WOOD PANELS - FINISHED

How the world of DIY online shopping has changed. A few years ago, I could place an order on B&Q’s website ready to click and collect at my local decorating superstore in the blink of an eye, paid for using e-gift cards collected over time.

And yes, whilst I can still do this from the comfort of my armchair I’ve noticed some subtle changes behind the scenes. I discovered earlier in the week that B&Q has gone the way of other retailers such as Amazon and become a ‘marketplace’ instead of a primary supplier.

What does this mean for those of us renovating on a budget? Well, for one thing there appear to be less products available on the website that qualify for click and collect because these are now coming directly from a different merchant and not B&Q themselves so costly delivery charges may have to be factored into your project budget.

Can't buy in store or click & collect any more

Secondly, if a product is being supplied by a company other than B&Q then you cannot pay for it using an electronic B&Q gift card. Discounts cannot be applied to marketplace merchants. Bugger!

Merchant is Akzonobel and not B&Q

More importantly if there are any issues with purchases made with merchants other than B&Q then you can’t simply walk into a store to seek redress because your contract is with said merchant. This could cause unnecessary stress or delays to a project particularly if items have to be returned or refunds obtained.

Intending to spend over £12 of e-gift card discounts on paint for my wood panels, I felt in some way robbed of the opportunity to shop savvy by this new online retailer practice. But where there’s a will, there’s a way especially when there are still colour mixing desks in store.

I trundled down to my local decorating superstore with my half-used tin of Dulux Heritage paint then got the colour mixing desk to rustle up a pot of furniture paint in the same shade (Green Earth). Okay so it’s not strictly speaking Dulux because they use Valspar paints which I’ve always found to be inferior in thickness/quality to the Heritage range but as its only the corridor then it will do. As my transaction is now deemed an instore purchase then e-gift cards can be used in part payment. Cheaper paint, no waiting for couriers to arrive or delivery costs incurred.

Armed with my freshly mixed Green Earth multi-purpose/furniture paint, I’ve thrown a coat of the stuff onto the wall panels. Money no object, I would have ripped out the original skirting board and replaced this with one that had a profile more sympathetic to my panelling but to trick the eye and disguise the ugly skirting board underneath the panels then I’ve painted that green too.

First coat of paint applied to panels

First coat looks a bit streaky so I suspect it’s going to take more than a couple of coats to get that nice even finish.

Streakier than a rasher of bacon

Here’s what the panels look like after a second application, less streaks although if I had enough energy I might have been tempted to put a third coat on just to be on the safe side.

Looks better after a second coat

Overall, I feel the colour drenching approach has created a different feel to the corridor than that of contrasting white wood panels but I guess it’s just a matter of taste.

Contrasting white panels

Colour drenched finish

To round off the project, I’ll give the architraves a coat of Jasmine White to freshen them up or perhaps I should go the whole hog on this colour drenching thing and paint them green too.

Once the plumber's hung the radiator back in place then it's phase II for the corridor - flooring.

WOOD PANELS - PAINTING

It’s been over 12 working days since I left the world of employment and what was meant to be my period of self-enlightenment (POSE) has instead turned into a calamine calamity. Shingles is not something I’d recommend so if you’re eligible then please spare yourself the agony and go get vaccinated. I will be beating down my GPs door for a dose of Shingrix as soon as I hit 65 as there’s no way I’m going through all this palaver again!

If I thought my spotty nightmare was bad enough, I’ve also been fighting off a bacterial chest infection since the middle of last week. ‘Not shingles related’ said my doctor smiling sympathetically whilst at the same time running through a checklist of potential candidates for the Virus of the Year award. Low immune system was her conclusion. No wonder they call your 60s the decade of disease, it’s just one thing after another.

Of course, most people stricken with these things would be tucked up in bed resting or molly-coddling themselves with soothing hot baths, rum toddies or a plethora of paracetamol but not me – I’m painting the corridor.

Masking up the primed panels

Getting everything ready for a paint job

Thanks to a small sunny window of opportunity, I’ve actually managed to paint the corridor walls above my wood panels which are still a work in progress (a bit like my retirement).

Green Earth walls above primed panels

Two good coats of Dulux Heritage Green Earth velvety matt paint later, I can now see the contrast with the white primed panels. Looks a little too stark for my liking maybe because I made the panel sections so big.

