The Black Bullet goes on test tomorrow. We’re off to the new office, in Banbury, to attend a pension review meeting. Yes, that’s right, even rockers make pension arrangements, but this doesn’t mean selling out, oh no, not when the company matches a percentage of the personal contribution.
Some of the guys at work are of the opinion that pensions aren’t going to be worth anything when they retire and they just about live on what they earn anyway, so no deal. I suppose they think if they earned a bit more they might be able to afford it. I couldn’t say but if my pension is worth half the combined contribution it’s still worth it. I can console myself by thinking it’s only the company’s money that went down the pan. As they say in Romania, if it’s only money, it’s cheap (thanks to Fat Tony for that one).
When Poz was born we took out a Child Trust Fund (CTF), back then the government was also giving out free money in the form of a £250 CTF voucher. Thanks to this and the generosity of his extended family Poz chalked up an impressive £750 stake in his first two years. The CTF has done well to date, better than my puny speculations, and he is so near the beginning of his life that he’s closer to the end, if your belief is in oblivion either side. To keep things fair, I have to find another £750 to invest for Child #2.
One night, before Poz was even born, I 'hid' a monkey in a unit trust, because I had it and I liked the sound of it, Jupiter Ecology. Little did I know but the markets were on their knees at the time and my 500 quid grew rapidly as things improved. I made 40 percent on it in two years, providing the stake I need for Child #2. It was beginners luck, for sure, but it sparked my interest in investing. I began to realise what the banks were up to, with their mingey sub-inflation level returns on our savings.
Some people might find it a bit distasteful talking openly about money. They might even try to hide knowledge of their income like it was their balls hanging out. Why is this? I guess you’d hide your balls if they were too big or too small, or really ugly in some way. I don't know about the latter but if your income is embarrassingly big, there are a number of simple solutions based on the same precept: ditch some of it, preferably in favour of those that have too little. It’s no more complex than that and I could even imagine it being good fun, like letting your balls hang out. It’s a cliche but giving it away is probably still the quickest route to freedom, which, as everybody knows, is another word for nothing left to lose.
If your income is too small, or you're just about doing okay and can only see poverty in all that hippy talk, earning more money or making what you’ve got go further might be your preoccupation. This would arguably be the lot of Everyman. Veiled modesty or not, big income earners often say it’s ‘the deal’ that keeps them going - they love the cut and thrust of business more than the money. If this is true, some of these guys must be on course to amass more wealth than they can usefully spend. Then I guess they develop a taste for the same top notch stuff they had before but now encrusted in diamonds, to keep that aspirational feeling.
It all begins to look like a self stoking cycle and what I can now say for sure, is, I know exactly what you’re thinking...It’s like a magneto-based ignition system, isn't it? Money makes money like sparks make more sparks, it's a beautiful system when you think about it like that.
