Changing Situations

Today (April 1st) marks the day that I start at my company as a permanent employee, and also that day that I cease to be a full-time contractor, at least for the time being, anyway.  It’s brought about an aura of uncertainty, not because I’m unsure of what I’m doing, but because of that fact that taking a paycut is often hard to justify.

I’ve had the choice though, to stay on contracting and miss out on possible bonus’s, promotions, as well as all the normal benifits like holidays, sick pay (hooray, I can take a day off again) and private health care.  I’m hanging on to the thoguth that whilst I was getting better money contracting (by no means, fantastic money, mind you), with the holiday and sick pay, I’m not that much worse off.  And I found about a fantastic little nasty called Employer’s Natiional Insurance Tax, which for some reason I was stupid enough to have been paying myself, missing out on the grand total of almost £1,000 cleared cash in hand per month.

This is what I’ll be expected to wear to the office, now that I’m permanent

Renewed Motivation

But the worry at the change in career path has renewed my motivation to pursue out of work projects and whilst I’ve had a couple of fairly unproductive months, I think I’m well back on track down the path of success. At least I hope so, anyway.  So far I’ve:

• 75% completed the first of the ShanCo projects, an experiment in collaboration, team work and fighting the good (SEO) fight to thrive for a win in this web world.  I can’t say too much because not only would that ruin the surprise, I’d be sure to dissapoint as well.
• started to draw up plans with an old mate from University;
• and done the same with some friends from work, thinking about a couple of huge ideas one of the guys came up with that could quite likely revolutionise the London Texas Hold’em scene as well as a couple of other ideas as well.  If I can help, that is!

Budgeting & Finance

Another thing I did, whilst fretting about the incoming financial situation was draw up a quick budget for the next few years.  I’m amazed time and time again, just how much money we waste, and how easy it would be to save a fair chunk if you put your mind to it and watch out on the frivilous bar rounds (£36 on five drinks on Saturday night!).  I’ve found in the past if I’ve had something that i’ve needed to save up for, drawing out a budget and clearly working out exactly much we needed to save, and exactly how much we can save if we stick to the money we intend to live on each week.

It’s probably a no brainer for most, and a sign of immaturity, but sticking to my money guide, which took me about 20 minutes to knock up in Excel should help in this matter, especially when I consider all the things we’re going to have to pay for in the next few months, such as the Big Event and the nicely priced Holiday to Russia in July.  Hell I’m going to enjoy my holiday pay though!