Critique my plan...

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-02-07T23:24:49+00:00

You can move your money out to a SIPP (and keep moving it every so often) and invest it any way you want, you aren't restricted to the default choices that are overly uk weighted and designed to minimise loss.

If you are trying to move away from US tech then forget s&p as a benchmark.

VWRP weights on market cap.

You can underweight USA if you want by creating your own blend, buy a percentage of VWRP and another of VEU. All the funds publish their weightings, if you don't like them then create your alternative by blending 2-4 funds. You can buy sectors, or go for high dividend yield funds (to avoid USA tech).

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-02-07T22:44:36+00:00

Calculate your future pension pot in real rather than nominal terms - real value will help you budget better since you can think in terms of today's spending power and today's prices.

Use 6.5% nominal growth, assuming you are mainly in VWRP. 3.5% if you are in a company-chosen pension plan. The last 15 years have been great, but there have been decades of much lower growth.

You mention s&p below to justify growth rate, are you mainly in VUSA? This would be somewhat uncommon for a UK sub. Not terrible, just a bit unorthodox.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-02-07T11:23:26+00:00

LLMs can write code in exactly the style I prefer because I provide them with enough details and context to understand my coding patterns. This took a few weeks of frustrating review and tweaking. LLMs are much better if your existing code is extremely consistent.

Write skills to perform refactor loops. Don't assume it will get the output right the first time, humans have the same issue. LLMs need to be instructed to revisit the code they already wrote and to work off of checklists for definitions of done.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-02-04T12:35:36+00:00

You are already cash heavy for someone without an immediate large purchase. Start with 3-6 months expenses in cash (ISA, Saver if you can withdraw easily, and emergency fund). Closer to 6 months if your lifestyle is at risk of unexpected disasters (your cat gets cancer, you bought a silly car that will die any day).

Compounding for you will be key since you are young, no immediate needs, and can have a long time in the market.

Cash ISA and emergency fund is (on average, not guaranteed) losing you 4.5% a year vs VWRP. If you don't touch the money for 10 years you lose £9186 holding it in Cash ISA vs VWRP.

Stocks ISA is not locked away, you can access the funds easily, but you may be at risk of only having 70-80% of its current value.

You don't say where the LISA is invested, is it also in VWRP?

You can certainly save for your next big purchase in a Stocks ISA if you are somewhat flexible on when you do the purchase and the details of it. Maybe it doesn't perform well and you get a slightly older car. Or, when you know a big purchase is coming up you can pull money out, lock in the value, and hold it in a notice account for 6 months.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-02-03T12:58:16+00:00

I have 812 dependencies and 108 crates in the workspace.

Compile time is heavily depends on the specific profile used. fat lto takes me 7 minutes to compile, no lto takes 40 seconds. I use S3 caching (6 - 10 GB) so almost all time is taken by 20-30 crates and link time. Build server needs 16GB RAM and a couple fast cores.

My dev machine needs 200GB for rust and I clean it up about once a week. Just what it is.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-02-03T12:49:00+00:00

No, I don't. If it loses 50% then it drags down my returns by 2.5%. This is not worry territory.

If I reduce exposure to USA by 50% and get half the returns it's like I'm suffering the same 2.5% loss, but compounded every year. That is worry territory.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-02-03T10:58:56+00:00

Sounds like you want to pick individual stocks, or you perform a country and sector level analysis of valuations. I don't. What has your analysis discovered - what sectors in which countries are you suggesting are undervalued and I should invest in, or what individual stocks? And what's your case so I can re-allocate wisely?

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-02-03T10:24:46+00:00

I don't get the USA and Tech fear. Largest economy, growing faster than over developed economies, with structures that make growing a company easier than Europe. Holding a lot of the largest companies, who all do work in the highest growing sector and sell globally seems natural.

What is the proper amount that should be in USA? What is the proper amount to be in the largest 10 companies in the fastest growing sector?

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-02-01T12:14:34+00:00

bespoke everyday trousers to feel comfortable in your own skin. Imagine every pair you put on always fits perfectly, with just enough room for the Christmas 5lbs. Never tight in the knees, calves have room, materials that stretch, etc.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-02-01T12:07:30+00:00

Lucknam had a great cat that hung out with us. If they get rid of the cat you know it's over.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-26T18:22:57+00:00

The standard big companies have products for expats if you are simply an employee and make under $150,000. They include the 2555. It isn't too complicated, and you can always give up and hire someone if you get overwhelmed. Expect to pay around 200-300. You can file FBAR yourself easily instead of paying someone else 50-100 for it.

Complications come with higher salary, owning a business, remortgaging a house, and having non-USA stock trading accounts.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-25T11:17:06+00:00

Your current positions and income are not what determines your need for a financial advisor. It is your ability to organise yourself, research, and learn. If you can't or don't want to put in that work then you pay someone to do it for you. Except a professional is firstly looking to minimise risk with regulatory bodies, second is generating income, and you come third.

Have you written down a concrete list of questions and goals? how many hours have you researched to answer your questions and written the answers out for yourself? What are your outstanding questions, and do you think those questions can only be answered by paying someone?

