This Business and Moment...

That would scare me, because subconsciously there would be be an expectation that I should be delivering the same as people who are working 5 days a week (and getting paid more than me). In some jobs, you'd end up doing nearly as much work for less money, although I appreciate it might be different in construction. The analogy I always fall back on is the coffee shop barista; if they have a day off work, they don't come back to a queue of people out the door and a backlog of drinks to make. But in IT, it sometimes feels like that.

Where I used to work, there was a lady who worked 3.5 days a week (and was paid as such). I was part of the leadership team that met to calibrate performance reviews and it was concerning that some felt she should not be considered "successful" in terms of performance rating. In my mind, if she delivered 70% or more of what a successful person working 5 days a week did, then she should also be considered successful or higher (that's not to say if she was rubbish she should get a free pass of course).

To be honest, in the past I've actually wanted to work more hours for more pay, e.g. go from 35hrs to 40hrs because I had more than enough work to fill that time. Essentially just get paid for some of the extra hours I was doing anyway.

I usually do more hours than I'm paid and I don't get overtime either - I think it's an unfortunate trait that one gets into.

You're right though it opens a can of worms, I guess it only works if it's all or nothing or if things are explicitly laid out / agreed to so people don't feel snubbed.
 
The pension contribution to lower taxable income is an interesting one, and something I am looking at at the moment with a view of our QOL isn't going to be massively improved by any future wage rises to an extent so it may be worth increasing pension% contribution as they take effect in order to keep taxable income the same but more importantly, accelerate the build up of the pension pot / maximise the impact of compound interest. Hitting 33 next year and do often look at the balance between pursuing early retirement vs having more disposable income in the present with raising kids etc.

In my opinion if you can afford to keep your current income and raise your kids and enjoy a decent life (holidays, nights out, good food, home maintenance etc...) then rather than put it all into savings I'd focus on pensions, certainly if it means slightly earlier retirement or at least better QOL later on. That said I'm not a tax or wealth manager - definitely worth exploring though :)
 
The pension contribution to lower taxable income is an interesting one, and something I am looking at at the moment with a view of our QOL isn't going to be massively improved by any future wage rises to an extent so it may be worth increasing pension% contribution as they take effect in order to keep taxable income the same but more importantly, accelerate the build up of the pension pot / maximise the impact of compound interest. Hitting 33 next year and do often look at the balance between pursuing early retirement vs having more disposable income in the present with raising kids etc.
Definitely do it if your QOL isn't impacted. You've also got S&S ISAs at £20k a year to make sure you maximise, too. Compound interest on a fairly low risk investment there should net you at least 8%-10% per year - which REALLY adds up.
 
I usually do more hours than I'm paid and I don't get overtime either - I think it's an unfortunate trait that one gets into.

You're right though it opens a can of worms, I guess it only works if it's all or nothing or if things are explicitly laid out / agreed to so people don't feel snubbed.

I try and balance this as best i can, but it's tricky.

My boss regularly reminds me to take time off in lieu of hours worked. The issue is i'm sometimes apprehensive to actually do this.

My main tactic is that <5hrs per week i just accept as part of life, but then anything above that i try and make a note on timesheets so that i do actually claim back the time. Often though my later nights are due to timezone issues with the US, and i try my best to combat that with longer lunch breaks where i might go for a 90 minute run, combined with a shower and actually eating makes it a 2hr lunch.

I imagine i'll be more reluctant to do much over my standard hours on days i'm in the office though as travel time will really cut into that.
 
Definitely do it if your QOL isn't impacted. You've also got S&S ISAs at £20k a year to make sure you maximise, too. Compound interest on a fairly low risk investment there should net you at least 8%-10% per year - which REALLY adds up.
Where is this magical low risk 8-10% year?
 
Yep, S&S ISA maxed out is a no-brainer for me - then again the last month has been interesting!
I think I will do it with this years wage rise, we can adjust contribution on a monthly basis anyway so if things change then can always adjust for a period of time - I'll think of it as delaying a wage rise with hopefully a large post retirement impact.
 
Overpaying pension is something I've historically overlooked for various reasons, like being interested in moving house and not wanting to have funds locked away. In hindsight, having not moved house, I should have pushed it a lot more.
I've just started a new job, and am considering doing huge overpayments to try and get taxable income below the child benefit threshold. I understand you can backdate the pension allowance a few years so if you haven't put £40k in each year you can carry it over to current year. The marginal tax rate between £100-125k is ridiculously high as they start eroding your tax free allowance, it's actually a higher marginal rate than the top rate of tax (In other words a pay rise from £100k is a lot worse than a pay rise from £150k in terms of the impact on take home).
 
