The other day I got that little notice in the mail of how your superannuation is going. I’ve not worked for the last year because my old job was cut due to finances, so I really didn’t expect to see much in there. Because I’m still young, I’ve had a few jobs and not bothered taking superannuation details over from one job to the next, so I’ve probably got three different superannuation accounts. Anyway, on at least one of those, I’ve watched it decline for a very meagre £50 – ridiculous I know! – to nothing, as it’s been eaten up with fees. Pooh pooh.

The last job I worked, however, was for a University – the University I attend, actually! – and their superannuation people are of a higher quality, one of those industry super funds, so they don’t pay out money to people for referrals and all that sort of shadyness. I opened up the letter, expecting to see the balance have dropped, but it actually went from £808 up to just over £1000!!! Isn’t that great! I’ll continue to use this fun whenever I get a job from now on!

It’s so fantastic to know that the superannuation company your account is with actually has notably good pension schemes that you can rely on. I didn’t have any insurance at the University I worked for, as I was a contract worker, but they did have some sort of group health insurance, which I think covered us if something happened whilst I was at work, but I never really found out.

When I’ve finished my degree and I’ve got a good job, I definitely want good health insurance included, with a sizeable contribution to my superannuation, and paid maternity leave for me and paid paternity leave for my fiancé. We’re not 100% sure we want to have children yet, but if we do then we want to know that both of us have the option to take time off. I think it’s becoming more widely accepted, too. I don’t expect six months paid, but three would be good.

Okay now for a knitting pattern! In keeping with today’s topic, I’m going to include this Lined Zippered Knit Coin Pouch!

Okay so whilst I don’t think I am going to be investing any time soon, I did put some research into the subject, and rather than wasting all my time, I figured I would share some of the sites that seemed helpful or whatnot here. I figured the best place to start would be investment news, its something you should know about if you are going to invest. You would also need to know which kind of investing you want to go for, there’s the stocks, bonds, and equities – so, the Market, basically – or you could go the way of more tangible investments and invest in agriculture. You could also invest in foreign currencies, which may require an offshore banking, or you could invest in a whole bunch of other things, but those were the ones I found quite quickly.

Okay so now onto what got me so distracted… Isn’t laughing great? Don’t you find that if you hear someone else who is genuinely mirthful, that you can’t help but laugh? Well I do, and that’s why this video that my fiancé showed me was such a laugh to me. I showed it to some people I know and they all thought it was a hoot too! Do yourself a favour and watch this, especially if you are feeling grumpy or down, like I have been, because I’m chronically tired lately.

For today’s knitting pattern, I think it should be something equally complex as all that investment stuff… so the Aeolian Shawl is the one for today! This is such a pretty shawl, and I love learning new techniques, and I like the inclusion of beads in this pattern. I’ve never done anything along those lines, so it is an even better pattern for that!

I have been looking into what I would need, and it is somewhat daunting. From what I can gather, I think I would need to investigate leased line providers, and make sure that I am in an area that has business SDSL availability. I think there are quite a few broadband companies around at the moment, so I could shop around for a good deal.

That’s all if I chose to have my own website, but I would be concerned that I wouldn’t get enough traffic to make it worth while. I could just have a shop on Etsy and then I am much more likely to get traffic, but I also have fewer options to make my part of the site stand out. The more I think about doing this, the less inclined I am to do it. I think that I may hold off on this for a while, until I am much happier with what I make, and have a stockpile of really unique items.

As for really unique items, this isn’t a knitted one, but rather a crocheted one, but this is one of those really unique patterns that needs to be looked at. A Beholder, as in D&D Beholder, crocheted amigurumi style. I wouldn’t personally make this, but it is still very unique!

Now, what I was going to write of today. I have been considering for some time the idea of selling my wares. Little things I make, wheat packs, knitted scarves, certain items of clothing, that sort of thing. What I have been pausing about was whether it was worth it to do this out of my home to people in my community, or to do this online. If I do it in my own community, then I have to get a secondary phone line specifically for that, I don’t want to tie up a phone that my fiancé has to share with me. That would also mean another phone, and having to decide which of the telephones and cordless phones to choose between. I hate having to find those sorts of things! I just asked my fiancé and he said the Panasonic KX phones are alright, especially the ones that come with an inbuilt answering machine, so I would never miss an order and I wouldn’t have to get any call logging or anything. I don’t know how to get a second phone line set up in the house, I would have to ask a telecoms companies about it.

Then there’s the net option, which I will include in the next entry, as I don’t want this one to be mammoth sized!

As for today’s knitting pattern, I think it will have to be a cute little cap with leaf motif. I can’t wear these sorts of hats, I look ridiculous, but they are still cute.

I’ve found a few places on the internet to keep an eye on things of this nature. I am going to this site here to find out about property prices, and the BBC News has a groovy page that you can check house prices in different areas. Of course, I will also be keeping an eye on property news and such.

I know there are also real estate forums, but I can’t really bring myself to read through that sort of thing. I just want the news, rather than personal opinion. I’m really not interested in any of those quick house sale things, they don’t seem on the up and up! It should be interesting to see where the market goes from here though, I mean, everything has been so changeable since the financial crisis really hit.

Now on to today’s knitting pattern. As I’ve mentioned before, I love faeries, and as this entry here is on houses, why not a knitted house for faeries!? Technically this is a felted bird house handbag, but I think it looks more like a faerie house! I don’t actually like handbags – I know that’s strange for a woman – so I have a leather back pack that I am hoping will carry me through to at least sixty years of age, but I would like to knit this little house up as a box to keep little bits and bobs in, like bobbins, stitch counters and stitch markers.

So, my fiancé and I were talking about what we are doing with this year’s tax returns… firstly, we are saving a large portion of it to put away for a house, and to improve our credit ratings as we save, so by the time we are taking out a home loan, we have fantastic credit. We know the banks aren’t as free with loans as they were a year and a half ago, but nor are they as restrained as they were six months ago, so things are looking good there.

We also want to just leave a portion of it in our bank account, to take care of any surprise expenses. We do this every year with a percentage of our tax returns, and has been quite fortuitous on a number of occasions. We’ve also joked about an offshore bank account, but we don’t think that’s really necessary, I doubt we’ll have to go on the lam at any point, and that’s the only good reason I can think to have one at this stage in life.

Now, after all that, there are a few expenses to be paid up, and then, after that, there is some left over, probably around a hundred pounds, and that is all for me to go get fabric and yarn… with that sale, can you imagine how much fabric and yarn that is!? I am so excited! It’s like Christmas for me when this store has this sale, they have some of the loveliest fabrics. Their jersey is some of the nicest I’ve ever seen for sale, and they have some lovely wool flannel. They also have great faux fur, which works really well for this cute little cape pattern.

As for today’s knitting pattern, Rebecca Danger of Bunny Nuggets fame has put up another awesome pattern, this time for Monster Chunks. I must say, I can’t wait to have stacks of these awesome little critters on my desk!