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2025-03-26

Week 220: Boring grown-up stuff

I’ve been doing a lot of financial admin as it’s the end of the tax year. In one sense, it’s boring grown-up stuff, but I also find it reassuring to feel that I’m in some kind of control.

Having the UK tax year end on 5 April is the curious result of a series of historical oddities, but in many ways I’m glad it doesn’t match the calendar and that I don’t have to squeeze it all in around Christmas.

I spent time working out how much extra I could put into my pension, thereby helping my near future self (with a smaller tax bill) as well as my far future self.

I never had a job with a pension. My first few full-time jobs didn’t offer pensions, and at that time, they didn’t have to. In my second job in London, my employer offered a pension and contributions in theory, but the process to get it set up involved talking to a financial advisor who seemed more interested in getting me to sign up to a life insurance scheme, and it never happened.

There was a brief moment when I could have had a workplace pension, towards the end of my time at GDS, but if I stayed for less than some period – a year, I think – they’d cancel it and return the money. (Eventually: it took some of my colleagues years to get that sorted.) I knew I wouldn’t be there that long – and indeed I wasn’t – so I opted out.

It wasn’t until I was 40 and had my own company that I actually set up a pension. After about seven years of putting a significant proportion of my income into it, even with recent economic chaos, I’m now in a fairly good position. In fact, it’s probably better than if I’d been setting aside a standard amount every month since I was a boy.

I think it’s a ridiculous way to run a society, to force us all to gamble our future comfort to provide liquidity for the various schemes and devices that make up the late stage capitalist economic system, but I still have to do the best I can to live within this system today and in whatever world exists in two or three decades’ time.

We booked a holiday in a few weeks time using Byway, a travel agent who specialise in flight-free trips. Booking all the transport and accommodation is stressful and time-consuming, so I was very happy to pay someone else to do it – although I think it cost no more than it would have to do it all ourselves. We’ll be going by train (plus one bus leg) to Bordeaux, Bilbao, and San Sebastian, with a night in Paris on the way back.

I’m looking forward to it. Between the pandemic, buying a house, and renovating a house, we’ve only had one proper holiday away together in the past five years, when we went to Australia in early 2023.

I extended my contract. I’ve managed to find a balance that doesn’t involve spending all day in meetings, and I making some progress in getting some of the organisational things fixed, so I’m staying for now. In any case, my contract specifies no notice period at all, so I’m not trapped there if I change my mind.

We watched the last episode of Severance season 3. I find it very enjoyable from and aesthetic point of view, and I love the weirdness and depth of mystery. I have some theories about where it could go next season, but those would definitely be spoilers.

Links:

• A court orders the dissolution of the Unification Church in Japan. All because Shinzō Abe was murdered by someone with a grudge against the Moonies. Violence does work, sometimes?
• permacomputing: “There are huge environmental and societal issues in today’s computing, and permacomputing specifically wants to challenge them in the same way as permaculture has challenged industrial agriculture.”
• A Society That Lost Focus. “If we want to claim back our focus and our brain cycles, we will need to walkaway and normalise disconnected times. To recognise and share the work of those who are not seeking attention at all cost, who don’t have catchy slogans nor spectacular conclusions. We need to start to appreciate harder works which don’t offer us immediate short-term profit.”
• Exeter’s unassuming Co-op worker leads double life as ‘Lord of the Logos’. The man behind those jagged metal band logos.
• How do animals sound across languages? Analysis of animal sounds using IPA for easy comparison.
• How to Avoid US-Based Digital Services—and Why You Might Want To. I already know why I want to!