Moving on

Cherryfudge

What a useful, energetic and productive day! They do happen occasionally, I wish I could switch them on when needed. I suspect it's the time of year combined with being a bit fitter than I was: some years in about March I've had health blips, usually in a positive direction. I don't know if it's the instability in my thyroid reasserting itself as it used to from time to time - perhaps it digs out some new energy from somewhere instead of being persistently marginally understaffed?

The first part of the day was busy with the various bits and pieces I've written about above, and we had the usual fish and chips for lunch, but home cooked. I also sorted out the calendar: there are lots of things on there from now till May and I needed to have it all in one place.

Two lots of washing have been done, and half the ironing.

After lunch we went for a walk: it was bright and clear but there was a lot of mud on the country road and big puddles at the top of the hill with a large flock of attendant seagulls. This is fifty miles or so inland, so they must have been on a day trip. We had a good walk for around an hour, thought DH is still short of breath after Covid. It's not very reassuring but I keep telling him it took me ages to get past that stage, but I seem to be over it now.

Next on the list was a complex spending trip. I had a large garden centre voucher and was afraid of it going out of date (a gift from my sister in law a couple of years ago) so I decided to spend a chunk of it. The plan was to get compost (seed and hanging basket), but they were selling plug plants which got me thinking. On my phone I had a note of a colour combination I wanted to try in the garden, so I bought begonia tubers in white and orange to put in the hanging baskets, and intend to add dark blue lobelias as well as the fuchsias I saved over the past few years and which I think have survived the winter. My bleeding heart vine which was Mum's is coming into bloom so I got pot feet for its tub and I thought that was all until the woman at the checkout asked if I had a loyalty card. Now I've never bothered with one before as I think the garden centre is overpriced (nice but overpriced), but I asked about it. The upshot is I added the fee (£12) to my spend on the voucher (I still have some value left on it). For that I get two free hot drinks a month (similar to Dobie's) and offers of things like free seeds. In fact I was given a voucher for seeds with my receipt but I decided not to spend it straight away as DH was being very patient! I've made a start with loyalty points as the gift voucher spend went on the loyalty card, but the aim isn't to amass those, it's not MS.  

Anyway, I have my compost and can make a start on the hanging baskets and plant more seeds. My coriander is now coming up and the peppers seem happy. I've also got a few cuttings, mostly sage, that have rooted.

I didn't have time to get the embroidery thread I wanted to repair something but that can wait till next week.

Finally, I went to make the most of the double Clubcard points offer which runs out soon. There was a plan for this as well, though some of it was thinking on my feet. It's mostly store cupboard items that we use a lot, and DH came to collect me afterwards so we had the car to get it home. As we were going through the checkout, DH guessed the price, something like '£63.15' and the bill came to £64.51. I don't know how he does it but he has a similar ability with time.

That will make a lump in my spreadsheet like leaving a pen in a book, but I was careful not to to buy things we don't use often. I did indulge in hand cream as the one I have in the kitchen isn't heavy-duty enough, in toiletries for DH and in Omega 3 supplements which the optician wants me to take. I got a year's worth of those as it works out cheaper this way. It was 331 points on my loyalty card (two lots of double points), which will probably go towards a railcard later in the year.

This morning's list: 

• I will put my uniform in to wash - DONE
• At some point the ironing needs to be done - HALF DONE
• add receipts into notebook - NOT DONE
• add DH's jacket to fashion on the ration - DONE
• finish sorting out cc payments from the right pots - NOT DONE
• buy compost - DONE
• feed houseplants - NOT DONE
• make more lemon curd (6 lemons still to use up, and plenty of lemon wedges already in the freezer!) - NOT DONE

Expenditure:
Garden £38.98 (voucher) + £1 (supermarket coriander seeds)
Housekeeping £39.46
Toiletries £10.85
Medical £13.20

peb

Ooh.  Pizza. Carpaccio (so?).  Gelato.  Aperol.  Enjoy.

