Wednesday, 19 July 2023
Today was spent looking at my pension. I need a new car and I’m going to withdraw some funds from one of my pensions to pay for it. However as with many things in life withdrawing money from a pension isn’t as easy or straightforward as you would hope. There’s an endless list of warnings the pension companies make, telling you not to withdraw anything as it will seriously impact what you will receive in your retirement. This is of course to cover their backs so you can’t sue them in the future when you find you have no money left in your pension. Then there’s the tax implications as although you’ve already paid tax on the money you’ve paid into your account they want to take more off of you and class your pension as taxable income. So, after hours of searching through page after page of information on the internet I sent off a form to the government pension department asking for a full statement for all my pensions and sent a message off to moneywise, a free government advice service, for advice on the tax implications of my taking some money out of one of my pensions.
After doing everything I could with my pensions I felt tired and the headaches started once again, so I went back to bed for a nap and to try and sleep off the headaches. I woke a couple of hours later still feeling tired and still with a headache. I felt like staying in bed but made the effort to get up and go for a walk around Queensbury. It was a beautiful evening with clear blue skies, a gentle breeze, and lovely views of Yorkshire as far as the eye could see. My hip was stiff, so the pace was slow, but I was glad I made the effort to get out as it was worth it.
It took me nearly an hour to walk just over 3 miles which by my standards is very slow and when I got home it was too late to do any uni work, so I watched TV for an hour or so and went to bed with a headache.
The Autistic FellRunner 