Watty's Awakening

daisy_1571

well done,  great thinking on your feet!

Dxx

LadyWithAPlan

badmemory said:

Well you can call me a cycnical old woman, but if you hadn't said it was going through the business books you would never have got that VAT back.  Also no longer being a business & just being a sole trader does not absolve him from VAT.  I used to be a bookkeeper & back a long time ago I used to regenerate accounts from peoples bank statements which doesn't account for cash obvioulsy.  You know the sort of thing. All our books went up in the fire so we have no idea how much we owe & there obviously was a lot in the safe, up in flames.

I am also being a very cynical woman here .. sounds like he was trying to take you for an extra 20% but well done for checking up ! 

Sounds like you did great on the talk - go you !

Watty1

I suspect you are all right about the scam but here is the thing.  He was/is a nice chap, he turned up, quoted and turned up and did the work with colleagues. He bought in other trades as were needed.  The electrician was a super hero fixing the wiring that I believe the ex had messed up deliberately, working out what to do about the alarm that would distress me by going off unpredictably and so on.   I'm happy with the work and was happy with the price I paid.

In the scheme of things, given how much I lost with my ex I'm ok with this especially as I get some money back. If he was trying to get an extra 20% then I was ok with the total anyway so I would have been none the wiser.   Now he has come clean and decided against that I am taking that as a huge win!

Watty1

Have to go to a late afternoon / evening event in London.  My back hurts from all the weeding and I am tired from a late night sitting in the field watching the horses, the birds and the countryside and chatting with the VNM.  The last thing I feel like doing is getting  "business smart" and sitting on a train for 3 hours and in an event room for 5 hours!
I need to figure out how to stop work.

To think that was my goal when I paid off the mortgage all those years ago and look what a mess that became.  I would still rather have this life than that looking back though.

Cherryfudge

Very well done on handling the difficulties over the speaking event. It shows you are really on top of things when you can pull something like that out of the hat. I'm glad the laptop was recovered, though, and I hope your link goes through. Having it on a separate email might even highlight it for readers.

I hope this evening goes well.

And as to giving up work - I expect you would fill the time with house, garden and horses, but remember to leave yourself something to do in winter when the days are short and light is less. Consultancy, perhaps? I am sure your knowledge shouldn't be lost to upcoming generations.

Debsnewbudget

With regards to the builder, my take on it is that its a new tax year, he could have possibly decided to cut down on work for this year and therefore realised he will not hit the  VAT threshold…..
anyway you got the refund which is the most important bit.

Watty1

The food at the business event was fabulous.  Small bowls of either sweet potato curry and brown rice (hot) salmon and fennel and rocket salad or chicken Caesar salad and  you could have as many as you wanted it seemed.  Then on the 'coffee table' was a large bowl to help yourself of fruit salad.  The speakers were great too and I ended up chatting over coffee with a former colleague and we came up with a business idea that we thought could really work so we are going to mull that over for a bit and get together to see if it has legs in the next few months.

I left early because I thought I might anxious about getting home.  My anxiety hasn't really dropped so I am trying a new approach of leaving everywhere before I get really anxious to see if I can retrain my brain rather than waiting until I get anxious as it occurred to me that was just repeating old patterns.    This has no basis in anything other than was my idea based on the best way to do something is in baby steps.

No anxiety all the way home (I allowed myself to splash out on a London taxi as part of the just do it approach) and ended up chatting to my 'pretend brother' on the train journey. I sent him a whatsapp saying I was on a train and he rang me so that was an absolute joy too.

I am proud of myself to thinking of a solution to something that has been crippling me for months now and if this approach works it will be wonderful.  The event was recorded so I can catch up on the last hour or so when the talks are released.

Chrystal

Sounds like a productive event, (and fabulous food) and well done you for taking the bull by the horns and coming up with a workable solution to the anxiety.... Robert the Bruce had the right idea!

daisy_1571

sounds like a great idea.  I used to say a similar approach when folk were stumped training pups - don't set them up to fail, lots of positive interactions.   Thats exactly the sort of approach you have identified for yourself.   It should surely have good results and be very freeing for your future. 

Dxx

savingholmes

Great news on the 20% refund and that you can get the work on the other two rooms done sooner.

Sounds like you did really well on the talk and on managing anxiety. Well done. Hope you get lots of lovely feedback.