Overpaying pension is something I've historically overlooked for various reasons, like being interested in moving house and not wanting to have funds locked away. In hindsight, having not moved house, I should have pushed it a lot more.
I've just started a new job, and am considering doing huge overpayments to try and get taxable income below the child benefit threshold. I understand you can backdate the pension allowance a few years so if you haven't put £40k in each year you can carry it over to current year. The marginal tax rate between £100-125k is ridiculously high as they start eroding your tax free allowance, it's actually a higher marginal rate than the top rate of tax (In other words a pay rise from £100k is a lot worse than a pay rise from £150k in terms of the impact on take home).
66% effective and you lose your childcare, so net cash benefit is really poor.
 
66% effective and you lose your childcare, so net cash benefit is really poor.

Yeah you have to balance between the fees of the 15hrs you're losing out on for childcare and whether it's worth it. That's definitely a big motivator for people with young kids. For most it makes more sense to do the salary sacrifice.

Don't do what I do and forget to cancel child credits when I had our first and got a promotion, ended up with a 3k tax bill as a result :(
 
Yeah you have to balance between the fees of the 15hrs you're losing out on for childcare and whether it's worth it. That's definitely a big motivator for people with young kids. For most it makes more sense to do the salary sacrifice.

Don't do what I do and forget to cancel child credits when I had our first and got a promotion, ended up with a 3k tax bill as a result :(
Yeah the only reason I was clued up is because my colleague explained a story exactly like yours so I was hyper aware to it :cry:
 
Yeah the only reason I was clued up is because my colleague explained a story exactly like yours so I was hyper aware to it :cry:

Well I thought, I've paid into the system so long, might as well get some back! Apparently HMRC don't automatically cancel certain benefits when your PAYE statement comes in! Who knew? :D:cry: 18 months I forgot about it..... :o:(
 
I swear there was someone else on here that had the same thing happen to them as well! Sneaky buggers those HMRC folk!

Well because I do tax returns I declared everything in there (despite being paid through PAYE - but that's another story), I'd have thought they'd have seen that my circumstances had changed - it wasn't clear that I had to cancel the benefits as I had started them years before my change of circumstances. It wasn't a nice surprise.

So as a warning to anyone that gets benefits, or anything from the government... make sure you phone them whenever you get a pay change (rise / fall) or any other things happen like inheritance etc... Not that they make it easy, last time I was on hold for 33 minutes :/
 
So as a warning to anyone that gets benefits, or anything from the government... make sure you phone them whenever you get a pay change (rise / fall) or any other things happen like inheritance etc... Not that they make it easy, last time I was on hold for 33 minutes :/

Yeah, i feel awful for my wife working in payroll as i constantly hear her on the phone to HMRC and it's such a painful process.
 
I've become disillusioned with my current role.

The culture at the site where I'm based is "numbers, numbers, numbers" (pharma manufacturing) but basic things are not right. I've spent 14 months trying to put processes in place to fix the fundmental issues but things fall off, stop getting done or are just done poorly. It's endemic within the site and other leaders are quick to pass it off with lots of emotion "herrrr derrr we must do this blah blah", it'll die off within 6 months.

It's now got to the point where I feel like I'm becoming the bad guy for expecting a higher standard and because my role (senior manager) is heavily reliant on working with other senior managers to fix these problems, I end up taking more and more on my shoulders to "get it done" because I can't rely on getting help.

Meh.
 
66% effective and you lose your childcare, so net cash benefit is really poor.
Not something I have to deal with for another 2 years but for this one I worry that my bonuses would drag me back in even if I do ramp up my pension contribution. Paid out quarterly so a big one based off Q4 of the calendar year could have me back to losing childcare again.
 
Just read a frustrating conversation about new starters. The IT and a couple of other managers want to do face to face inductions again now that the office has been refurbished but a handful of the managers are saying "what if they're unwilling or reluctant to come into town"? Stating it's not very inclusive or flexible to have in face inductions... Whilst this has nothing to do with me as my team is full, it seems excessively namby pamby to me. You've signed an employment contract, your manager wants you to go into town for an induction... what's wrong with that? Admittedly this is not for office-based people, but field based people, but still...

I don't mind having more flexibility, but now new employees are telling their employers what they expect / want to do...

Maybe I'm a dinosaur with regards to this, but it seems a little daft to me.
 
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