About Me

Llantwit Major, Wales, United Kingdom
I am mother, librarian, avid reader, sf fan, writer (unpubished), singer(amateur), animal lover, needlewoman.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Hello

Why start a blog? Lots of others do, so, why not?

Hello out there. I have spare time at the moment because I have just finished Part 1 of the exams to become a recognised indexer and member of the Society of Indexers. This is part of my long term plan to supplement my income when I retire. After a long number of years working in local government, when I do retire in 5 to 10 years time my gilt edged, luxury pension - the rolls royce of pensions, will be way less than the minimum needed to take me to the poverty line of £10,000 per annum. If I retire at 60 I get £7000 a year, if I work till 65 I get £9000 pa. Hey - the luxury of a pension. It is true that civil service and local government pensions - being final salary pensions - are good, however the final salary pension is only ever really as good as the actual salary and the vast majority of local government salaries are crap. The majority of local government employees are on a low salary so after 40 years paying into a pension half of a little is still only a little.

That being so, as my partner B retires next year, I want to be able to retire before 65 so we can have some quality time together, and I am hoping that indexing will give me a freelance job which will earn me some money to plug the gap between being able to survive and not.

That is the plan anyway.

However as I have just sent off my first exam I have some spare time and hence the blog. We shall have to see how it goes.

2 comments:

oreneta said...

Just what is indexing?

Helen said...

Compiling the index at the back of books. It is one of those things like proof reading that sounds easier than it is. The title of the blog is an indexing /librarian play on words. You can file things word by word or letter by letter and it makes a difference to the alphabetical order which things are in.