Time flies when you're having fun

The first few weeks of retirement have been strange. I really have not had any time to do anything as random people make requests on me to do things for them, thinking that I must have time to fill.

How wrong would they be. The first activity was to try to get insurance for the car. This is not as straight forward as I would have expected due to the fact that I had been driving a Company car for over twelve years and the no claims position was, therefore, somewhat vague. Add to that that the policy was third party and I would have expected a full discount. No, its not as easy as that, they considered all the cosmetic repairs I got done before buying as an 'incident' for goodness sake.

Then there is the 'convictions'. For goodness sake,  they are minor traffic offences captured by speed camera's and which make the council a fortune. They don't make somebody a high risk driver just because they have 3 points on their license, and why should insurers count them for five years, when they stay on the license for only three. Somebody is having a giraffe!

I have also read somewhere that they are now going to use the defensive driving course against you in future insurance renewals despite the fact that the police indicate they will not affect your car insurance, when offering them as an option!

Next thing is to sort out new bank accounts and other financial requirements. I did like the look of the Santander 123 account so we have started the ball rolling there. That was complicated by the Council renaming our house from 19 to 21. Proving they are the same property has stretched us too.

Investment rates are also a bit pants, with rates around 3% rapidly being withdrawn. One from Intelligent Finance which is 2.47% came with a note saying it was going down to 1.8% in February. Really not worth the trouble.

I am still working on the Job Seekers allowance  but not holding out too much hope, and may have to wedge up with Zopa to get any sort of investment return In the foreseeable future.

Then there is always the ironing, cooking and cleaning to fill in the spare time!!