f4f3 | You can't buy time, but you can sell your soul...

...as Mr Prefab Sprout put it a long time ago.

Well I have bought some time - 5 days to be exact. And it only cost me 5/260ths of my salary.

This is the time of year when we pick and choose which of the company's "benefits" we want to buy. I use the quotes, because anything I need to pay for is a purchase.

Last year I used this to finance a new bike in the "Cycle to Work" scheme, and agreed to pay an additional 2% of my salary into a pension, meaning I pay 5% in total. For this I also get private medical insurance (whch I don't want) and some insurance policies. I must check if they've been mis-sold to me.

Apart from that, I've never really bothered about the other benefits on offer, but this year I decided to a week of extra holiday in return for a week of salary (or, actually, 60% of a week's salary, I think - since I don't pay tax on those days). This may be a result of my advancing age - I want to spend less time at work, but in the past the extra money has always seemed more important. On the other hand, when I was a contractor I always tried to arrange a month or so between new engagements.

So next year, taking in eight public holidays, I'll have 38 days holiday.

This makes me happy...