Paying the car tax via EBay, and other shenanigans.

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  • mfmaybe
    mfmaybe Posts: 1,176
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    Bit of a late one as we've been at a Burns supper (tickets paid for by OH!). I almost managed a NSD but ended up remembering at the last minute it was BYOB so I bought us a bottle of wine. As it turned out only had one glass, so I'm home with the rest of it. An enjoyable evening :beer:

    Weather was awful here today so made sure the horses were well stocked with hay and toasty in their rugs. And then spent several hours on tax returns. Not fun! It was for a family member, still got mine to do and hoping there won't be a surprise bill at the end of it. One of these years I won't leave them until the last minute.

    Had a quick look at First Direct but actually I'm very happy with my bank and would only be doing it for the incentive. So will leave it for now and maybe consider, when I have a bit more cash, shopping around for ISAs instead. In fact I have one that's about to drop in rate so will need to change that come April.
    0% card was £1126.91 / Now £1502.37

    AFD March 2/15 NSD March 2/11 :T

    Other debts paid since 1/1/14: £17,005
  • I'm with First Direct and can't really fault them at all. When I look round I can't find anything comparable in terms of service etc.
    DFW (08/08) £64,346.53 Gone (02/19)
    MFW (08/08) £118k Gone (09/23)
  • mfmaybe
    mfmaybe Posts: 1,176
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    I have heard very good things about FD but have now decided to stay with my current bank. I get a free packaged account (travel insurance, phone insurance etc) and am very happy with the service I've received. So I've abandoned the idea of changing current account, but instead will try to maximise savings income, when I get to that point. :money:

    It's good news/bad news on the tax return front. The bill is unfortunately over £500. I'm cross with HMRC on this. I have a property I rent out, which is why I have to do a tax return. However because I also pay into a pension, the additional tax savings on this usually offset the majority of my profit. However, despite me telling them I don't want an adjusted tax code, they seem to have changed it so that I am getting the benefit of the pension in my monthly pay, but they didn't include the estimated profit on my property. So I've already had the "upside" but didn't realise it.

    So that needs paid sooner rather than later. The slight good news though is that in the next tax year, the property was empty for 3 months as I was considering selling it, so did some work on it. Between the lower income and the higher costs, I will have either nil profit or even a slight loss. My budget for 2014 included setting money aside for next year's tax bill, which I now won't need to do, so I can essentially "steal" this year's payment from the money I was going to put aside. But it will make it slower to pay off the overdraft. The other option is to get some more stuff on ebay of course.

    I say more, by which I mean, anything! Still no interest in my fence energiser that I am hoping to sell, so better get it advertised elsewhere.

    In other well behaved news, I persuaded OH to turn down an offer to go out for lunch, which would have been an un-budgeted expense.

    Right I am off to raid the house until I find some things to sell :rotfl:
    0% card was £1126.91 / Now £1502.37

    AFD March 2/15 NSD March 2/11 :T

    Other debts paid since 1/1/14: £17,005
  • mfmaybe
    mfmaybe Posts: 1,176
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    Hmm so only 5 days into my diary and it's a bit of a slump. Following on from the tax bill bad news, I'm figuring out other bills that need paid that I guess weren't really in the current budget. They are going forward, but I don't yet have the pots built up.

    Field rent. £1200 per annum. Due today. I have most of this set aside but there is £300 coming out of this month's pay. In the past I have been good about saving £100 per month but the very expensive last year or so has scuppered this.

    Gas. We are on LPG. Due to a mistake in our last delivery, they deferred payment on some of it. So we now owe them £500 from the last order. However we will also have to order very soon which will be another £500. I can cover the first one from our bills account, and if we are very good can probably also manage the re-order, however I think BT must be due soon, so essentially we will need to find about £100 each. Actually now I write it down it's not as bad as I thought! My plan is to pay the original bill now but dependant on the reading on the gauge if I could leave it until the 6th it would be on next months credit card. Again just a timing thing to allow the council tax benefit to catch up. The the reorder payment will be due 30 days later. It's this sort of juggling of timings that is quite stressful, and why I really need to get savings pots set up again.

    Roof repair. A £200 bill, so my half is £100. In my future budget I have £100 per month allocated to building up a house repair fund, so that is almost budgeted. Again I'm already stealing from the future though. OH and I have made a decision to change our mindset and think of a house like a car. It has running costs, and you can only get off with ignoring the warning lights for so long! So we will start putting money aside and just fixing things rather than them stressing us and ultimately being more of an issue than it could have been.

    Tree felling. We have very very large trees on our plot. 2 are already dead and 2 definitely on the way out. I'm astonished they haven't come down yet, and if they do they will damage fencing, vehicles and maybe even land on my stables. :eek: They are booked in for felling in a few weeks, which I will have to find several hundred pounds for. On the plus side, the dead ones should be immediately ready to burn and we get to keep all the wood, which will be several years worth. One of our capital projects for this year is to replace the open fire with a woodburner, so we might be able to reduce our gas use, I hope!

