A rite of passage

This evening I am officially a grown-up. I had a meeting with a man from the Pensions Fund and as a result have acted swiftly to maximise my tax advantages in the time before I expect to early-retire. Basically it's this: I've requested that half my salary from now on goes into an AVC - additional voluntary contribution. It means the pay is tax-exempt, but I can't get at it until I retire - ie, if the plan works, in April. Then I claim it as a taxfree lump sum payment, which will mean I will have lawfully avoided paying nearly £2000 in income tax. It's also a fairly extreme way of forcing myself to save some money, and should give some idea of what life after work will be like.

And it's with the Prudential. I love the Pru ever since the surprise they gave us after Mum died. She had an old, penny-a-week, life policy with them, that had long been considered paid up. I remember the charming young man from the Pru who used to call every fortnight to collect the premiums. Mum's policy had been sitting in a cupboard with a face value of about £50. I sent in the claim and somewhere in the Pru's cupboards was their fading copy, which in the meantime had increased in value to about £2000. Mum would have loved that!