oh dear! need to make major cutbacks...

joannasmum

Hiya

My daughter is (still is at night) a real nappy user. I didnt use prefold but several of my friends did. One thing is that they will look massive on a new born. A friend of mine used some mothercare vouchers she received as presents to buy disposables for the first couple of weeks while she was finding her feet.

The other thing with pre-folds is that you need a good wrap to contain explosive breast fed poos (hope nobodys eating). If you havent got motherease wraps I would strongly suggest putting a wanted on free-cycle. If your wraps are PUL and they go leaky which they should'nt for quiet awhile (1 yr+) you can make them last abit longer by giving them a blast in a tumble dryer. Aparently it realigns the molecules.

If you can run to it a wash net in the bucket it is helpful. I dry-pailed ie just chucked the nappy in the bucket and washed every second day (nappy bucket size determine how often you wash). Any stains come out with sunshine.

Don't bother using the disposable liners until your bubs is on solids as liquid poo will just soak through. You can also wash disposable liners if they are just wet a couple of times before they disintegrate. If you find you need more fleece just buy a cheap blanket and cut it up.

Have a look at the nappylady website for different folds and practices doing the folds. Also if you get any money for presents a couple of stuffable nappies are a god send for when bubs is abit older and you can hand it over to somebody without worrying that they won't be able to deal with a nappy.

Hope that essay is of some help

CarolynH

melt71 wrote: »

However, my partner has been placed on emergency tax and even though we've tried to resolve it 3 times by ringing the tax office - they say 'ok we'll sort it and you'll get a rebate through your wages' and then place him back on code BR! :mad: This month he was due to get a rebate of approx £360 in his wages, but now it looks like he won't get anything AND will have to pay 22% tax.

As an aside, get your partner to fill in a P46 (ticking box 'B' only) and give it to his payroll department asap. This will allow them to put him on 522L (week/month 1) straight away. It won't get him back the tax he has overpaid straight away (although once submitted to HMRC it should prompt them that they need to look at his coding), but it will mean he's not paying straight 22% tax this month.

melt71

CarolynH wrote: »

As an aside, get your partner to fill in a P46 (ticking box 'B' only) and give it to his payroll department asap. This will allow them to put him on 522L (week/month 1) straight away. It won't get him back the tax he has overpaid straight away (although once submitted to HMRC it should prompt them that they need to look at his coding), but it will mean he's not paying straight 22% tax this month.

Hi, we've already been down that road - they put him on 522L M1 last month and told him to contact the tax office, which he has now done twice in the space of a month, but when he explained that he's only earnt about £5.5k so far this tax year (he only started full time work at the end of Nov) and should hardly have paid any tax at all, despite promising to sort it out for him so that he would get the rebate in his wages this month (Feb) they've put him back on BR. He's just received a letter in the post today confirming that they've put him back onto BR until the end of the tax year!

I think they are now thinking that it's nearly the end of the tax year and they will be sorting it all out in April anyway so it's no big deal to them. He's explained that the money is the difference between our bills being paid and having to go overdrawn etc to no avail.

Thanks for your reply though.

CarolynH

melt71 wrote: »

Hi, we've already been down that road - they put him on 522L M1 last month and told him to contact the tax office, which he has now done twice in the space of a month,

His employer should be doing this, not your partner. When they get a P46 from an employee, they should apply the appropriot code based on the box(es) ticked, then submit the form to HMRC.

melt71 wrote: »

but when he explained that he's only earnt about £5.5k so far this tax year (he only started full time work at the end of Nov) and should hardly have paid any tax at all

In that case he should tick box A, not B as I originally stated.

melt71 wrote: »

despite promising to sort it out for him so that he would get the rebate in his wages this month (Feb) they've put him back on BR.

Have him ask them why? This seems wrong to me, unless the revenue have told them to.

melt71 wrote: »

He's just received a letter in the post today confirming that they've put him back onto BR until the end of the tax year!

Them the revenue or them his employer?

melt71 wrote: »

I think they are now thinking that it's nearly the end of the tax year and they will be sorting it all out in April anyway so it's no big deal to them.

Other than the obvious cashflow implications, it REALLY would be better for you and your partner to get this sorted out in time for his March payroll, so it's worth him being a pain in the backside to them. If you get his proper coding aplied this tax year (before his last payment before 5 April, he will get his 'refund' (it's not really a refund, rather a PAYE adjustment to make his year to date payments correct) through his wages. If it goes past April 6th, he wont. (You can't adjust for one years PAYE in another). He'll have to apply himself to have the overpayment repaid direct to him, I have known this to take months before :mad:

Sounds like his payroll department are either being lazy (although it's a standard process and not at all difficult), or just plain unhelpful.

