Fancy some free money?

[ian]

The furlough scheme is capped at £12 an hour for a typical working week and the National minimum wage for a 25 year old is a tad under £9. I am not sure that the furlough scheme is particularly screwed towards high earners.

Edit: I was trying to write “skewed” but my subconscious must have kicked in.

It's not skewed really, it would be progressively more shit for anyone above the median salary. On £60k, you'd be earning about half.

Of course, if you are earning in the upper quartiles you're more likely to be doing a job that can be done from home and less likely to be furloughed than someone who lops off chicken heads or puts exciting things in boxes. You can't take a conveyor belt home.

[Mrs Pingu]

If you move to a bigger house or flat, or buy one of the magic garden cabins (which I know a couple of people have done, and of course, you need a garden, unlike for parking you can't just stick it in next door's garden), that's a massive expense which has passed from employer to employee.

Back in the summer I did seriously entertain the idea of asking my downstairs neighbour if he fancied selling us one of his outbuildings that abuts our postage stamp of garden and then either insulating it to deth or knocking it down to build an office but eventually decided that over £10k would be better spent towards buying a slightly bigger property. Downside to that is that a)flats in Furrybootoon are not selling at the moment and b)it's not in a fit state to sell right now anyway. So instead I'll be freezing and burning tenners running my newly purchased oil filled heater in our loft this winter, which I decided would cost considerably less than 10 grand, arf.

(My other stupid idea is to buy my downstairs neighbours whole flat if he ever moves and put a stair case in but Pingu keeps telling me to file that one under F for feck right off).

[ian]

I read somewhere that the purpose-built garden office cabin-things are unobtainium at the moment. At least one industry is doing well out of this.

[Kim]

(My other stupid idea is to buy my downstairs neighbours whole flat if he ever moves and put a stair case in but Pingu keeps telling me to file that one under F for feck right off).

How about 'F' for "Fireman's pole"?   

[Mrs Pingu]

(My other stupid idea is to buy my downstairs neighbours whole flat if he ever moves and put a stair case in but Pingu keeps telling me to file that one under F for feck right off).

How about 'F' for "Fireman's pole"?   

Cripes, I'll have to get a lot fitter to get 'upstairs' using that!

[Kim]

(My other stupid idea is to buy my downstairs neighbours whole flat if he ever moves and put a stair case in but Pingu keeps telling me to file that one under F for feck right off).

How about 'F' for "Fireman's pole"?   

Cripes, I'll have to get a lot fitter to get 'upstairs' using that!

COMPRESSED STEAM BATPOLE LIFT

[Davef]

The furlough scheme is capped at £12 an hour for a typical working week and the National minimum wage for a 25 year old is a tad under £9. I am not sure that the furlough scheme is particularly screwed towards high earners.

Edit: I was trying to write “skewed” but my subconscious must have kicked in.

It's not skewed really, it would be progressively more shit for anyone above the median salary. On £60k, you'd be earning about half.

Of course, if you are earning in the upper quartiles you're more likely to be doing a job that can be done from home and less likely to be furloughed than someone who lops off chicken heads or puts exciting things in boxes. You can't take a conveyor belt home.

That was my point in a previous post. Commitments tend to expand to fit income. A mitigating factor with higher paid staff is that they are less interchangeable and a company may well put more cash into retaining them, but there is a limit to how long they can keep doing that for.

[ian]

It's alright, I wasn't disputing you, just PB's assertion that the scheme benefits higher earners, which it obviously doesn't. But equally, higher earners are less likely to find themselves on furlough.

[Mrs Pingu]

(My other stupid idea is to buy my downstairs neighbours whole flat if he ever moves and put a stair case in but Pingu keeps telling me to file that one under F for feck right off).

How about 'F' for "Fireman's pole"?   

Cripes, I'll have to get a lot fitter to get 'upstairs' using that!

COMPRESSED STEAM BATPOLE LIFT

Now *that* I like 

[phantasmagoriana]

(My other stupid idea is to buy my downstairs neighbours whole flat if he ever moves and put a stair case in but Pingu keeps telling me to file that one under F for feck right off).

I have similar silly ideas about buying the upstairs flat here (they actually used to be combined as one big flat before it was subdivided, so it's not even that crazy an idea!). Much like the time I lived in a terrace and the next door house went on the market - I had visions of buying it and making an amazing double house. Sadly, it cost more than 50p, so that idea was a non-starter.

[Mrs Pingu]

My idea was stupid to begin with because not selling our flat would mean not getting the equity from it. However, the bottom now having dropped out the way it has I suspect there is no positive equity in our flat now and therefore the main issue is the fact we'd have to have a load of building work done. Which I do understand would go on a lot longer than just moving house would...

[Kim]

Much like the time I lived in a terrace and the next door house went on the market - I had visions of buying it and making an amazing double house.

!  That's brilliant.  Imagine the fun you could have with Shite Couriers...

Sadly, it cost more than 50p, so that idea was a non-starter.

Bah, and indeed, humbug.

[Ham]

I used to be top right in this 20's built "homes for heroes" block of four, and dreamed of taking over the other 3. When I moved in, it cost me £21k, they're £500k a piece now.