Are these panels TOO white?

The colour contrast may have worked better if I’d made my panels more of a tall, narrow shaker style type rather than going for large squares. Still, we are where we are.

And this is where AI would have been beneficial. Imagine having a computer programme where you could create a mock up of your empty room then tinker about adding wood panels, paint, wallpapers or other decorative features. Brilliant!

I suppose interior designers may already have CAD programmes that enable them to do this but it certainly would have made it easier to visualise the end outcome of this project if I could have produced a virtual reality version of what I wanted my decorated corridor to look like.

Maybe Microsoft could invent a free interactive ‘Changing Rooms’ website for those would-be decorators like me if they’ve got a few minutes to spare.

Cough!  Cough!  Cough!  Time for a rum toddy in a hot shower.  

SPRINGING FORWARD

Hurrah British Summer Time has arrived robbing us all of that extra hour in bed although now I’ve retired, I can compensate for this loss by simply getting up at midday.  

Spring is the ideal time to begin retirement not only because we’re heading towards better weather but because you can wind up all your financial affairs neatly in line with the end of the tax year.

Remember – a prosperous retirement relies on intimate knowledge of UK tax rules. Get to know them better than you know yourself.

For PAYE employees, the end of March marks the 12th month of the financial year. For those retiring at this time of year, your final pay packet is potentially the last time you’ll pay National Insurance, Income Tax or private pension contributions. I say potentially because you may have left work but income tax is still going to dog your footsteps like a demented stalker for the rest of your days.

First on the Tax To Do list is to inform the Revenue that you are no longer in employment. This can be done easily via the Government Gateway website or App. Log onto your account, go to the page that forecasts your income for the new tax year then zero any salary estimates shown against your past employer.

If you are getting income from any other sources such as a private pension, doing this should trigger HMRC into sending out a revised tax coding notice to your remaining income providers which in theory means that your full personal allowance should transfer across in its entirety if you have only 1 sole pension income provider.

Should you be drawing down from multiple private pension schemes at the same time then the situation is a bit more complex as HMRC will need to split your personal allowance across all your income providers so you could see lots of different tax codes suddenly appearing.

Apparently, it is down to an individual to take responsibility for correct tax coding and NOT the Revenue. This makes it even more important to keep on top of this stuff because HMRC can’t always be relied upon to get things right. If your tax codes don’t look right then challenge them asap. Don’t leave it as tax matters are always harder to unravel with the passing of time.

Secondly, if you have not already used up the annual ISA allowance then max out your ISAs. Stash as much cash as you can into any ISA accounts you have prior to the end of the tax year because ANY future retirement income drawn from an ISA account is completely untaxed.

If you are cashing in any private pensions fully to fund early retirement then an ISA is where you should be depositing funds to avoid paying any future savers tax.

Thanks to auto-enrolment I have a small private pension from my ex-employer that I will be cashing in as soon as we roll into the new tax year. Rather than keep the funds invested in a pension pot, I have decided to do this because:

1) Too much volatility in the stock market at present

2) Mansion House accord forcing pension providers to move money into UK equities

3) Possible reduction or removal of the 25% tax free pension lump sum by the Government

4) Possible increase in income tax rates in the next Budget

5) Tax wrapper benefits from cash ISA account


We’re all encouraged to pop our hard-earned cash into pensions BUT what is not always clearly pointed out at the onset are the tax liabilities you incur later on when you come to withdraw funds. Let me give you an example to explain what I mean.

Say I have a small private pension pot valued at £4,000 which I wish to cash in fully. I get to keep the first 25% or £1,000 free of tax. The remaining £3,000 is taxed at 20% so you pay away £600 income tax leaving you only £2,400 towards retirement.

Suppose, I change my mind and decide to leave the pension pot fully invested and draw down regular monthly income from it instead. The same applies. After the tax-free allowance of 25% is used up, you will pay income tax on whatever you draw out every month plus you will also be liable for annual Fund Management fees on the remainder.

Once you understand the above examples then points 3 and 4 made previously become much more important. Should the Chancellor decide to scrap or lower the 25% tax free lump sum allowance for pension withdrawals or put up the rate of income tax in November, your retirement finances will be impacted.

