Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Suffolk_lass

Phew, lots of posts to whizz through and catch up on in your diary @foxgloves. One or two observations from me about your pensions.

• Thing 1 and most aligned with frugality for you - the earlier you pay for the two years you need, the less you will pay (normally) (see below bullets). Each year that the NI contribution level increases, so does the amount you pay for the years you are missing. It used to be more obvious because you could see how much each specific year would cost, with the oldest retaining that year's NI contribution rate for a certain number of years before it moved to the current year rate. This might be academic now because the main parties are not going to increase NI contributions in the life of the next parliament, but for any other readers on here who still have a window of time to go back to 2006, please take a look (this window finishes in April 2025).

• Thing 2 Mr F might have worked enough years in the new state pension (every financial or contribution year before he was in a defined benefit scheme that contracted him out [which might include school and uni credits if these ran continuously] and since April 2016) to remove the need for him to pay for any missing years, and, more importantly, if he is already working, he cannot elect to pay the extra for the contracted out years. They are done and paid for in the tier he was in at that time. I lost two years when I was at Uni because I didn't go straight from school. You are able to pay for your missing because you took VR.

• Thing 3 is Mr SL's point really. It is about the cost versus the value. You pay a lump sum for each year. In what other investment would you receive an index-linked return that pays you back in just over 4 years (so if your SPA is 67, and you live to 72, you are quids in!) and continue to be so in the same vein for the rest of your life? I know of none

• Thing 4 although nobody is planning to put NI contribution levels up, there is no mention (and I confess I have not given up several days of my life that I won't get back again to pore over the manifestos) of whether the rules relating to the number of years, or the amounts we pay, or the number of years we need to receive a full state pension might increase, whether in the life of the next parliament or the one following - if this were to happen, and you have left it to the end of the seven year window to pay for the two additional years under the current rules, the ability to add more might disappear (6 years currently)

This link is the page that sets out the rates, and currently 2021-2 you would pay that year's rate up to next April, but then it increases to the current year's rate (£17.45 weekly). Anything older (within the six year window you could go back) is already at today's rate. I know it is only around £2 a week but every little helps.

I'll stop hijacking your diary now, but hopefully it is helpful to someone, if not you @foxgloves. I'm sorry for being MIA, I have some stuff going on (potentially 3 different health issues, 4 if I count the awful lurgy DH has come home with) - and as a consequence, taking you back to a "done" topic! Have a good Sunday x

badmemory

Did someone give you a link to Future pension service, I think that is the name (see my username it isn't an accident).  I did my sons early last year & it was really easy.  "We" rang them & confirmed that the years would help, she gave us a very long code & then much to my surprise when I said we were ready to pay she put me straight through to the right dept at HMRC.  It was so so easy, but I believe it got a lot busier after a certain Martin mentioned it on his programme.

EssexHebridean

Martin has done several editions of his podcast around the buying of missing NI years Foxgloves - well worth a listen, I would suggest, even if it DOES mean that each time I hear him talking about it I check my record yet AGAIN in spite of knowing that I haven't anything missing! 

Great to hear how well you have caught up with your garden, and even if it's not quite producing as much as you would hope by this stage, it sounds like it is definitely getting there!  We are starting to get the odd thing here or there from ours now as well - I reckon our first courgettes aren't too far off now as well - so long as they don't get eaten by anything, or rot, or disappear in a puff of smoke or whatever else happens to all the things we try to grow! 

