oh ok, this might be good

Or very bad.

After a bit of hunting around on the gov.uk website, I have discovered an apparent error.

they had listed two years 2009/10  and 2010/11 as being incomplete years, but it was only 37 and 95 quid to clear them, so I sent that..along with some class 2 payments in 1 payment

But somehow it got messd up and now I have to pay 800+ and 500+ and they are counting a couple of weeks self employment in those years... .hmm something went wrong, so I''ve sent an email to 3 different depts to try to resolve..

It will take forever of course, but there's plenty of time to get it sorted. I clearly gave them what was asked and they've clearly misallocated it... But that does seem to suggest, of my 5 payments made, only 3 have actually counted. so when that is fixed things will improve again.

It's kinda annoying but honestly Im not at all stressed by it, if I can finally get hold of a person to actually fix things it should all be ok. Its just good to see that things to change, even at a glacial rate.

The method of paying is the main issue, you can only send a bank transfer or a cheque, dutch banks don't to cheques any mote so transfer it is, and thats limited, you can only provide your NI numer and name with a code to pay... so if you pay more things at the same time, they probably guess at what it is you want to do with the extra money and it seems to be wrong.

Oh well, I'm not too worried as I say, it will be 5.5years before this needs to be fixed, so there's plenty of time for a few 6-8week email exchanges to correct it.

I am actually finding all this checking and rechecking all the various pensions and accounts a lot of fun. Things seem to change so often, especially after budgets of course... so far nothing has been an oh-shit, its all been oh-good kind of changes and revelations.. 

I might change my view if I do actually manage to set up a communication line with someone... but even so.. planning for retirement is really fun, 293 days to go.

Ahthankyew

and they updated

After  my last post reporting that 2 of my payments had been registered, I can now see that the other 3 have also now been registered. Didn't boost the pension by as much as I expected, it went up 6 ukp rather than 18ukp,  it works out about 3 ukp per year paid, but it did boost it, so all 5 of my shortfall payments made last year,  have now been counted.

It might take a bit longer to see if that 18ukp boost has been properly calculated, but regardless it does mean that payments made have at last been allocated to the correct years. And those years are no longer listed as shortfall years on the gov.uk site.

I paid 4 more last week, to ensure I got them in before the April deadline, so now the others can be paid at a reasonable pace before the end of the year.  I wonder if that will also take 6 months to update, we'll see soon enough.

This is good for us, it will ensure a full UK pension when I hit  67, I get to make up 5 years of deficit, and pay each year for 5 years till Im 67, and will get the full pension, currently 221ukp pw, which I assume will increase a bit in 5 years time.

It is a pity though that once I do hit 67 and start to claim,  it won't increase again, ever, under current rules. But my Dutch pension will increase due to inflation whiich givces a bit of future proofing, so I don't have to worry about being unable to buy food in my 90s

The retirement plans are starting to all come together nicely, no major roadblocks yet..

Ahthankyew

Pension fun or... not.

So I'm in a rather odd position, that when I retire at the end of the yeat, I won't have any pension. There's just not enough in the pot for me to take an early retirement with pension option at 62. So the pension needs to wait till I hit the official retirement age of 67.25 here in NL, 67 in UK.

Yes thats right I get both, a Dutch and a UK pension, basically half a standard pension for each, which is pretty good, aside from the fact I was unaware that I could continue to pay my UK NI while I was living here.

But thankfully it is possible, I have maintained my self employment while living in Netherlands doing occasional freelance gigs,  which allowed me to qualify for class 2 self employment payments to HMRC and qualify for more pension as long as I made up the shortfall of the class 2 payments that I never sent since I was living in NL.

So I've been sending money to HMRC so make up shortfalls in the years where I could have, but didn't pay those class 2. 

The problem is, they never confirm they have them, they dont let you know its been allocated to a particular year and trying to get hold of them is.... complex. Phone calls go on hold for over 30mins, where your Dutch phone provider starts to panic and cuts you off. Letters take a year... A YEAR to be replied to. And get this, emails, get replied to over a month later, telling you to contact a different dept with an email,  who then refer you back another month later to the dept that you 1st mailed.. thats not cool HMRC, not cool at all. 

So answers to, did you get my payment, are not easy.

But finally yesteday, I checked the Gov.uk website and 2 of the 5 years I paid so far are now listed as paid, and indeed my forcasted pension has gone up a little as a result. phew... it is happening. Slowly, but it is happening, I don't need to panic.. though I was worried due to there being a cut off date this April to get some of those payments in. Seeing that they have applied them I've made the last payment due before the cut off, and will pay the rest over the course of the coming 5 years.

Which despite all the hassle is really good news, I'll get a full, or close to full pension from the UK, 17 years of Dutch pension for my time here, which actually is very small as Dutch state pension is very small, but 17years of company pension.. 

It's a bit of a mix and match and frankly far below what a lifetime payer into the Dutch system would get, which would make retirement here hard,  but its more than enough for us to live on in Thailand. 

There will be 5 years when we move though where we have no income, and I'm not allowed to work over there, but the house costs there are very low and once we buy a house with 40% of our house profits here, we can live for 5 years on the remainder of that and some other savings we have. As long as we don't go mad.

298 days to go.. can't wait.

  

Ahthankyew

Its just a test...

My Dentist has decided to refer me back to my old cancer surgeon, Dr van Gemert, yeah he's still working at the same hospital.\

Havn't seen him in 10 years, was kinda hoping never to see him again... not that he's a bad fella, he did save my life after all but, given his line of work I really didn't want to see him again ever.

It;s just a precaution though, due to my history, the dentist wants to be super careful.

I have a couple of white spots on my gum, other side from the surgical site, they dont' seem to want to wash away even with super burn level listerine.  This can be half a dozen things, including a simple fungal infection,which is not uncommon in prosthetic teeth wearers (my falsies). But there is the tiniest chance its cancer or pre-cancer, so best to get it checked out and treated asap if needed. There's no lumps bumps or other signs of the previous type of cancer. 

So, I have no real reason to be worried, but....

Going back there will be a bit of a knee wobbler..

Ahthankyew

Garage Sale

Jeeze we have a lot of stuff....

which is good, as it will raise a lot of nice funds for the retirement fund, but wow its a lot to catalogue and advertise. 

I want to sell my guitar/music stuff to my friends mainly so I know they go to good homes. But I ermm, do have a lot of guitars, not all are big bucks, but I should get a few hundred for most of the standard ones, and a couple of K for the special ones in total.

The hardest thing though is the sellers remorse, when a guitar I have loved having, but probalby only played twice goes out the door.

jeez, retiring is hard.

Ahthankyew