    Vets bill needs paid. Can't find this bill but it's smaller than all of the above :p

    So that's enough depressing stuff. Scary though it is, these things need addressed. I'm finding writing it all in this diary both useful and therapeutic. Sorry my posts are so long! It is making me realise that our lives, due to hobbies and our old house and garden, are always going to throw up significant expenses. So we need to be much better disciplined about not throwing money away when the house isn't broken. We need a serious slush fund and we just haven't done it. So my first action will be to add another £100 each into our house account each month and set it aside.

    And now more than ever, I better get some things sold :o
    0% card was £1126.91 / Now £1502.37

    AFD March 2/15 NSD March 2/11 :T

    Other debts paid since 1/1/14: £17,005
  • mfmaybe
    mfmaybe Posts: 1,176
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    I nearly forgot the positive news! We didn't make it to Mr S at the weekend. As OH is only here for dinner 2 nights this week, I reckon I can get away without a trip. Going to make a cassoulet tonight, for which I have everything I need already. That will do for our 2 nights together, and the rest of the week I will be eating an odd selection of whatever I can find. :rotfl:
    0% card was £1126.91 / Now £1502.37

    AFD March 2/15 NSD March 2/11 :T

    Other debts paid since 1/1/14: £17,005
  • roxy7699
    roxy7699 Posts: 1,067
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    Make sure you eat!
    You seem to have a good handle on what is going on and the ability to budget is great. The pots will grow and be a good buffer, hope you manage to get a good ebay bundle going.
  • mfmaybe
    mfmaybe Posts: 1,176
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    roxy7699 wrote: »
    Make sure you eat!
    You seem to have a good handle on what is going on and the ability to budget is great. The pots will grow and be a good buffer, hope you manage to get a good ebay bundle going.

    Thanks, I will! Cassoulet (well, minus the duck sadly) is made and will do me the next two nights. A friend has invited me for dinner on Saturday, so only 2 nights to worry about. I think pasta one night and scampi the other, courtesy of food already bought. There's also mince in the freezer so I will defrost that at the end of the week and make bolognaise or something for the next week. So hopefully even this weekend's shop will be reasonable.

    I still haven't got eBay started :o. But the tax returns needed finalising and submitting tonight. Hopefully the rest of the week will be quieter.
    0% card was £1126.91 / Now £1502.37

    AFD March 2/15 NSD March 2/11 :T

    Other debts paid since 1/1/14: £17,005
  • mfmaybe
    mfmaybe Posts: 1,176
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    Was lovely to come home and have the cassoulet all ready. We have got a sort of good habit around meals. We just write them up on the calendar for the week, and even in the weeks where they weren't planned ahead we write them down after we've decided what to eat. That way it's a quick look back to get some ideas when we are stuck.

    Put another pile of change into the fancy cash machine, was £16, but I put that in our joint savings as it wasn't all mine to claim.

    So tonight's musing is eBay. I have found two things so far to list. A jigsaw and a Ping Pong set. The latter is unused and a no-brainer, except you can buy it new for just over £5 inc postage so I'm. It sure I will make much after fees. The jigsaw might be more profitable, but I'm a tiny bit sentimental about it. It is of many beach scenes around the world, and it sort of helped us decide where to go on honeymoon last year. :cool: Am I being silly for holding on to it? We have photos of us on the beach, we went there, we have the memories. Right that's me talked into it.

    But I'm struggling so far to find stuff. I'm not a compulsive buyer. I wear clothes until they fall apart usually. I'm not a huge gadget buyer. What usually does well is horse stuff. But I've not got heaps to sell, and some of what I do have, again I'm being sentimental about, but mixed with practicality. I sadly lost a horse a couple of years ago and her stuff is too big for my current one. But there is a chance I will buy another one of similar size in about a year, if the IVF doesn't work. I will get good money for the things I have, but will then end up shelling out loads when I get another horse; for example a rug that if I sold now might make £90 but in a year's time will cost me £280 to replace. I also have a couple of bridles and my worry is them not storing well. Hmmm they might need a clean this weekend.

    So I will continue to deliberate. In the meantime I will keep my eyes peeled for sellable items and go and weigh my finds.
    0% card was £1126.91 / Now £1502.37

    AFD March 2/15 NSD March 2/11 :T

    Other debts paid since 1/1/14: £17,005
  • roxy7699
    roxy7699 Posts: 1,067
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    We are hoping the IVF will work though and then you'll be needing £90 of baby stuff next year.
    I would keep the puzzle but then I'm a sentimental hoarder, I dont really have items to sell exept baby clothes and that is due to buying more than was needed.
    Good idea on the food, I've started going through the cookbooks, keeping a log of food in and trialing recipes. If they make it I'm writing them up into a record card box and putting a post it in the book. The book will go in the end.
  • mfmaybe
    mfmaybe Posts: 1,176
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    The thing we find best about the calendar is coming home knowing what we are eating. Even if it needs a bit of cooking rather than "bung in oven and set timer" it's amazing how much easier it is when the decision is already made! I used to spend more time figuring out what to cook than actually doing it!
    0% card was £1126.91 / Now £1502.37

    AFD March 2/15 NSD March 2/11 :T

    Other debts paid since 1/1/14: £17,005
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