Your run through of your budgeting strategy was also interesting. I work very differently - partly because I wouldn't have the time to do the level of admin around it that you do. No reconciling of bank statements needed here as both our joint account, the credit card and  my personal accounts get checked if not daily, certainly every few days, so anything that doesn't look quite right gets picked up on and either noted to watch, or dealt with right away. I know when our regular monthly payments go out and so if any don't - or were taken multiple times for example - again I would realise right away, and either note or action...  I do still do a degree of paper stuff - I work out each month what I anticipate our travel costs to be for example - so Oyster top-ups and diesel. I note anything out of the ordinary I am expecting - for example in the "free" council tax months, that gets mentioned. I also note any changes of regular payments there too. I've streamlined things in the past year or so by balancing the credit card as we go along too - so that also makes life far easier. My aim is that other than our roughly quarterly "financial summits" the budget pretty much runs itself, and  my budget book acts as a reminder for anything that we DO need to be aware of.  As you say - it is SUCH an individual thing isn't it. the one thing that I DO think is a "one size fits all" around the whole thing is the absolute necessity of knowing how things work manually before trying to automate things. All the whizzy spreadsheets or apps in the world won't save you when things go wrong if you don't have at least a rough idea of where your bank balance ought to be at any stage in the month! 

foxgloves

@Suffolk_lass - Thanks for your informative post about the NI stuff. Yes, I do concur that it is a good use of money. That's why I paid those voluntary NI contributions last year. I did the sums (with which the pensions advisor agreed) & it was a no-brainer. If I do decide to fill in the remaining 2 years (which I think is likely), I will probably be going for 2022/3 & 2023/4. My deliberations now are not so much whether I will, rather more along the lines of how best to fund it from the various options available to me. Mr F will definitely not need to fill in NI years. He is younger than me, is only 1 year away from the amount of years he requires for full state pension, is in full time work & has 12 years left until he reaches pension age. Sorry to hear you have some potential health worries atm. After the year I had last year, I absolutely sympathise with all the worries that brings with it. My best wishes for a positive outcome on that & thanks for dropping by.

@badmemory - Thanks. Yes, I have spoken to Future Pensions. They were helpful last year when I paid to fill in a whole wodge of missing NI years & the people on the Pensions part of the Forum here were also very good at explaining the ramifications of the whole 'contracted out' pensions thing, esp regarding COPE numbers, which I must admit I had only partially understood beforehand.....while of course thinking I understood it perfectly!

@EssexHebridean - You are doing well to have courgettes getting ready. Ours look permanently frozen or swamped atm & are absolutely nowhere near.....though tbf, I did sow them nearly 3 weeks later this year because of knowing I had a holiday looming. Forecast looking a little warmer later this week, so fingers crossed.
F x

foxgloves

And Monday greetings to everyone else I haven't already mentioned.
As usual, a very routine day, as my Mondays tend to be, as I like to get us set up for the week here at Foxgloves Manor. A few little bits of budget-friendly activity:
*Baked a sourdough.
*Tweaked meal plans so as to use up leftovers from a lovely new recipe Mr F made yesterday. We will eat that on jacket potatoes with salad & bump the planned meal into next week. There was also a good-sized portion to freeze for a work-lunch too.
*Picked a lettuce & 2 more cucumbers (making a total of 8 cukes so far).
*Did 3 loads of laundry & despite this afternoon's forecast predicting a showery couple of hours, this did not materialise so it has been blowing away outside on the whirlygig & I reckon there's a good chance I'll have achieved free drying.
*Did my regular Monday morning budget updates.
*My credit card statement landed so I reconciled that against receipts & my log of CC payments & am pleased to say that there were no nasty surprises.
*Did a few surveys, although the best paying one had to be abandoned due to unclear instructions & something in the tech not working. Never mind, still plenty of month left to try & get nearer to my survey earnings target.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
I haven't had time to do anything else. I have been asked this morning to write a eulogy for a funeral ceremony & it is required by tomorrow! I can do it, but obviously I've been kind of mentally planning that & found it hard to concentrate on anything else. I've written them before & they have been well-received, but this one only requires me to write the first half (background, early years, etc) while my sis is providing photos, & somebody else (who I don't know) is adding to my part to cover later years. I have promised I will have it ready & emailed out by noon tomorrow anyway and I won't let them down.
Right, time to have a tidy-up, distribute cat treat rations & fetch all that laundry in. 
Hope everyone's got off to a decent start to the week. 
F x

