Saturday 17 May 2008

Looking for 'extras'

Beloved is off on his travels in two weeks time. He is going to visit his family, attend a family wedding, and generally catch up with a home land he hasn't seen since 1985. He will be away for 3 months and during that time there wont be any building work completed so I intend to get to grips with house and garden. I have permission to get rid of anything! Ha!

But back to my point. When Beloved comes back from hols then he is looking for a little part time job to help us to clear our mortgage more quickly. At the moment he is a self employed swimming teacher and works all day on Saturday and Sunday, and from lunchtime or mid afternoon until around 7pm on the other days. He is looking for something which he can do in the mornings, maybe 25 hours each week. So with only 25 hours each week we need to look for a job that has other benefits or extras.

At the moment he teaches at the local leisure centre for 1 hour each week. He gets paid for this but better than that we also get free membership of the gym and unlimited use of the other facilities and swimming pool for all four of us. This benefit is worth about £2400 per year. The kids get particularly good use of it but we all use it from time to time.

I work full time with all the usual benefits, a good pension scheme etc (and cut price gym membership - who needs it when you can have it for free.)We also have discrete access for all family members to an advice and counselling scheme. Any family member can ring up for help and advice on a range of subjects. Counselling, legal advice, health care advice.

I have a friend at work whose wife works for 4 hours each week for a big supermarket chain (Sainsburys I think). They get 10% discount off all the products from the chain. So 10% of all grocery shopping, but also 10% of any insurance and other banking products. Quite a saving in some cases.

My dad worked for the railway and had a number of rail travel free passes for him and my mum, plus us kids when we were little. Passes are for UK travel and across Europe. When I was a little we holidayed in Europe every year for only the cost of hotel and spending money.

So our plan is too find a job with the most helpful fringe benefits. At the moment we have our eye on a job at the local DIY Warehouse, B&Q. We use a lot of building materials as our house is renovated and 10% plus an opportunity to spot any other good deals would be really handy.

Now its time to stop planning and sceming and start on mySaturday chores. See you later.

4 comments:

  1. B&Q sounds like a good idea Lizzie.

    I think once you've looked at all the ways to reduce spending then its time to start looking at ways to bring in extra money. This is exactly what I'm doing at the moment.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am waiting to see the new business launch. Are you including planning house layouts etc for people? I am desperately seeking the ultimate larder when we renovate the kitchen.
    Have a good weekend.
    Lizzie

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Lizzie the website is on my blog, its called Organised Clutter.

    I'm happy to help advise with the larder, but it'll cost you some profiteroles :)

    ReplyDelete

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