My gut’s telling me that there’s a pretty good chance that in November, income tax rates will need to go up. Not just as a result of the current Gulf war but to make up for loss of revenue from green levies being moved out of energy bills and into general taxation, pay for cost-of-living increases doled out to politicians/benefit claimants, the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap and to fund increases in the Defence budget.

I’d rather take a small tax hit now than a much larger one if the above comes to pass. Once my private pension cash is then stashed away in its ISA tax wrapper, income can grow without future tax penalties being applied. Naturally, the Government will try to stymie this by reducing the annual ISA allowances further because the ravenous revenue hyena is not going to pass up the chance of eating more of your pie.

It’s a given that a cash ISA isn’t going to potentially generate as much income as perhaps a stock market investment will but then again, it’s a small price to pay for security of your capital and NO taxes.

Whoops I’ve rambled on. That’s what happens when there’s no word limits imposed on blog posts. Was there a point to this post? Yes. Choose your retirement date wisely. Whatever you do to fund your retirement always spread things out across multiple tax years to reduce tax liabilities and make full use of tax wrappers. Hence why I will be waiting until at least May before cashing in my small private pension.

BELLS & WHISTLES

Big is beautiful. Or is it?

Back in January 2024 I put up a post relating to ‘shrinkflation’, the popular practice of making products smaller yet charging the same price for them but get this – there’s a new sheriff in town making BIG changes.

Living in a consumerist economy where you’re encouraged to buy, buy, buy means that retailers have to continually come up with cunning ways to part us from our cash. And the latest trend appears to be quite the opposite of ‘shrinkflation’ because instead of giving you less, you’re going to be paying lots more for a whole host of unnecessary bells and whistles or larger sizing.

This all became abundantly clear during the Easter break when I was searching for buns and eggs. Something strange going on here I thought as I perused supermarket shelves.

For example, let’s take the good old hot cross bun. For the past couple of years, I’ve noticed that boring old hot cross buns have been transitioning from what essentially was a simple currant brioche into a stylised poshed up tea-cake baked in a myriad of funky flavours.

Ugh! Why can’t they just leave these things alone? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! 

I don’t want chicken tikka/bubble gum flavoured buns costing £2 plus for a pack of four, I just want the old-fashioned variety to slot into the toaster then slather in butter for breakfast. I recall a few years ago, these currant buns could be bought in packs of six costing a quid now the price has doubled and so has the flavour profile.

And eggs. Don’t get me started on these as that’s a whole new ball game too. Why charge consumers a couple of quid for a plain one filled with a few smarties when for the price of a king’s ransom, you can flog them a ‘luxury’ egg the size of a watermelon in expensive looking packaging? The goose that laid these golden eggs allegedly made of ‘chocolate’ but with less cocoa in them than a bourbon biscuit is certainly fleecing its nest from gullibility.

Buns or chocolate eggs are not the only products being upsized in a bid to part us from our wonga because the eagle has also landed in the laundry basket in the form of Ariel’s Big One. Big mess? Big money. Why stick one ordinary sized pod into your washing machine when for a lot more cash, you could just pop in a bigger one costing double? Guaranteed to clean out mud, grass stains and your wallet all in one easy flick of the wrist.

Weirdly all this tinkering about in the detergent world has annoyed me so much that I’ve reverted back to good old fashioned wash powders. One scoop in the drawer, job’s a good ‘un. No fuss, no additional scent boosters, big ones or sickly-smelling glopping liquids that can be used at lower temperatures. Much more cost effective, less polluting/plastics so environmentally better.

I’m not convinced that washing dirty clothes in temperatures no warmer than a tepid cuppa is going to shift stubborn stains or germs. It’s a jolly hot soaking for the other half’s stinky socks, crusty smalls or sweaty bed sheets.

Super scrimpers beware of these artifices designed to trick you in buying stuff that doesn’t provide value for money. I stopped buying Easter eggs years ago, preferring instead to purchase chocolate bars costing the same but weighing more. Hot cross buns freeze well so buy when on a yellow-ticket price reduction then stick in the freezer until the Easter weekend.

And a bit like Christmas, it's sometimes best to defer your Easter celebrations until after the actual event because most shops sell any leftover chocolate eggs at reduced prices so you get more for your money.  

Remember, big is not always beautiful. Big can encourage wastage. Bells and whistles will cost more but won’t always be better. Buy only what you can afford and always look out for those pennies.