Cherryfudge

peb said:

Ooh.  Pizza. Carpaccio (so?).  Gelato.  Aperol.  Enjoy.

Per favore! Molto bene!

milann

You’ve been very busy…
I had 2 jobs with the same authority several years ago and  I only had 1 payslip and it was taxed as 1 job and the pension was taken as 1 job. However when I left and went to a different job with the same authority there was a new pension set up. I did have the option to merge them but at the time I took advise and because the terms of the pension had changed I kept them separate as the new one wasn’t as favourable…..can’t remember why now but that’s what I did.

Cherryfudge

That's familiar to me, @milann. DH changed job but same employer, and the original pension was better frozen (final salary) so he started a new one with the new job. I suspect my current posts will be treated as one, which suits me as all I have to do is ensure all my hours are claimed.

I have various historic pensions which I suspect contain about 10p each but I need to think about whether they are better combined or left separate. 

I had a quick peek around the door of the pensions board the other day and have survived so I will venture further in future. I do like my present mixture of working and time off and if I can continue along these lines I can see it keeping me active and involved for a long time to come, all else being equal (which it never is).

redofromstart

One employer, generally one salary, one employed PAYE code. Every now and then we had one employee on two sites with two rates (such as 1 supervisor am, 1 cleaner pm for example) which counted as two jobs for the pensions regulator (as they could resign from one role and keep the other) but still one salary, one tax code. 

time2change_2

Cherryfudge said:

No letter from HMRC - do they always send one? I'm sure I used to get them but since I stopped being self-employed, I've not given it much thought. You've reminded me though - time to put in a claim for laundering uniform and working from home! 

Theoretically yes but more often not these days. The easiest way to see the information is on your personal tax account. You can also tell them how much you expect to get from different jobs (if necessary) which will generate new tax codes.

Onebrokelady

I'm useless when it comes to tax and pensions all I know now is a payment turns up every month 😀 . The hanging baskets sound nice, I was out in my garden the other day and I have a few hanging baskets in the shed so I might do something with them this year .

Cherryfudge

Thanks for the replies! I'm going to try to sort out access to my tax account this coming week. I think I'm on the same rate for both posts, and one employer, which would fit in with what you're saying, @redofromstart.

I've spent some time today wrestling with the Maths for tomorrow, which only came through yesterday afternoon. The person who sends it is also covering for a sick colleague and recovering from illness so I think I'm lucky to get anything! Thankfully I understand what I've been sent, though some of the methods I use are different from hers. I haven't got a clue about some of the background techniques so that will be my next look-up, but at least I understand the flow of the argument, so to speak, and I don't have any fresh teaching to do tomorrow.

This morning both of us went to church, then home for lunch: left over tuna pasta for DH and veggie chilli from the freezer for me. Afterwards we had some stollen because I finally remembered to get out the one I'd squirreled away for Christmas! We had plenty of other stuff so it didn't get touched till today.

DH went for his usual walk then cut back some overgrown branches on the greengage tree while I tried to get the laptop and printer to talk to each other. There's no way my work email was going to work with a private printer: it's all too secure for that so I wrote a lot of stuff out in longhand. That's actually quite useful because I processed it as I went along.

DH had a text from a colleague: very sad news as one of the team has passed away after a short illness. I think they are all shaken. It came about within weeks.

At some point I excavated a heap of wools and fabric and saved old clothes that were stashed in the box room. It's alarming how much I have! I'm wanting to make a sleeveless pullover and was having a search for suitable yarn but didn't come to any conclusions and ended up just putting things back.

Other than that, I've made another couple of jars of lemon curd and am down to two lemons needing employment! I am delighted I found the microwave method for this as the stove top one was taking ages, and the microwave only takes minutes.

This evening has been a fire in the log burner, the quarter final of the Throwdown programme and more maths. Nothing spent.

dawnybabes

Ooh have you the microwave instructions please