottom of the garden actually did really well so I will keep them there and giving them a good weeding and mulching this autumn. 
The bind weed is still winning however ......

2. I have passed my six-month probation in my (not so) new job!  And, it is slowly getting easier, my team are relaxing with me and getting more confident (they were bruised, battered and very distrustful when I first arrived) and although I am not getting the traction I would like, I can see I am making progress on various issues. My bosses seem to trust me!    

3. I am losing a little bit of weight and toning a little slowly and steadily. A mix of limiting my eating hours, Dr Chatterjee tips and following the Glucose Goddess hacks is leading to this I think. I have weights next to my kettle now and aim to do at least one set of exercises every morning, possibly another in the evening, though it has been hard to sustain in this crazy weather! I can really feel the difference in the stability of my shoulder joints, loads better. One of the reasons for the weights is so I have the upper body and torso strength to be able to use a mattock on all the brambles that we have everywhere here ..... I am hoping an hour every Saturday and Sunday right through autumn, winter and early spring will really knock them back!

4. If I ever get to the point of having spare cash <laughs loudly> I have discovered that my employer has a share-save scheme that looks to be worth investigating. Still pursuing pensions information and slowly getting my house in order there too. 

5. LTV ratio on our mortgage is looking a little better. It is 60% according to our MC, but I don't think that takes in to account the increase in value of the market and the improvements we have made here (a driveway / off-road parking, several new sheds, lots of work in the garden etc.). If I look at a mid-range value from Yopa, it looks like our LTV is c. 51% atm - I am hoping by summer 2024 (which is when we will need to start looking at a new fixed rate mortgage deal, we should be comfortably within the 50% LTV, even if the housing market dips a bit That along with the downgrading of risk around JKW hopefully means it should be a lot easier (and maybe cheaper) to remortgage. 

I have one last bill to come in (for a new hard drive for the laptop I am typing this from - it's like having a new machine! genuinely worth it) and then I should be able to hunker down and really drive my spend down.  

I'm sure I have other news, but these are probably the most important elements for here   

KK 

LadyWithAPlan

Good you focused and great realisations about your holidays, especially with your OH joints etc and physical workload..
 Its that 'present me vs future me' question I ask myself - will i love doing it now or is it really better I save for future me
Glad the new job has settled well.

KajiKita

Thanks @LadyWithAPlan

I am happy to report that my not spending / spending less is still going quite well. Had to buy a wedding card for everyone to sign for one of my reports and will chuck a £note in it as a gift for him, but other than that, no spends so far this week! 

I will hang on to the "Present me / Future me" concept!   

KK