PM me if you want to go into anything in more detail - I work in payroll and will help any way I can.

melt71

Hi Carolyn and thanks for your lengthy reply.

Initially his payroll dept in his new job just put him on the same tax code as his old job (after initially getting him to fill out a P46 and putting him on BR). This turned out to be 522L M1 - nobody knows why he was on this with his previous employer, even the tax office couldn't answer that one. He only worked part time with them and worked different hours each week so maybe that's why? I dunno.

His current payroll dept have been lazy and unhelpful. It's because the lady that does it left at the end of Jan, she really wasn't interested and never did anything about his tax problems. When he complained to the lady in HR she gave him the details of the tax office for him to ring. He's now rang them 3 times; twice in this month and it's STILL not sorted. They (HR) have only just told him that he does not qualify for SPP but he can have the 2 weeks off with me and the baby if he wants to - they've known about my pregnancy since early December and they've only just told him he won't get any money!! They really are clueless as to how important money is to young families.

He's only just got the letter from the tax office today saying that he's going to be back on BR so he hasn't had a chance to ring them yet, but yes, no doubt he will be ringing them again on Monday. It all seems rather pointless though because they tell him on the phone that 'it will be sorted and the correct tax code applied' etc etc and then.....it isn't! The people on the phone are not the people who make the decision and when it goes to the department that does make the decision - we are back to square one!!

Edited to say; my friend is a bookkeeper and in January we went through all of this at length and she told me exactly how much tax he should have paid so far and how much rebate he should get etc. He had all of these figures to hand when he called the tax office earlier this month and they agreed with the figures - and now they've put him back on BR. So we're all slightly perplexed by this, my friend cannot understand what the problem is. It should be dead simple.

CarolynH

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you on Monday then.

With regards to SPP, unfortunately, if he's not been with his current employer for the whole of your pregnancy, they're correct that he's not entitled to this. (But I always tell people this as early as possible!). However, they should provide him with an SSP1 form (tell him to bug the living daylights out of them until he gets this!) explaing why he's not getting SPP. It may be that he is entitled to income support if he takes unpaid paternity leave, he needs to take the SSP1 to a jobcentre plus and they'll look into it for him.

Good luck.

whatatwit

Did he get a P45 from his previous employer....it sounds as though he may still be down as working there and that his current job is a second job, especially if he was only working part time at his old job.

pigpen

I've had several children in cloth nappies.. if you have specific questions fire away!! I've used prefolds, shaped, all-in-ones and even terry squares.. I have a couple you can have if you'd like.. and wraps.. drop me a PM and we'll sort it!.. Given that you already have the basics.. you should have it pretty much all covered.. breastfeeding is free.. so if formula will be an issue it might be worth at least considering if you aren't already.

Most pram covers do come off.. the seat covers usually very easily and can be thrown in the washing machine.. sometimes the hoods are flexible enough to allow for squeezing into the WM as well.. worth a try.. failing that a good stiff brush and a bucket of soapy water.. I use washing up liquid on mine.. comes up a treat!!

Judi101

I use prefolds for both of mine. Would definitely echo the advice about getting motherease wraps. They are great and you really need a good wrap or you will be going through alot of clothes. I just dry pail and wash everynight (two kids in nappies!) but used to do it every 2 or 3 days with no problems before DS was born. Wash your paper nappy liners that have just been wet once you start using them but more OS is fleece liners if you can face it. Have fun and best of luck.

melt71

whatatwit wrote: »

Did he get a P45 from his previous employer....it sounds as though he may still be down as working there and that his current job is a second job, especially if he was only working part time at his old job.

He was asked to start his new job early in the last week of November rather than the planned beg of Dec and was intending to keep his old job going as well, but changed his mind pretty much straight away and gave his notice in - but this meant that although there wasn't any crossover of him earning from the 2 jobs, there was a slight delay with his P45 being issued (about 7 days).

In this time he filled in the P46 and then gave his P45 in as soon as he had it and explained to his new HR that he no longer worked for his old employer.

However, the payroll lady did nothing with this information and didn't inform the tax office of this change until he realised he was on the wrong tax code when he got his payslip just before xmas - he went in to complain to her and she then sent it off to them just before the end of December. It had been sat on her desk for all of December. So he was on BR for his Nov/Dec pay, she put him on 522L M1 for his Jan pay and now he's going to be back on BR for his Feb pay.

Edited to say; 522L m1 is the code on his P45 which is why she changed him over to that for his Jan pay.