What Preps are you doing this week? Part 12

[Frnc]

Other lodger is moving his stuff out. Been expecting this for months, as he's lived at his girlfriend's for a year now. Made a note to apply for council tax rebate (I keep a Sticky things to do list on my desktop). Undecided about getting new lodger(s). Had a lot to take in recently - hitting state pension age, two long term lodgers going, mum going into care home, and realising I've pretty much lost contact with some old friends. I have no relatives remotely near, either. So the house can feel a bit lonely at times, just now.

Keeping an eye on temps in prep room, as I don't want condensation in the early morning, and it's a cold room. Upped the night thermostat setting slightly to take the edge off cold mornings.

Tax haven't deducted anything for state pension so far. Not complaining about that.

Got a few things in basket for next month. And new spreadsheets ready for next year. Using up some Nectar points at Sainsburys, if I remember.

[ForgeCorvus]

Got paid another bank bribe, been buying odd bits of silver but its a sellers market ATM

[pseudonym]

Car in for it's MOT, Service and repairs from last years advisories.... Looking at £1445 on a £100 car

Merry Christmas.


Needs to be done, I've had the car since new so getting 1 more year out of it will be fine @ £3.96 a day

[jennyjj01]

Tax haven't deducted anything for state pension so far. Not complaining about that.

If you have a private pension or other income, the tax gets whacked on there. If not, and you do self assessment, they whack that. I believe that pensioners who don't have other taxable income and don't do SA are to be given a bye for any tax due. But set aside a few quid for if they chase you.
Anyoops, Just got my SA out of the way, due end of Jan.

My preps this week: Dehydrating lots of cheap veg, and tidying the extended pantry and doing stocktake which has gone to the dogs.

[Frnc]

Tax haven't deducted anything for state pension so far. Not complaining about that.

If you have a private pension or other income, the tax gets whacked on there. If not, and you do self assessment, they whack that. I believe that pensioners who don't have other taxable income and don't do SA are to be given a bye for any tax due. But set aside a few quid for if they chase you.
Anyoops, Just got my SA out of the way, due end of Jan.

My preps this week: Dehydrating lots of cheap veg, and tidying the extended pantry and doing stocktake which has gone to the dogs.

Yeah, I'm expecting it to be deducted off one or both of my two private pensions. I do have to do Self Assessment for my lodgers income. Shouldn't have to pay much if any tax this year, so if they start deducting it soon, I may have to claim it back. I always do my SA as soon as I can, so if they start deducting it off the pensions, I might have to wait til I get the annual summary, though I suppose I could calculate it as best I can.

[GeraldTheBonzai]

Every year I do a Self Assessment.
Every year after submitting it, I get a letter from HMRC saying I don't have to do another.
Then every year around April I get a letter from HMRC saying I need to do another SA...

I just regard it now as a form of Danegeld. You pay them something and hopefully they go away and leave you alone...

[Arzosah]

Anyoops, Just got my SA out of the way, due end of Jan.

Mine's half done (and has been since August ) for the last couple of years I've been pulled back in to paying tax, because of the couple of grand I get from the French apartment. Barstewards.

My preps this week: Dehydrating lots of cheap veg, and tidying the extended pantry and doing stocktake which has gone to the dogs.

I had such a push dehydrating cheap veg and foraged greens from my garden (the latter to make pesto, which never happened) but the push was back in 2019 - so the foraged greens have gone to the compost bin, and I'm leaving the decision on the dehydrated cheap veg till after Christmas, I don't have the headspace for it. But it happened because I was so disorganised in the particular kitchen cabinet I was using. No longer! I emptied it out completely, and it's 95% there now.

[Frnc]

Got a new phone last week. Finally got mobile phone service and data working after a week. What a palava. And that's despite doing all I could to prepare. New phone's great anyway, nice square edges make it much easier to hold than the old one that had rounded edges. Plus, I forked out for an official case, and it's made from a grippy rubber. Not sure I can attach a leash, but don't need it with all the extra grip.

Think I got all my apps working, including prep notes, offline maps, voice nav etc. I did a phone to phone wireless transfer, and got a shock when it said 8 hours, but in the end took less than an hour. Most apps, I didn't even need to sign in. The most crucial one after Apple was my password manager, with face ID. That makes it much faster if I do need password.

Glad that's all sorted. This one has plenty of memory, and a better battery, so should last at least 5 years. It's crazy though that you pay for GB, and it comes with ios and system data taking up 33 GB. My old one was only 64 capacity. So, don't think 128 is gonna give you 128. I have 62 free space. Another weird thing is Music was taking up 10GB data that wasn't audio! But that's dropped to about 2.

Got my earphones paired, one pair anyway. Those are not just for music, but for voice nav on my bike, using Komoot. You can that and music, and the music dips when it reads out instructions. Music now has a built in DJ function that mixes all my tracks (you can turn it off, of course). It's very good. So I suppose I shouldn't grumble about ios being bloated. Music app itself is tiny, so I don't know where the DJ software is.

[jennyjj01]

Shame on me
Doing a bit of shuffling of the food reserves in the loft. Decided to chuck all my pre 2020 chickpeas, dried veg, lasagna sheets and a few other bits that never rotate into my regular diet.somewhere around £75 to replace.
Lasagna sheets had lasted well considering they are only in cardboard boxes.
There were some droppings which I figure were from bats which I know to roost in the eaves. No sign of any bags or boxes being nibbled, which is why I doubt it's mice.

Also still dehydrating cheap veg. Just shallots and carrots.

[Yorkshire Andy]

Ordered myself a delta 2 power station to sit between my river 2 and delta max 1600

The max is 22kg

The delta 2 is 12kg

So much lighter and 1000wh vs the river 2 256 wh so its close to 4x its capacity so will run my camping fridge for 4 days without any input

We've a few off grid holidays planned this year where it will fill the criteria happily