Cycle to Work 29 May 08
Back in January, when I was still very new to my current company, I sent an email to our local Human Resources representative, Sonya, asking if the company ran a Cycle to Work scheme or if they’d consider setting one up. (I briefly mentioned this in February). Well, at the start of May came the announcement that a Cycle to Work scheme was now available for all permanent UK employees of the company!
If you haven’t encountered a Cycle to Work scheme before, its a tax incentive that works by employees ‘hiring’ the bike of their choice from their employer, paying off the cost of the bike, via salary-sacrifice (i.e. from their pre-tax or ‘gross’ pay), over the course of 12 or 18 months. At the end of the term of the scheme the employee can then pay a nominal ‘fair market value’ fee to take full ownership of the bike.
Given, that the hire cost is deducted from your pre-tax pay, so the net cost to you is reduced, and the employer can deduct the VAT of the purchase price of the bike, the end result is that you can save about 40% on the the retail price of a bike. Its a fantastic incentive to start commuting by bike, as if rising fuel costs weren’t enough on their own.
I’ve heard that (including myself) 10 out of the company’s 70 UK employees have signed up for the first run of the scheme. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but at over 14% it beats the 10% that the scheme organisers (Halfords) consider a ‘good response’. What’s more, several other employees have apparently expressed an interest in joining the scheme during the next opening in November.
Although, it was my email that started the ball rolling, I really can’t take any credit for this. Right from the start Sonya was very receptive to the idea and it was her hard work that pushed the scheme through all the layers of red tape in both the HR and Finance departments.
Still, it hasn’t stopped me from smiling about it.
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Posted by Nev in Going Green , Transport with tags bike, commute, cycle, cycle to work, transport
What? May? Where? 29 May 08
The month of May just seems to have flown by, but the lack of posts on here hasn’t meant we’ve been doing nothing. Far from it, in fact.
The major highlights of the month (some of which I’ll cover in more detail later) were my company’s announcement of a Cycle to Work scheme, my 31st birthday and the start of the work to fit a wood-burning stove in our living room.
In completely uninteresting news, we managed to get to the cinema twice this month, probably doubling our total number of visits since Ben was born. Life in the fast lane, eh?
Posted by Nev in Life with tags birthday, cycle to work, may, wood burning stove
Over A Barrel - Oil Prices Continue to Rise 23 Apr 08
Last summer, I mentioned on here how updating our central heating timer was saving us money and oil. We finally had to order home heating oil in September, having been expecting to need more oil any time from March onwards. I’m glad to be able to say that the trend has continued over the winter, when previously 900 litres of oil would have lasted us from November to March, our refill from September is only starting to run low now.
Unfortunately, there is a downside to ordering oil less frequently – when we do finally need more, I’m shocked at just how far the price has risen. From memory, I paid around £350 for 900 litres of oil back in September. This week, I’m being quoted £480 for the same quantity. Its only a few years ago (4, maybe 5) that I remember paying £200 and thinking how expensive that was.
Its not just heating oil either. One of local papers was recently speculating that petrol could reach £1.50 per litre (that’s $11.26 per US Gallon) by the summer, meaning that driving is going to be a lot more expensive too.
So what are we to do? Well, in the short term there’s not a lot we can do but pay up. However, with plans brewing to fit a wood-burning stove in our living room, I’m certainly going to be looking into if/how we could use that stove to heat the rest of the house or provide hot water. Not only would it save us money, but wood has a much shorter CO 2 cycle than fossil fuels so its better for the environment too.
On the transport side of things, I received some good news today but its not quite public yet. If you’ve been following my previous posts you might be able to guess, but if not, I should be posting about it in the very near future.
Posted by Nev in Going Green , Money with tags driving, heating, home, money, oil, transport
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