How much do bank holidays cost in your family?

Jagraf

About 100 miles worth of petrol (coming back from rellies). Made all the sarnies for two weeks and froze them. Painted the outside fence (found the paint in the shed). Hand washed the car. I save money on bank holidays lol.

greensalad

Burgers and buns £4
Halloumi £2

Sat in the garden and enjoyed the sunshine, until it started raining. Decamped to indoors to finish the last of the burgers!

onlyroz

BarryBlue wrote: »

Couldn't agree more. We rarely go anywhere as the traffic is always in chaos. Bank holidays are a throwback to when we were dictated to by the religious lobby and had to take Easter, Whitsun etc as holidays.

If bank holidays were scrapped then we would only be entitled to 20 days leave per year instead of the current 28. All-in-all I'd prefer to keep the extra 8 days...


As for our spend, we didn't go out on Monday but we went to Wakehurst on Sunday. Cost: £10 for parking (ouch!), £20 for lunch, £10 for tea and ice-creams, and then I spent £22 in the shop on plants and a birthday present for my dad. Not sure of the fuel cost.

BarryBlue

Jagraf wrote: »

They could be scrapped - no need to keep them at all - it would save companies a lot of money. You don't need to add these days to people's holidays at all.

Well, yes you do. The current situation with many employers is that you get X days leave, but some of them must be taken as bank holidays. It is just a throwback to the dark ages of religious influence over such things.

onlyroz wrote: »

If bank holidays were scrapped then we would only be entitled to 20 days leave per year instead of the current 28. All-in-all I'd prefer to keep the extra 8 days...

No you wouldn't, as I've explained. No reason to tie the days to specific dates at all.

onlyroz

BarryBlue wrote: »

Well, yes you do. The current situation with many employers is that you get X days leave, but some of them must be taken as bank holidays. It is just a throwback to the dark ages of religious influence over such things.



No you wouldn't, as I've explained. No reason to tie the days to specific dates at all.

Nope. EU law specifies 20 days plus the public holiday day count is the minimum. If we had no public holidays then we would get 20 days.

BarryBlue

onlyroz wrote: »

Nope. EU law specifies 20 days plus the public holiday day count is the minimum. If we had no public holidays then we would get 20 days.

That is irrelevant to what I'm saying. My contention is that all bank holidays should be made available to take when you wish rather than have them tied to old religious festivals which mean little to most people. It would surely help the economy by not forcing places to close for these days, and would mean we could avoid those appalling traffic snarl-ups.

onlyroz

BarryBlue wrote: »

That is irrelevant to what I'm saying. My contention is that all bank holidays should be made available to take when you wish rather than have them tied to old religious festivals which mean little to most people. It would surely help the economy by not forcing places to close for these days, and would mean we could avoid those appalling traffic snarl-ups.

It is entirely up to your employer as to whether you are forced to take off the bank holidays or not. If your employer makes you do this then take it up with them rather than ranting about it on here. My point still stands, though, that if the bank holidays didn't exist then your statutory right to annual leave would only be 20 days and not 28.

And aren't Easter Sunday and Christmas Day the only days when some places are forced to close?

Jagraf

BarryBlue wrote: »

That is irrelevant to what I'm saying. My contention is that all bank holidays should be made available to take when you wish rather than have them tied to old religious festivals which mean little to most people. It would surely help the economy by not forcing places to close for these days, and would mean we could avoid those appalling traffic snarl-ups.

Sorry BB it isn't irrelevant. Your argument would only stand if we just got rid of bank holidays and the religious 'nonsense' associated with them (or your employer did). You can't have it both ways. You could then work on bank holidays and take your 20 days when you wish. You would just lose 8 days. I'm sure lots of companies would be up for this too.

BarryBlue

onlyroz wrote: »

It is entirely up to your employer as to whether you are forced to take off the bank holidays or not. If your employer makes you do this then take it up with them rather than ranting about it on here. My point still stands, though, that if the bank holidays didn't exist then your statutory right to annual leave would only be 20 days and not 28.

And aren't Easter Sunday and Christmas Day the only days when some places are forced to close?

Jagraf wrote: »

Sorry BB it isn't irrelevant. Your argument would only stand if we just got rid of bank holidays and the religious 'nonsense' associated with them (or your employer did). You can't have it both ways. You could then work on bank holidays and take your 20 days when you wish. You would just lose 8 days. I'm sure lots of companies would be up for this too.

It seems that neither of you are grasping the point here. Of course you wouldn't lose days, you would get the same but not have to take them on tied dates. Sorry if that simple concept is eluding you.

My wife gets 30 days leave plus about 6 bank holidays. We would prefer it if she got simply 36 days whenever she liked. We could have an extra holiday then. Perfectly simple.

onlyroz

BarryBlue wrote: »

It seems that neither of you are grasping the point here. Of course you wouldn't lose days, you would get the same but not have to take them on tied dates. Sorry if that simple concept is eluding you.

My wife gets 30 days leave plus about 6 bank holidays. We would prefer it if she got simply 36 days whenever she liked. We could have an extra holiday then. Perfectly simple.

I think you need to do some reading up on the Working Time Regulations (1998) and then the 2007 amendment. It's dry reading but you'll find all the info here:


http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/contents/made
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2007/2079/contents/made


I think we've actually got the trade unions to thank for getting us the extra 8 days.