Monday 11 May 2015

Ducks in the sun

The chickens, ducks and geese are enjoying the sunshine as am I. Sil has cut lots of the grass with only one section left to do.
Had a letter from the tax office this morning saying we had to pay a fine for a late payment. We gathered up our folder and girded our loins for a visit to madame at our local office. We will be able to refer to her as tu soon as she is nearly family. The dusty box did not come out and she was impressed to find out we had filed our return online already.
So, opening again the folder for 2012 and the letter. Turned out she had forgotten to send the letter so cancelled the fine if we paid today. We wrote out a cheque straight away. That put 2012 to bed, finis, complete, superbe! So to 2013....... Yes we owed money, due in June. She cannot promise we will get a letter but must pay it by June 15th. So now we know to go to the office if no letter arrives and pay. Then 2013 will be finis, complete, superbe!
Ah but what about 2014? She found our forms online, had a look and found an error. We had declared our private pensions twice. Good for France, bad for us. She adjusted the figures and we signed the correction. When do we pay this we asked? September she said.... We may get a letter but may not.....at last we understand......if no letter arrives go to the tax office and ask if we can please pay our tax! By October of this year we should be up to date with a system we finally understand! Awesome!
On the green front...today I made the laundry soap mix and a general cleaner. I washed a floor with hot water, white vinegar and a few drops of lemon essential oil. I have ordered a pack of vanilla beans to make vanilla extract. Another money saver. I am slowly getting there.

5 comments:

  1. Glad I don't live in France - the tax system sounds too awful to be tolerated.
    We just had everything over to our accountant and pay the bill -
    I shall be interested to see how your cleaning products work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My only recommendation about any Tax system, is DON'T JOIN.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was gifted some lovely vanilla beans from Tahiti. One has gone in a big jar of sugar and I use this sugar whenever a recipe just needs a bit of vanilla flavour - very successful. I also put some in a small jar of vodka to make pure vanilla essence but for the moment this is not quite so successful.

    Are you buying the ingredients for your cleaning products in France or ordering them from the UK .? I can't seem to get what I need in France so any tips welcome.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I find stuff on Amazon uk and .com. Quite a bit of my stuff comes from America which is not good for distance travelled but they are happy to ship here unlike many UK sites. Not sure what customs thinks of the weird stuff coming through. I just google what I want and see what comes up. Usually Amazon can do it

    ReplyDelete
  5. I got. Lovely present from a friend who went to Madagascan on a cruise, the most amazing vanilla beans, they are so soft and squishy, nothing like the ones you get in the shops, amazing stuff, made wonderful vanilla extract with them.

    ReplyDelete