Sunday, June 07, 2009

Frustration

These last few months have been a non stop round of form filling and phone calls. My temper is short and the amount of frustration involved in all these forms is driving me to distraction. Years ago the tax people took away the married married persons tax allowance and replaced it with family tax credits, the only problem is that every year we both have to fill in a book containing 31 pages to get it all renewed. When I say fill in, you have to read it at the very least because any changes in circumstances have to be reported straight away and failure to do so could lead us into an over payment situation.

Add to them a regular tax return for Tom. His is complicated as he claims for mileage for using his car at work, this mileage all has to be accounted for and is tax deductible, but that leads to another 40 page booklet all asking for details that you have to gather from else where. Then just for good measure I have been sent a tax return this year Why?? My tax is deducted at source and I only have one method of earning, seems like another waste of time.
The University form are still coming thick and fast, seems there is a remote chance that there is some corner of our lives that they haven't pried into, plus to give Carl a loan they want two people who can vouch for him to say that he is living here (at the moment) How do other people manage to deal with all of this?? Am I super thick?? (I am beginning to think so!)

Our luck with water continues, over night we had torrential rain, which has resulted in a puddle in the conservatory, we have no idea where it has come from (Outside I can hear you all saying!!) or more precisely how it gained access. We will have to have that checked out. The we found a leak from behind the washing machine. All washing machines are now cold fill, where in the past they have been hot and cold fill. So when we plumbed this one in we were left with a hot inlet pipe free. The pipe has a little tap on it, so we switched it to off and forgot about it. Seems that the vibration behind the machine has caused the tap to wobble loose and it was leaking under the machine and into the back of the cupboards. So a simple task of obtaining a capping device started. Went to B and Q and found that they had blanking caps in 15mm and 22mm, as it turns out one is too big and one is too small. So we trawl the DIY stores here and in neighbouring towns to eventually find a helpful man at Wickes who tells us we need a 3/4 of an inch blanking nut. Great the end is in sight, but no, he could tell us what we needed but they didn't actually have any left in stock!!! We had just about given up when we gave it one last try at a local small hardware store, the man knew what we were talking about and actually had one. So now we are drip free and the washing machine is back in its place, which is just as well as Carl is due home this afternoon from what has been a very wet and muddy scout camp.................Bring on the washing!!!!

1 comment:

Sue Jones said...

ohh i know what you mean about those blinkin tax forms..just done ours ..thats why i was so pleased i dont have to do Nats DLA forms anymore!! They sent me another book though..incapacity for work one I dont actually KNOW all the answers either ..joy!
Glad you have your machine up and running but hope you dont have to use it too much xxxxx