Leaving the rat race after COVID

[mikeiow]

ElectricSoup said:

As soon as I can fking can I'm selling my south-east family home and using the equity to buy a handful of rental properties for cash and live off the income. I shall be doing that living in rural France (and no, Brexit fans, you haven't fked that up for me because I'm a Maltese citizen, and I speak fluent French, spend a lot of time there already and know what I'm letting myself in for), with a second hand motorhome for trips around the continent when the mood takes me. 6 years till the children are out of school - that's the earliest I can press the big red "fk YOU" button, but realistically 6-10 years down the line. Would be much, much sooner if we'd never had bin lids.

Can not wait.

You okay hun?

But seriously - you sound pretty angry about things: why not look to move sooner if the UK upsets you this much? France has schools too!
eta: I don’t understand your last comment about bin lids...

My son speaks fluent French and lived (studied) in Lyon for a year. Beautiful city....but the UK has many fabulous places as well, and France is not without it’s own problems. Oh, & he was not impressed at all with their schooling (certainly the Uni level he was in), so maybe you do want to hang around a bit longer

Maltese? Not thought of heading back there? Aside from the traffic he’ll that is around the capital, we loved our week there 18months back (went for a wedding).

Edited by mikeiow on Saturday 11th July 10:20

[Whistle]

Bin lids = kids

[supersport]

At the start of Lockdown our CEO was very anti WFH and was looking towards getting back into the offices.

His tune has changed a lot since then and I suspect he has seen how well the business has done. A lot of us are now more productive and with lower costs.

Apart from our office, I think for London and the US offices most people commute and no-one wants to go back to that anytime soon.

I miss being with friends and colleagues but am in no hurry to go back any time soon.

I can’t see office life going back to how it was for a long time and if no vaccine comes along, then maybe never.

If this happens then it won’t matter where you live and work. Maybe things will be fairer and more evenly distributed. Who knows.

[cooper2000]

What I can not understand as why as a country we are investing so much money in a high speed train network joining London to the North when we have such uneven internet connection across the country. With the change in working life and video calls then surely investing in fibre technology across the whole country would be far more beneficial for the whole country. Sadly there are still areas in the country where you can not even stream TV viewing due to such low download speeds.

[tighnamara]

cooper2000 said:

What I can not understand as why as a country we are investing so much money in a high speed train network joining London to the North when we have such uneven internet connection across the country. With the change in working life and video calls then surely investing in fibre technology across the whole country would be far more beneficial for the whole country. Sadly there are still areas in the country where you can not even stream TV viewing due to such low download speeds.

Discussing that with a work colleague the other day, must be a no brainier to the government that their strategy needs to change to ensure high speed Internet connections throughout the country.

Surely that is the future rather than folk jumping on a train at 6 in the morning..........

[Condi]

cooper2000 said:

What I can not understand as why as a country we are investing so much money in a high speed train network joining London to the North when we have such uneven internet connection across the country. With the change in working life and video calls then surely investing in fibre technology across the whole country would be far more beneficial for the whole country. Sadly there are still areas in the country where you can not even stream TV viewing due to such low download speeds.

To be fair, 97% of households can get 30Mbps as of now, and the target is everyone will have access to gigabit internet by 2025. In lots of rural areas there is significant investment going in, and they're upgrading straight from 2Mbps to gigabit. It's not one or the other, we will have fast internet and a high speed railway.

[red_slr]

Condi said:

cooper2000 said:

What I can not understand as why as a country we are investing so much money in a high speed train network joining London to the North when we have such uneven internet connection across the country. With the change in working life and video calls then surely investing in fibre technology across the whole country would be far more beneficial for the whole country. Sadly there are still areas in the country where you can not even stream TV viewing due to such low download speeds.

To be fair, 97% of households can get 30Mbps as of now, and the target is everyone will have access to gigabit internet by 2025. In lots of rural areas there is significant investment going in, and they're upgrading straight from 2Mbps to gigabit. It's not one or the other, we will have fast internet and a high speed railway.

Yes round here the ground works for FTTP started about a month ago. Its UK wide roll out slowly over next 5 years.

[Johnnytheboy]

Dunno if my situation resonates with anyone else that was furloughed.

I'm not a big earner like most of you, I get about 25k but for that I have to work pretty hard mentally and physically, and worse I have to manage six people. I should add that I also earn about 13k p/a rental income too.

Payslips on Furlough for me opened my eyes to the fact that the fifth day a week I work nets me a princely ~£50 after tax.

I'm 47 and it is starting to hurt. I also spend one day a weekend sorting my father's garden/life out so effectively get a day to myself a week.

So I surprised my manager with a flexible working request asking to go down to four days a week next spring. As we find ourselves overmanned due to the downturn and she is asking my staff to reduce their hours she can't really reasonably refuse.

I can't fking wait.

[mikeiow]

Whistle said:

Bin lids = kids

Ahhh....cockney slang from a Maltese

Ha - if we hadn't got 'bin lids' we'd be meeeeelionaires......but emotionally much poorer

[anonymous-user]

Johnnytheboy said:

I get about 25k ... also earn about 13k p/a rental income too.

... the fifth day a week I work nets me a princely ~£50 after tax.