foxgloves

Hello Tuesday Savers,
I am typing today's post with stingy eyes & mascara halfway down my face - a result of just having chopped the most horrendously unfriendly big onion ready to use in some veggie fajhitas tonight. Honestly, that was some weapons-grade allium, I can tell you!
Spent this morning getting the little write-up done for our elderly relative's funeral, which I quite enjoyed doing....well in the sense that someone has to do it & it is nice to feel I can produce something her friends will hopefully enjoy reading. I have managed to do a few jobs too - the budget-helping tasks as follows:
*Sorted the huge pile of laundry I managed to line-dry yesterday & was overjoyed at the disproportionately low amount of stuff which needed ironing - just 3 garments! You know me & ironing - I whizzed through them - negligible electricity compared to a basketful.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast. Portable packed breakfast also required for Thursday so hard-boiled an extra egg to save on a gas ring (yes, I think I AM now channelling the spirit of my very thrifty Nana!)
*Picked a colander-full of strawberries. Some were getting a little on the soft side, others fine, so I have added some sugar & lemon juice & made strawberry compote. Mr F so enchanted with the idea of this that he is stopping off to buy ice-cream on his way home from work. It was supposed to have balsamic vinegar in it too, which I know if a cheffy way to eat strawberries, along with black pepper, but I didn't fancy it & have kept it simple. There will be enough for further servings this week or for freezing. There will still be at least one further decent-sized pick, which is encouraging as I only have 3 troughs of strawberry plants this year, the 4th having been stealthily destroyed by Evil Weevil.
*Cut a frilly lettuce & some coriander as the basis of tonight's salad.
*Sowed a couple of emergency tromboncino seeds. This is very much at the later end of the sowing window, but one of our plants has been badly damaged by a munching mollusc which has rocked up 2 nights running & stuffed its face, taking part of the growing tip. Being a squash, it's possible that the plant will simply put out other vine stems which I can tie in & growth will only be delayed, but if it's game over, then I thought I'd have a young emergency specimen waiting in the wings. Bloody snails. I have searched high & low for the villain but it has clearly found an excellent hiding place.
*Did a couple of surveys, but haven't really been putting as much effort in recently tbh.
*Garden waste wheelie being collected this week, so not wanting to waste the subscription fee, I did a good hour of bindweed clearing in a troublesome flower bed, thus having a good bending & stretching session too.
I'm looking forward to 'Sewing Bee' tonight. My sister's favourite programme & I know she has considered applying to be on it. However, she says she doesn't know if she can sew well to such a tight schedule & is thinking about timing herself to make various garments, just to see how difficult it is.
I could do with a productive day tomorrow, & will need it if I am to stick to the creative writing time I've scheduled in for Thursday & Friday. Ah well, that's another day. Take care of yourselves & keep your pence in your purses,
Love F x

Makingabobor2

Sounds like another good day FG. I have fallen behind on my To Do list as started out well, but then lost energy. Must try to start earlier tomorrow and hope I get through it all. Will be glad when my pre covid energy has returned. 
The Strawberry compote sounds good. Mine aren't doing too well. Picked about 4 or 5 so far and a few more showing. We need some sunshine I think. 

tiddles

I love your style of writing, foxgloves!

weenancyinAmerica

Saw a short hint on my FB page that said putting a wet paper towel next to the onion would keep it from causing teary eyes. The person doing it said it worked for him. I haven't tried it yet. Better than what we used to do - working next to running water which wasted water. Both they both involve water that isn't touching the onion. Strange.

KajiKita

Ragingly strong onions - breath through your mouth not your nose - pulls the vapours lower than your eyes. Or rinse the onion once peeled and the ends cut and use a very sharp knife - the more of the cells you ‘bruise’ the more vapours! I never rinse as I think the onion ends up losing the flavour. But I do sharpen my knife and breath through my mouth, and when I forget, I wail at Mr KK! 😉😂

I do the extra egg boiling too 😊

Oh, and I have finally found a use for all the bindweed swamping the crops in my veggie patch … (it’s better then last year, it’s better than last year, it’s better than last year - honest! 😉) - it hides the ripe strawberries from the birds! 😊

KK