Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Suffolk_lass

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82186611#Comment_82186611

I wasn't suggesting this for the public sector (LGPS in this instance) occupational pension scheme. I have one, I know how they work.

My suggestion was for the Additional Voluntary Contribution pot that is the equivalent of a defined contribution scheme. They are essentially a separate, second pension pot that the employer managed the contributions for by taking them from salary before deductions, so the employee with the scheme gets the tax relief on pension contributions at source and doesn't have to claim it back.

I can see from the post after yours that @foxgloves took all of this AVC Pot from her comments. This is likely to have triggered an emergency tax code as 75% of that fund is taxable. How much tax will depend on whether the half year of LGPS monthly payments crosses a tax threshold when the 75% taxable portion of the AVC Pot is added to it.

Using the expression "top slicing", I assumed this top slice was the tax free portion. As the AVC Pot was emptied, it is irrelevant.

foxgloves

@Suffolk_lass - Thanks for clarifying. Yes, I did think my use of the term 'top-slicing' might have caused misunderstanding. What I meant was that I top-sliced the amount myself once I'd received it, as I wanted an initial sum for some specific purposes, before divvying up the bulk of it to put into savings as planned.

Cooo, isn't it a lot more straightforward chatting about seeds & tomatoes?! On another subject, we bought some honey from a local beekeeper recently. We've opened the 1st jar, which is lovely. It is labelled raw blackberry honey - very delicate & enjoyable on our porridge. Am assuming this would be from siting some of her hives in a very brambly field? We were speculating about this & I said, "I know someone who'll know…..!"

F x

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds & @Baileys_Babe - Sorry, I forgot you both asked me about the emergency radio we bought. It's from Nordsp*r - Dutch company, I think, though unsurprisingly, the item came from China. Mr F, who placed the order, says we got a decent reduction on it.

F x

Blackcats

foxgloves I still find it incredible that I get a pension payment every month and no work has been required (other than the 30 years before I retired 😉). I hope your tax code gets sorted soon and you settle into a regular amount each month.

weenancyinAmerica

Shirley Jackson also wrote a fictionalized version of her memoir called "Life Among the Savages". I enjoyed reading it. Not a scary book like some of her short stories.

Suffolk_lass

Re the honey, a lot of local authorities won't let their beekeepers describe honey as "raw" because there is no legal definition of the term, but 2 years ago a Greek Honey Company challenged this and won. While technically, the legal case does not mean the judgement applies to all beekeepers, an increasing number call their honey raw to mean it has simply been extracted, put through a fine sieve or mesh and no heat has been applied to it. Bramble is lovely honey - we have loads here in the hedgerows. It is higher in fructose than glucose so while it would eventually crystallise, it doesn't for ages. Anything foraged that includes brassicas, especially oil seed rape (OSR, as we describe it), sets hard if just jarred up (or left in a bucket). Various methods are used to make it easier to use. Soft set is often a mix of the two, taking the flavour of the bramble and mixing it into OSR, so a butter-like consistency is reached (perfect for toast!).

Technically to call it Blackberry, your beekeeper has to know 75% of the honey was foraged from brambles (this is usually tested by testing for the pollen source - Bramble you are looking for more than 45% of the pollen in that honey to be from blackberries). Personally, I describe ours as Suffolk because I have bees in three locations and the hedgerows and trees within foraging distance are many and varied. Mine tends to include clover and sweet chestnut with bramble, as the main sources, and if I leave it too long, ragwort. Ragwort has an unpleasant smell and taste which lasts for quite a few months, then, rather like wine, the flavour improves and it is delicious. Another one with a horrible, distinctive smell is buckwheat (increasingly grown as a cover or filler crop) - it smells rather like a farmyard. Some people like it…

foxgloves

That's interesting, @Suffolk_lass - I've just read it out to Mr F as he's really enjoying the blackberry honey. It's interesting you should mention buckwheat. It's the only honey I have ever bought that I didn't like & couldn't finish. I bought a jar to try years ago from a wholefood co-operative but found the flavour really quite peculiar. Borage is one of my favourites, but I don't particularly look for named flowers/plants when buying, am more interested in it being local. Mr F has started putting honey on scones. This started because I had opened a jar of my friend's lovely home made blackcurrant jam which he declared to be 'like battery acid' so had a riffle around in the pantry for something else & out came the blackberry honey! I bought another jar from that beekeeper as well, also labelled raw - I think that's just labelled 'Lincolnshire honey'. I don't live in Lincs but am close to the border so we get crafters/producers from both counties at artisan markets.

Baileys_Babe

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82187027#Comment_82187027

Thanks for letting us know about the radio suppliers, I've had a look and they have quite a few models with slightly different features. I'll discuss it with Mr BB and see what he thinks. No doubt we will also need to sort supplies for the in-laws as they don't seem to have ever done any forward thinking about what to do in any sort of emergency, they just shrug their shoulders and say we will manage.

Makingabobor2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82187573#Comment_82187573

Sounds like my inlaws...lol. They do always have stockpiles of food, but didn't realise they may not be able to cook it.. lol. They also hadn't thought about radio/water/lamps & torches. DMIL said she thought it was just like covid lockdown & was going to be a one off situation, she didn't realise it was a long term thing

foxgloves

Yes, it's interesting the different attitudes towards preparedness. I was reading an FB post earlier from a chap who is interested in emergency planning & was sharing a pic of his supplies. One of the comments was "You wouldn't be able to eat any of those tins of food because if there's no electricity, you won't be able to cook it"……to which umpteen folk pointed out that that is why little portable camping stoves are so useful because they can run on small gas cannisters AND why it is also important to have some foods which don't need heating up at all. I never thought I'd be reading an explanation of why a bag of tea-lights might come in useful. When did we become so un-resilient…..or is it an age thing? I don't know. It's probably more that we have all become very used to just popping out & buying (or ordering in online) anything we want, also that there are generations who have never known pre-internet. That's one of the most likely risks, I think, an outage which takes such a wide range of functionality with it. I seem to recall there was something like that in Spain a couple of years ago? If my Mum was still around, she'd have got some emergency supplies together - she always had candles, torches & enough loo rolls to build a barricade but I don't think she'd have thought about water, & also, I suspect she'd have taken the opportunity to live on biscuits & maltesers! She was on various medications & did used to keep a close eye on those to see if they were running out - that's another thing to think about, isn't it, for people who rely on various meds.