The Diary Of Onebrokelady Aged 60 And A Half

Onebrokelady

Today I met my friend for coffee and a catch up so that was nice, she came and picked me up because the weather was apocalyptic 😀 

When I got home I sat down and worked out my budget for the year and I think I’ve got a plan that will work.

I was paid yesterday and was short for the month so I’ve transferred enough money from my savings to cover everything until the 27th of next month this amount was less than my pension payment will be. I then get my pension payment on the 16th of the month so I will pay the whole amount back into my savings so this will replace the money I took out and also add an amount to boost the savings each month. The added benefit to me personally will be that I will have to log in mid month to do this so it will give me a day to have a mid budget check in. At the moment I’m very lax about checking my account but I will be logging in every month on the 27th and 16th to move money around and also check progress on bills etc. 

I have included absolutely everything in my budget so all spending is accounted for. This is something else I was lax with. I’ve allocated money for my present pot,and spending money for me and a new pot which is travel. I haven’t got a bus pass at the moment so while the cheap £2 fares are around I’m using those. I did it this month as an experiment and I didn’t restrict myself I just used to bus as I needed and I spent £44, my bus pass is £55 so I’ve now allocated an amount to cover it. I never used to bother because my bus pass came out of my wages before I got paid. The only thing with this is I’m not sure if I got tax relief on it or not.

The method I’ve come up with might not make sense to you all but it makes sense to me and my brain never did work properly anyway 😀so I’m gong to trial it for a couple of months and see how it goes. If it doesn’t work I will think again. Nothing in my budget will change now until April next year apart from when B goes which will mean I’m not paying for her food and insurance so I will adjust it accordingly. 

I managed to print off a wage slip yesterday and I’m not sure if I’m paying the right amount of tax. I earned £749.00 and paid £133.00 PAYE I’m going to have to look into it.

I also owed two payments on my bus pass because they stopped the payments when I retired in November but my pass didn’t run out until the end of January so they are taking those two payments out of my wages this month and next. So my wages will go up in May 🙂

I also had to do my meter readings today and I got my bill straight away so it’s been paid. I am happy to report that last month my bill was £192 and this month it was £148 so I was happy with that. I am setting that payment for that at £150 a month so in the summer when it’s low I will put the excess in one of my other savings accounts ready for winter 

CRANKY40

Thank you for your explanation, that makes perfect sense. I can separate some of the pain - sore knees are bone spurs from hypermobile arthritic joints. The pain if someone touches my upper arms is not ED and it is inappropriate to the amount of force used. If someone just taps me to get my attention it really hurts. I had trauma too - I don't usually tell people in case they think I'm lying. I'm back in touch with my dad's cousin now and we talk about what happened - it's good because she knew of what was happening if not at the same time that my sister and I were experiencing it then at least soon after. 

I really appreciate you sharing your research and taking the time to type everything out. 

badmemory

What did your tax code say OBL as what has been taken in tax would seem to show your tax code as only around 100L rather than 1257L.  Unless you have significant taxable income from elsewhere that is.  As around £11,000.  Unfortunately as this is the last month of the tax year if you are due a refund it will have to come from HMRC themselves.

dawnybabes

You need to check how much your pension is added to your wage - that might be why you paid so much tax ?

Tara66

Hi I draw a local Government pension and have an additional job. My tax allowance is applied to my pension, and a have a BR (basic rate) tax code for my job. My pension does use up all my tax allowance though. You may have some spare tax allowance, so still have some tax allowance applied to your employment as well. 

Hope this makes sense. 

enthusiasticsaver

The tax can often be messed up if you have more than one source of income. You can go on to government gateway and allocate your PA wherever you want it to go, either your pension or your wage or half and half or whatever. Whether that £133 is correct depends on what your pension is.  

badmemory

It is always best to have all or as much as possible of your tax code allocated to the income you will always have.  So a pension first.  That way if you lose any of your other income sources you don't need any changes to your ongoing sources of income.  At one point HMRC always used to give any job the code I don't know if they still do that.

Onebrokelady

I’m useless with things like tax. I didn’t take into account my pension 😀 I will have a look at my payslip to see which code I have 

Onebrokelady

Work today was very chilled so I got lots of background jobs done that’s just don’t get done when it’s busy. I was shocked though that my taxi cost me £16 😳last time it was £10.50. 

I walked back into town because it was sunny and I had to go to Boots to pick up a prescription. It was my painkillers which I ordered after my steroids so I suspect there is a problem with them. I phoned the surgery yesterday to try and get an appointment but there aren’t any so I’ve got to phone again at 8.30 on Tuesday.
I am going to be having an early night tonight because my legs are killing me and my arm is annoying .

milann

Hope you get some answers at the docs.

Your financial plan sounds great. If it makes sense to you and it works then that’s what is important 👍