NO WORK WEDNESDAYS

Sometimes life has a funny way of working out.

Life can be all rainbows sometimes

For ages I’ve been procrastinating over whether or not to take early retirement or maybe reduce my weekly working hours further but not having arrived at a particular conclusion, fate has now blown the whistle and handed me a red card.

Stop dithering and make a decision

A month ago, I wrote a post called Levelling Up explaining how our company was urging employees to make the ultimate salary sacrifice so that it could find the cash to pay its increased national insurance bill. The Chancellor clearly has no idea that many businesses are finding ways of offloading their tax burden onto employees. Some companies are looking to cut hours or staff, some are asking staff to consider going ‘freelance’ to get them off PAYE but hey ho, a shrinkflation job is better than no job.

No-one wants to earn less particularly in these hard times where even the cost of bog paper has gone through the roof. However, for those of us with one foot almost in the retirement camp then this situation has presented an opportunity to re-visit that Work/Life balance.

How much???????

I can’t thank ex-Chancellor George Osborne enough for the day he liberated private pensions giving us oldies the freedom to choose when to begin retirement. It’s thanks to him that I can afford to drop a few hours without feeling the pinch.

And so, I find myself blogging on my second ‘No Work Wednesday’ at a time when I should have been frantically slaving over a hot keyboard in the workplace.

What to do with my new found freedom? A whole day all to myself with only the cat for company – yippee!

Predictably I’ve started my day with a lie in getting up at 7 am instead of 6.30 am. A cuppa in bed, an additional bonus.

What’s next on the daily To Do List? Well let’s see - there’s the Tapi man to prepare for, a birthday cake to bake, some freshly painted planters to fill with compost, a half made Bluey toy to knit up, a fence panel and gate to Cuprinol, a bit of internet admin, and so it goes on and on.

Honestly, I don’t know how I ever manage to find time to go to work at all since there’s always so much to be done at home but for now, I’m going to sit back with my feet up on the lounge table and blog away guilt free while the rest of you wage slaves beaver away at your desks.