Balance in the force

savingholmes

Your plans sound sensible. 

Sorry you've become poorly. Hope you recover quickly and your Dad escapes catching it.

FlacosFloozie

Thanks, SH. So far, Dad seems fine but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I've been catching up on the scottish budget. I do earn over 75k now and I'm going to up my pension contributions from January. I was planning to do so anyway but will go for a higher percentage now.

I honestly don't mind paying more tax to help maintain public services but I feel that so much is being wasted and public services are getting worse all the time. I've taken on a lot more responsibility and stress and the tax does mean the reward is less.I think there will be a lot of folks feeling like me so I'm not sure how much extra tax they will actually raise with this.

FlacosFloozie

I got paid today, early because it's Christmas but I also got my bonus today. It works out at £5,939.80. I honestly wasn't expecting to get anything this year and it was a very narrow margin that we did. For various reasons, its very unlikely I will get any bonus over the next 2 years at least.

I let it languish in my account for an hour or so after I woke up, then added some cashback I got and made an overpayment of £5984.07! It feels amazing and terrifying at the same time. Our household income has jumped massively over the last 18 months. I feel both very lucky and, also, quite pressurised to do the right thing. Its not that long since I was a DFW trying hard just to make ends meet.

I had a very brief 'you should treat yourself' moment and then thought I don't really need anything and the post Christmas sales are coming up if there's something I want. I thought about pension/investing it but the MSE mortgage calculator shows I will save as much in interest over the remaining term so its worth it. The sudden drop on YNAB's mortgage graph was massively rewarding too

I haven't quite met the full allowance yet this year. I'll do another overpayment at the end of the month, when I know what's left from December's budget.

FlacosFloozie

It's over 5 days since I got sick and I've been testing negative since yesterday so I braved the supermarket today. Mr F did offer but he hates it at the best of times, let alone Christmas.

I ended up doing two trips- one early on to get food and then a second one at 10am for the alcohol. I'm sure I have bought far too much but, I always do, so its budgeted and the extra will keep and January's grocery bill will be less.

Plan for today is to clean the house. Its not too bad but I had to ask the cleaner not to come as I didn't want to infect her for Christmas. I also need to change the sheets in the spare room ready for Dad staying.

FlacosFloozie

Well the house is mostly clean and will finish the rest after this cup of tea. There is pleanty of food in the cupboards and I have mum's lentil soup on in the slow cooker which will feed us tonight with soup and ham and plenty left over for tomorrow. Its managing to make me happy and sad at the same time.

Plan is to do the last house bits, wrap the gifts and then settle in with a film tonight.

It feels wrong to say Merry Christmas so instead I will wish you all peace and contentment, whatever that is for you xx

LadyWithAPlan

How fabulous to be able to OP that! Great way to close the year off !

Hugs re the lentil soup - I am sure she is smiling at you thinking of her and making her soup 

Merlin's_Beard

Congratulations on the OP - that's massive.

FlacosFloozie

It was a slightly subdued Christmas for us but nice to be together. Mr F managed to have food ready an hour earlier than he'd planned so a scramble to get starters out and an early lunch for us.

I have been very lucky and am well supplied with chocolate, books and games. Dad left before lunch today, he'd usually stay but I think needed a little alone time. He's texted to let me know he's home safe and I'll check in with him later.

Quiet afternoon for us, I suspect. Its back to work tomorrow and it will be crazy so rest up while we can. Hope everyone had a good Christmas xx

savingholmes

Huge congratulations on the OP. Your pension plans sound good too. I struggle to understand how they justify such wildly different tax policies north of the border. It's part of what put me off moving there...

FlacosFloozie

I think the theory is that extra taxes translate to better public services =- great in theory but doesn't always work in practice. For example, no university tuition for home students is fantastic but the universities are paid at a lwoer rate so they are more incline to take students from the rest of the uk or abroad, effectively capping the number of home students. There's also been a lot of mismanagement and waste- the ongoing saga of the Arran ferry is probably the best example. I find this very frustrating when the money could be put to better use helping people.

All that said, I am happy to be home. Financially, I am still better off due to the lower cost of housing. I know my home would have cost twice the price when I lived in middle England. I'm lucky to be close to the coast, the hills and the forrests. It's a pretty great place as long as you don't mind the rain