Friday, March 16, 2007

Cash in hand, cash in bank

Well I put the cheque for the amount I did have into the bank so I can at least pay off some of the loan.
Just had a call from Alan he's talked to the insurance company and they said they would compare my claim with Jasons and get back to him. I'm not in any rush but I would like it sorted at some point.

Also its the last day to put my uFlex benefits. I'm going for Private Medical, Personal Pension, Season Ticket loan and the Cycle to work scheme.

The Season ticket loan is after tax, and quite large (plus three grand) as I'm travelling in to London from my Parent's, but interest free.

The Personal Pension is pretty much a continuation of the 8% contribution the company was paying into my scheme before all this flexible stuff started. The two main differences are its paid monthly so if you quit you don't lose back to the last six month payment and two I'm putting extra 3% which will replace the additional payments I was making from my bank account. The advantage of this is that I save the National Insurance Contributions and don't have to do extra paper work to get the tax back.

The Cycle to work scheme lets you save the tax and NI but you have to buy a bike. I my case, with my knee, this isn't as mad an idea as it seems.The knee is fairly stable now and the motion of riding a bike is fairly straight and won't stress the knee too much. And I have to do some exercise because I'm doing zero at the moment. It seems actually to be a bit of a shock to the system, if you suddenly stop being very active (like stop ski every day) you're body can't work out its energy levels very well and it can play havoc with your sleep patterns.

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