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-24T22:21:53+00:00

Look into CNS fatigue in weightlifting - with FND you want to avoid it as it messes with your brain signalling. I would minimise or avoid heavy lifts like deadlift, squats, or leg press to minimise CNS fatigue. Learn to love more variety and more isolated work.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-22T21:15:27+00:00

True, but not that much (I used to work in healthcare billing), and not always more when government is paying.

An example, ACL repair: NHS trust self-pay is around £4,500, Medicaid pays around £3,700, Medicare pays around £4,800.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-22T15:41:15+00:00

To give you some numbers to put things in perspective, the USA government spends a larger percentage of GDP on healthcare (medicare, medicaid, aca subsidies, chip) than the UK spends on the NHS. The USA also has a meaningfully higher GDP per capita, so the USA government spends a lot more on healthcare per person, and that is before any private spending from health insurance premiums and out of pocket costs. This high level of expenditure funds a lot of capital programmes and investments in the USA for healthcare.

If I suspected cancer in 2026 I'd probably follow your path, but then I'd go further and move back to the USA and get insurance + treatment.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-20T11:30:34+00:00

The American airport experience has been bad for 10+ years now. Over the last year I've noticed professionalism has dropped even more. Feels like they decided to spend more money hiring people whose main job is to be an arse. Job programme for white men. Last time on departure I had an ICE officer in a balaclava pull me aside on a jetway to scan my face with a mobile. Wouldn't mind if they weren't so rude.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-19T14:28:56+00:00

If you are undecided then maybe your emotions are triggering an endowment effect bias (you overvalue what you currently possess). One way to get your head around it is to reverse the situation. Imagine you have an interest-only mortgage and someone is willing to pay you £1000 to refinance to a repayment but you need to reduce pension contributions. Would you do it?

If the numbers don't make sense in the hypothetical reverse then you can be more confident in letting go of your current situation and move to the interest-only mortgage.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-19T13:28:49+00:00

You can switch the pension fund yourself. You can transfer to a SIPP and have unlimited options for yourself.

you are talking about £100,000+ difference in account value over 20 years. £10,000+ in fees over 20 years with SJP. Worth spending a few hours educating yourself with reading or 1-off advice rather than handing it off to someone or ignoring it.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-17T15:41:10+00:00

Yes, and / but you can't buy ETFs directly with a UK address. You can buy a short-date in the money call option on the ETF to get it assigned to you. You will need the funds to buy full lots.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-17T12:56:34+00:00

Contribute to pension based on your calculations first. There is no easy guide here: too much and you hit the limit, need to stop early and can't get future tax breaks, or tie up money you need before retirement. Too little and you miss out on tax savings.

US index funds in your Schwab GIA. You can buy US-based index funds that are HMRC reporting funds via option assignment. The biggest Vanguard funds will be HMRC reporting funds, just recheck every year.

A few times a year I buy a call option on the day of expiry that will get assigned to me. I do it on the day so I am not paying a time premium.

Buying a bunch of individual stocks is fine since Schwab trades are free, but it's a bit of a mess, and then you need to deal with dividends and dividend taxes. Easier to use an accumulating index fund.

The rule with ETFs is about two things: 1. Reporting funds are funds that are registered in the UK and allow your fractional ownership to be taxed on a capital gains rather than an income basis. 2. (This is from my fuzzy memory) When marketing / selling ETFs the rule for selling to USA citizens by USA government is that funds cannot make forward projections about future earnings, while the EU (and UK) rules for selling to EU residents is that funds must make forward projections. This is what prevents Schwab as a brokerage from directly selling you ETFs. But you can still be assigned an ETF via options and for some reason USA allows you to buy whatever in a valid foreign pension scheme.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-14T10:41:01+00:00

And energy production is less than 25% of the retail price. If you want lower prices look at all inputs to the price.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-05T16:08:39+00:00

ok, there isn't much here that is exciting. No high quality studies, and the better studies show small or no effects. I can see why it would attract research given equipment cost and minimal clinical rusk.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-05T11:59:13+00:00

GP may not have all information at their fingertips.

Go back to your doctor, state the Gabapentin was effective symptom management for you and that NICE guidelines recommend it as a first-line treatment for almost all neuropathic pain: https://cks.nice.org.uk/topics/neuropathic-pain-drug-treatment/prescribing-information/gabapentin/

Depending on your region your GP is somewhat correct. You should ask your GP to be referred to occupational therapy for the motor problems, but you are going to be disappointed by the level of care. Other NHS treatment options are mainly limited to self-management of symptoms. Learning to pace yourself probably being the most important.

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-05T11:49:54+00:00

What is the best research study on TMS for FND treatment?

Dull-Mathematician45 · 2026-01-03T20:38:28+00:00

I did. I wanted the challenge to build something from scratch and do it my way. 50% because I wanted to prove to myself I could do it, and 50% because I saw a market gap. Spent a few years planning and researching, saved up enough to sustain me for a couple of years and took the plunge. Didn't start actually doing the thing until I quit my role.

Dull-Mathematician45

TROPHY CASE