Yes, the "top slice" of earned income can take a kicking.

• £25k p.a. for a 5 day week = £5k gross a day
• 20% taxpayer plus 12% NI so top slice of earned income "taxed" 32%
• 5,000/100 x 68 = £3,400 net p.a. for working that 5th day
• 3,400 / 52 = £65 net per 5th day worked
• The cash figures will be lower if you're making a pension contribution, but you would get good value for that.

[hyphen]

All you work from home advocate, just wait till they drop your salaries citing your reduced costs...

That 20% additional salary for Inner London weighting will also go...

[Condi]

hyphen said:

All you work from home advocate, just wait till they drop your salaries citing your reduced costs...

That 20% additional salary for Inner London weighting will also go...

I don't really see that line of logic. Why does my salary relate to costs, and what costs? If the company is saving 50% on office costs that is extra money which can used for salaries.

[hyphen]

Condi said:

I don't really see that line of logic. Why does my salary relate to costs, and what costs? If the company is saving 50% on office costs that is extra money which can used for salaries.

Email your CEO and tell him you want a cut of the savings

[Robertj21a]

hyphen said:

All you work from home advocate, just wait till they drop your salaries citing your reduced costs...

That 20% additional salary for Inner London weighting will also go...

Probably still well worth it.

[vulture1]

Johnnytheboy said:

Dunno if my situation resonates with anyone else that was furloughed.

I'm not a big earner like most of you, I get about 25k but for that I have to work pretty hard mentally and physically, and worse I have to manage six people. I should add that I also earn about 13k p/a rental income too.

Payslips on Furlough for me opened my eyes to the fact that the fifth day a week I work nets me a princely ~£50 after tax.

I'm 47 and it is starting to hurt. I also spend one day a weekend sorting my father's garden/life out so effectively get a day to myself a week.

So I surprised my manager with a flexible working request asking to go down to four days a week next spring. As we find ourselves overmanned due to the downturn and she is asking my staff to reduce their hours she can't really reasonably refuse.

I can't fking wait.

I'm about the same income levels of you and have rental income similar. I work in retail managing a slightly bigger team but I dropped to a 4 day week about 2 years ago at the age of 33. The difference in work life balance is massive Feels like im never far from a random day off or a block of 4 or 5 days off.

It may come to an end soon as departments get combined and redundancies happened which is real unfortunate with corona going on as my hand is much weaker to just walking away from the company.

[Skyedriver]

Condi said:

To be fair, 97% of households can get 30Mbps as of now, and the target is everyone will have access to gigabit internet by 2025. In lots of rural areas there is significant investment going in, and they're upgrading straight from 2Mbps to gigabit. It's not one or the other, we will have fast internet and a high speed railway.

Isle of Arran 4
Oban 4 on a good day
Richmond, N Yorkshire managed to get about 7 after a long fight

[chip*]

Condi said:

hyphen said:

All you work from home advocate, just wait till they drop your salaries citing your reduced costs...

That 20% additional salary for Inner London weighting will also go...

I don't really see that line of logic. Why does my salary relate to costs, and what costs? If the company is saving 50% on office costs that is extra money which can used for salaries.

From my reliable source (Front Office Management), discussion on reducing the compensation package for new joiners has already taken place for a top tier IB company. I expect top revenue generators won't be affected. According to my source, it's just a matter of when to implement / timing to be finalised.

Edited by chip* on Saturday 11th July 20:47

[cooper2000]

Having coverage based on population is not really relevant to people living in the countryside - what will make the UK more balanced and equal opportunities for all is uniform coverage over the whole country. People can then choose where they live I was shocked at some of the speeds in some of the villages in Lincolnshire. It is not fair that these areas do not have access to speeds and therefore opportunities as others. Just my opinion as for sure the world has changed and I believe that every area of the UK should have the same access to the internet.

[ILikeCake]

ElectricSoup said:

As soon as I can fking can I'm selling my south-east family home and using the equity to buy a handful of rental properties for cash and live off the income. I shall be doing that living in rural France (and no, Brexit fans, you haven't fked that up for me because I'm a Maltese citizen, and I speak fluent French, spend a lot of time there already and know what I'm letting myself in for), with a second hand motorhome for trips around the continent when the mood takes me. 6 years till the children are out of school - that's the earliest I can press the big red "fk YOU" button, but realistically 6-10 years down the line. Would be much, much sooner if we'd never had bin lids.

Can not wait.

You're very angry, are you a Maltese Cross?

[Condi]

chip* said:

From my reliable source (Front Office Management), discussion on reducing the compensation package for new joiners has already taken place for a top tier IB company. I expect top revenue generators won't be affected. According to my source, it's just a matter of when to implement / timing to be finalised.

Most jobs are paid on the basis of the money they bring in and the profit they make for the firm. That is independent of being in an office and so for the most part it won't affect salaries. If one firm drops their salaries the staff will simply go elsewhere.

Also, even within the IB/Finance/Trading worlds there have been moves to and calls for more flexible working and a better work/life balance for a few years now. All Covid has done is speed up a transition which was already happening. If any business thinks they can pay staff 20% less and expect them to accept a cheaper salary to live in Sheffield might find they don't get the same quality of applicants as other firms.