Starting a new job; DFW advice?

Two9A

After all my moaning about job finding, I finally landed a short contract (couple of months). Just one problem: it's a fair whack in terms of distance, so I'll have to get up early.

So what I'm looking for is ideas for packed lunches that can be prepared in 10 minutes at 5am, when my brain's totally offline. Also, I had a chat with the umbrella company servicing my finances, but they didn't explain the whole tax-deductible expenses stuff too well, so I was wondering if some kind knowledgable person here could explain that in a bit more detail.

And: any ideas on how I can entertain myself in a car for 2 hours each way? Listening to the entirety of the Today programme may sound appealing, but it probably won't be after a month or so :rotfl:

crawley_girl

How about you make your lunch the night before?

How about listening to books on cds - loaned from library for pence?

Just my thoughts

:heartpuls CG :heartpuls

mountainofdebt

making the packed lunch is a really good idea.....I tend to make everyone's once I've washed up after the evening meal.

What about renting lingaphone cds?

Mind you I have to admit I missed listening to the Today programme when my radio was recently off line!

Two9A

I never actually thought of making the lunch the day before. Perhaps because if I stick it in the fridge or something overnight, it'll get Wet Und Sticky (has happened before). I'll pop over to OS, see what the lovely people have for me in terms of cheap packed meals.

As for the audiobook thing, it'd be a nice idea if I had a CD player in the car. That said, I'd never rent from the library (far too much cost involved), when I can get the stuff public-domain off the Web

hypno06

If you have any sort of pasta, rice or cous cous dish the night before, keep some of it back for lunch the next day. Bung it straight in a tub, throw in a couple of tomatoes or tin of cheap tuna, boiled egg etc and voila, a very filling salad with hardly any prep.

Alternatively, cous cous only takes 5 mins to cook from scratch, so you could do this in the morning. Plant some mint in the garden because adding fresh mint to it makes all the difference.

Good luck with the new job and the commute.

bobbie78

Why don't you just stay in a hotel or a b&b in the week when your away from home and you can put that in as expenses to your umbrella company. It isn't an expense that you claim back from your new place of work, but it is an expense the umbrella company can use (they get the money back out of your taxes as I understand it) that or you should be able to claim 40p a mile for the first 10k miles then 10p a mile after that. Depends on how much you like driving I guess, you should confirm with the umbrella company you are using you might be able to do a bit of both so have a couple of nights in a hotel and a couple of days driving just so you're not too knackered.

Just make sure you keep receipts for everything also (like petrol, keep a note of your mileage, any food etc you claim) as even though you might not need the receipts for the umbrella company to claim stuff back, you will need a copy in case the inland revenue ever want to see them for up to the next 6 years I believe.

Also when choosing an umbrella company the rules are changing in april so make sure it isn't a "managed ltd that pays dividends" or a composite company, well basically any sort of umbrella that pays you part in dividends from april will cause you a bunch of problems. If the umbrella company is any good they should advise you of this anyway.

I'm still learning about this stuff too I'm in no means an expert, but you might want to sign up for http://www.pcg.org.uk/ (or see if your umbrella company will give you a discount on joining eg 15% off) they have lots of new starter guides and there is a forum once you're a member where you can ask questions about all sorts including ir35 etc (the bit I still am struggling with).

Hope this helps you a bit. Feel free to pm me if you have any questions, like I said I'm quite new to this too though so I might not know the answer, but I can tell you which umbrella I'm with and which ones to avoid.