Employees Tips For Managers

I saw this list recently and thought our readers would like it. It’s very funny because it’s very true!

1. Never give me work in the morning. Always wait until 4:00pm and then bring it to me. The challenge of a deadline is refreshing.

2. If it's really a "rush job", run in and interrupt me every 10 minutes to inquire how it's going. That helps. Or even better, hover behind me, advising me at every keystroke.

3. Always leave without telling anyone where you're going. It gives me a chance to be creative when someone asks where you are.

4. Wait until my yearly review and THEN tell me what my goals SHOULD have been. Give me a mediocre performance rating with a cost of living increase. I'm not here for the money anyway.

5. If you give me more than one job to do, don't tell me which is the priority. I like being a psychic.

6. Do your best to keep me late. I adore this office and really have nowhere to go or anything to do. I have no life beyond work.

7. If a job I do pleases you, keep it a secret. If that gets out, it could mean a promotion.

8. If you don't like my work, tell everyone. I like my name to be popular in
conversations. I was born to be whipped.

9. If you have special instructions for a job, don't write them down. In fact, save them until the job is almost done. No use confusing me with useful information.

10. Never introduce me to the people you're with. I have no right to know anything. In the corporate food chain, I am plankton. When you refer to them later, my shrewd deductions will identify them.

11. Tell me all your little problems. No one else has any and it's nice to know
someone is less fortunate. I especially like the story about having to pay so much taxes on the bonus check you received for being such a good manager.

Savings Tip

If you’re a saver, you’ll want to make sure your savings keep you in line with if not ahead of inflation. To do that, your benchmark savings rate is 6 per cent if you’re a basic rate taxpayer. Impossible? Almost! New figures from research company Defaqto suggest that only three out of more than 1,500 savings accounts stand up. HSBC’s Regular Saver pays 8.0 per cent after tax; but note that this is a packaged account and what you pay for it pretty much wipes out the profit. Halifax Children's Regular Saver pays 6 per cent but is only available for under-16s and Santander's Super Fixed Rate Monthly Saver offers 6 per cent too; just so long as you switch to its current account.

Car Dealer Insider Info

I’m currently looking to upgrade our old family Citroen Picasso and have been talking to a car trader pal of mine who offers two great tips when buying a second hand car.  

1 - See what a car is worth by comparing it with price of similar cars on autotrader.co.uk.

2- Pick a reliable car via peachorlemon.co.uk where owners rate their cars as peaches (good) or lemons (bad).

Tax Rebate Scam Warning

I’ve had no less than 30 or so emails offering tax rebates over the past week or two; I must be on a con-artist’ list of potential mugs! According to HMRC, they’ve shut down more than 180 websites in the past three months. These sites have been sending out so-called HMRC emails confirming tax rebates. Some are very convincing. But the bottom line is that, ‘We (HMRC) only ever contact customers who are due a tax refund in writing, by post. If customers receive an email claiming to be from HMRC, send it to us for investigation.' Here are a couple of useful, related links, www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/refund-reclaim and www.hmrc.gov.uk/calcs/stc

Best Buy To Let Mortgages

I've just been offered some repossessions from a major high street bank and am currently crunching the numbers to see whether these might work as BTL investments for me and, given the quantity involved, Streetwise members. More to come on that but meantime it would be timely to set out the latest, best-buy buy-to-let deals...

The Mortgage Works, 3-year fixed rate, 5.49 per cent, 3 per cent fee, 80 per cent loan to value.

The Mortgage Works, 2-year fixed rate, 5.79 per cent, 2.5 per cent fee, 80 per cent loan to value.

Nottingham Building Society, 2-year tracker, base + 4.09 per cent, £995 fee, 75 per cent loan to value (as are the rest).

Halifax, 2-year tracker, base + 4.29 per cent, 2.5 per cent fee.

NatWest, 2-year tracker, base + 4.49 per cent, £1,999 fee.

BM Solutions, 2-year fixed rate, 5.40 per cent, 2.5 per cent fee.

The Mortgage Works, 2-year fixed rate, 5.64 per cent, 2.5 per cent fee.

Post Office, 3-year fixed rate, 5.25 per cent, £1,495 fee.

Nottingham Building Society, 3-year fixed rate, 5.29 per cent, £1,495 fee.

Post Office, 5-year fixed rate, 5.89 per cent, £1,495 fee.

All for today.  And, if the numbers crunch up well on the repossessions, I'll have more details on those for you next week.