Five Year Fix, Five Year Plan

killerpeaty

Sorry you had such a tough day. Hopefully no more bees!

Merlin's_Beard

Speed course done and dusted, so that's sorted.

Heard back from HMRC - they've approved my mileage, but they're now asking for all my savings income to see if I need to pay tax - thank everything for YNAB. A quick google search says I don't have to even declare any ISAs (I know I don't pay tax on them) - for those who are better at this than me, is that right?

If so, I shall declare all of the £72 pounds of interest I earned from two non-ISA accounts and hopefully that will be that.

Have joined the mass stampede and opened a Nationwide 8% regular saver. Took half the afternoon because this is one of the accounts I haven't reinstalled on my new, non waterlogged phone, so I had to break back into the account first. But that is now done and funded.

Still need to ring 1stDir and unlock that account - first because the regular saver will mature this autumn and second because it's one of the accounts MSE is recommending for foreign travel, so I need to figure out if the ancient card I have is still active and usable, or whether I need to request another.

Picked up my new glasses, so still getting used to the new prescription (the floor is bending a little, which happens or the first 24 hours every time).

Another very quiet weekend, after two full consulting days (thankfully a rare thing: as an introvert, seeing 50 different sets of people with pets over 34 hours is exhausting).

Need to finish the book club book (Hamnet, about 80% of the way through) before the middle of the week.

badmemory

Hmrc should actually have record of the interest on your accounts, not ISAs as you said, but banks are supposed to tell them what interest you have earned.  Be careful of the ones that do not permit you access to the money for a fixed term, NS&I seems a particular one for this.  Because the money is not accessible at all the interest is not counted until the end of the period.  I have a 3 yr term one which because of the dramatic increases in interest I am going to land up paying interest on, which considering the pathetic interest rates is just a little irritating.

Merlin's_Beard

I didn't have anything complicated or locked up last year money wise, because I needed it all to buy the house and then I didn't have anything spare to lock up. I have no idea why they think they're missing information, but they do.

LadyWithAPlan

how annoying .. I have ended up putting some of my house deposit in my company as that way it limits my interest being taxed at 40%!

savingholmes

Sorry you've had an exhausting few days. Hopefully you will get the tax people off your back soon. I must do the 8% one myself.

Merlin's_Beard

Boiler service done and dusted, category set up in YNAB to fund it and jog my memory next year.

Because someone was coming into my home, that pushed me into cleaning the kitchen properly.

Final blitz of unlocking all the banking apps I locked myself out of when I broke my phone.

Bank and building society accounts listed - I did try and ring HMRC but after a bit I decided it was quicker to ferret out every single account I held last year and let them decide which ones they needed. Just need to post it.

Train into London for my holiday booked. Train home at the end not open for booking yet.

Been paid for this month, so October's categories all filled up. 

Took a LOT out of the emergency fund last month for car/glasses/boiler service, but I'm going to try and be moderate about how I refill that instead of doing it over one month and failing, so I'm going to gradually catch up over a few months. I'm going to call this personal growth....!

savingholmes

That sounds a huge leap forward to me Merlin. Well done. I too have been guilty of trying to catch everything up in a single month and then stressing unnecessarily.

Merlin's_Beard

August roundup:

£478 saved, mainly pension. Actually surprised this isn't in the negative. YNAB says I'm cash poorer than a month ago, anyway, but I guess a lot came out of pre-saved pots.

Emergency savings fund: £11782.28 - a backwards step.

Surveys this month: £34.56 - could do better

Food spends: £232.56 - could do better, didn't feel like it for most of the month

Books - 3 bought, 2 read (The Dark Portal, a ya fantasy book; and Hamnet, which was hard going and most of my month's reading but quite good after I persevered). I'm not sure even immortality would solve my buying books:reading books issue.

Social - Hamnet was actually for a book group in the village, which started up this month. Was really quite lovely so hopefully it will continue. Absolutely nearly chickened out on going until about 5 minutes before I turned up.

savingholmes

Well done on going to the book club. I can relate as I struggled to go to my art class at all especially as I was late.