Parental Leave

Today I read about the rules on maternity leave and I calculated when I’ll be on maternity leave. It’s probably from 11th of February till 20th June. I’ll have to work for about seven days…and then the six-week summer holidays start. If I deliver the baby later than 22nd March those days will be extracted from the seven days that I’d still have to work. That’s a long time, I know. We take care of our pregnant women here in The Netherlands.

However, I also read about parental leave. This differs per company. The company I work for offers a great parental leave deal. Basically it comes down to the following. My work is divided into four blocks per year. Since I work four days a week I have to work 332 hours per block, 1327 hours per year. The company offers 25% of your yearly workload parental leave at 75% pay. This applies to each child until they’ve reached the age of four. This means that I could take 1 block of sabbatical after having my first child. I intend to “save” that time until I’ve had a second child and then have a sabbatical of 2 blocks, which is one semester. I still have to talk to my supervisor about this plan. Some colleagues decide to work one day less for a year or so and “spend” the days they were given that way. I’m in favour of a sabbatical. I mean, six months off at 75% pay…I’d be crazy to pass that, wouldn’t I?!

What would you do? Do you have similar arrangements at work?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

At Least The Husband Still Has Career Opportunities

I’m 32 and for now my career is over, finished, done with. Oh well, maybe it’s a good thing now that I’m pregnant. It gives me piece of mind to know that this is it for now. I can focus on this motherhood thing.

The husband came home the other day and mentioned that he was invited for a course which will occupy him for a day per week during a whole year. After completing this course he’ll be able to do what his superior does. His superior was also the one who mentioned this course to him and really urges him to enroll. My husband still has many career opportunities, yay! My hubby is a super smart software architect and he’ll become an even smarter system architect after completing this course. Hope the kid has his genes!

I guess I’ll go now and start working on that laundry 😉 😉 😉

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Things To Look Forward To

I’m looking forward to a six-week holiday. That’s right, no typos! I only have to work this Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday’s my day off and on Thursday we have a staff day. After that I’ll be doing some more early retirement practise. I’ll start working for my employer as of the 20th of August. Oh, and I get paid during the summer holiday. Life sure is good!

My husband will take a three-week summer holiday during the first three weeks of August. In the meantime I’ll be able to put in a lot of hours for the side business. Great!

I’m also looking forward to doing the administration this Tuesday. My husband made an extra mortgage payment at the beginning of the month, I made one a week ago and my husband is going to make one within the next hour or so. The mortgage percentages will sky-rocket this month!

With all those extra mortgage payments I think we’ll be able to pay off the interest-only part of the mortgage well before the end of this year. The snowball effect is really happening here.

I am also looking forward to another frugal month. Besides the indoor skiing there won’t be any outrageous expenses I can foresee for this month. I liked frugal June and I’m sure we’ll love frugal July.

Oh, and I am also looking forward to the rest of this wonderful weekend. Today we won’t be doing all that much, besides working on the side business which is FUN.

What are you looking forward to?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

What If Every Day Were Sunday?

Today was a great Sunday. I scrambled around the house for a bit cleaning and clearing bits ‘n pieces. Furthermore, my husband and I worked on our wonderful app and we hit a milestone in that department. Also, I read a couple of chapters of a book I am reading and drank many cups of tea while I was at it. Together, we made a nice bike trip of about one and a half hours in order to enjoy the weather and the scenery. During and in between these activities we laughed, cuddled and felt really happy and fortunate with our lives.

Life just doesn’t get any better than this, does it? Combining (semi) useful with enjoyable things in one day at a leisurely pace. I was just thinking…we could be doing this every single day when we achieve early retirement. Every day would be Sunday!

I am sooooooooo looking forward to early retirement! In the meantime…we’ll just try to fit in as many early retirement rehearsal days as we can find. 😉

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

More Budget Cuts In The Netherlands

Oops, we’re in another crisis (or is it just one big one?) and our government has decided to cut the budget by another 4.3 billion. Who will suffer from these cuts?

Well, obviously our teachers and nurses who won’t get an extra euro cent extra. Their salaries are “frozen”. They have been frozen for almost four years now. Their purchasing power has been decreased by about 10% these last years.

On top of that they, and everybody else, will have to pay more taxes.

We had been living in LaLaLand up to 2008, I get that. But getting out of this damned crisis thing would be nice for a change, wouldn’t it?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

New New Government Plans

About two weeks ago I wrote this blog post about the plans our new Dutch government had come up with. The fact that people’s healthcare insurance would depend on their salaries caused an outrage in our country. We calculated that these plans would cost us more than €500 a month extra. The whole plan was very unfair since people earning €70,000 a year would be paying the same amount as people earning €100,000 a year for their healthcare insurance. So the first group would pay more in percentage compared to the latter group.

Now our new Dutch government ditched those plans and came up with other new plans. Instead of lowering taxes they’re going to increase them. We calculated that these new plans will cost us €400 a month, which is better than before. Also, it seems much fairer since the people earning €100,000 will be paying the same percentage, but a higher amount in euros.

Still, I am not very happy with this plan. According to certain newspaper articles our economy will have shrunk with 1,1% by the end of this year and we’re heading for another recession. Ouch…

What are the plans in your country?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser