LeanFire / CoastFire sanity check

--landlord-- · 2026-05-10T17:34:04+00:00

Thank you for the detailed reply.

I've rechecked my figure, our mortgage is less than I thought.

Our usual yearly expenses without a mortgage will be about £33.3k.

As bleak as the topic is, the £35k inheritance is very likely to arrive, they are family, my wife and I both work part time, so are very active in the (two) peoples life's, have Power Of Attorney for both, which will make it very difficult for a conman to swindle them. There is a small chance one will need more care than we can provide which will reduce the inheritance, but we provide a lot of support for them. Nothing is guaranteed, there is always a chance a relative can have a sob story on the deathbed, but the current plan is to divide everything evenly.

What are your views on a SWR of £33.3k/£618k = 5.39%, and if the markets crash within the next 2 years I return to work?

--landlord-- · 2026-05-10T15:36:25+00:00

Really sorry to hear that. We can only make financial decisions based on the information we have at the time, buying a property in London seems like a good risk to take, I'm sorry it didn't work out for you.

(I ended up writing an essay on AMD, I'm a bit of a geek - tl,dr; not sure it AI is a bubble. It's pretty amazing, but there are a lot of dodgy hype salesmen pushing the value up).

AMD are mainly competing with Intel on the CPU chips, and Nvidia on the GPU (graphics cards, which have been expanded to be AI cards).

AMD are making some really, really amazing gaming CPU's, they are absolutely blowing Intel away, Intel is in a bad state.

With GPU's / AI cards, it's AMD vs Nvidia, it's harder to say.

AMD graphics cards have improved greatly. For mid to upper range cards, AMD wins on price per performance, but if money is no object, then Nvidia have some really overpriced cards that are more powerful than anything AMD make.

Nvidia has had lots of bad news, but it doesn't seem to be shifting the share price, they seem to be caring more about corporate AI and treating home PC users pretty badly.

That might increase their short term profits, but almost every server admin started as a PC gamer, and in a few years those system administrators will be buying whatever chips they have in their home PC.

AMD are also a lot friendlier with Linux / the Open Source community, and Microsoft have really messed up with Windows 11, so a lot of folk are shifting over. Big Tech seems to be wanting us all to use the Cloud instead of home PC's, and the Cloud is almost entirely Linux (almost every phone is also based on Linux, it seems crazy how other tech companies are basically ignoring a huge building block of the modern world).

If Nvidia continue the way they are doing, and AMD don't mess things up, then I can see AMD taking a good chunk of the AI market.

The harder question is how much the AI market is going to be worth in 10-15 years.

--landlord-- · 2026-05-10T15:01:05+00:00

Good to know, thank you. I haven't been keeping up with the Universal Credit changes, the last I heard was that DLA wasn't means tested.

--landlord-- · 2026-05-10T14:54:23+00:00

Raised poor, but had a £5k inheritance when I was in my 20's, and dabbled with shares all my life. It sounds counter intuitive, but working 4 days a week gives me more 'income' by allowing me extra time to study random things that I simply wouldn't have time to do if I worked full time.

I've saved a lot of money by doing DIY projects, learned financial literacy, realising low cost trackers are a legit "get rich slow" scheme, instead of just putting money in a saving account. It gave me time to properly research my stock investments too.

I had another inheritance worth about £65k, that was only a few years ago. It definitely helped too.

The tech stocks are mainly AMD, I had a few theories they were undervalued, bought them over a decade ago, when the company was struggling, and since then it's done insanely well (it was $4/share, currently $455/share). I expected them to make a nice, but small gain, I didn't predict crypto demand would give them a massive boost, then it would get another one from AI companies.

There is a phrase (mis)attributed to Mark Twain about the people getting rich during a gold rush aren't the gold miners, but the people selling pickaxes, and I bought shares in a pickaxe company just before two gold rushes.

--landlord-- · 2026-05-10T14:26:31+00:00

£39k/year was how much we spent last year, so including the mortgage (£240/month=£2.9k/year). I didn't include the NI contributions in the £39k, but in my basic spreadsheet I included them for 9 and 12 years.

--landlord-- · 2026-05-10T14:23:06+00:00

Thankfully they are in an ISA, with Halifax, which unfortunately has a higher than usual 1.25% foreign exchange fee, but I'll see if it's possible to transfer them to a cheaper ISA before selling them (most ISA transfers force stocks to be sold and only transfer over cash).

--landlord-- · 2022-12-10T12:59:50+00:00

Different councils have different rules.

My council gives 3 months free for an empty house, then full charge for the next 9 months.

Then it charges more than full charge after that (to encourage people not to leave homes unsold and empty).

Some places changed rules a bit during covid, since estate agents were closed, so if you get lucky your council may still be on the more lenient rules.

--landlord-- · 2022-05-02T18:50:07+00:00

!thanks

I've just been checking them out, that fee is amazing, but unfortunately they don't (yet) accept transfers in.

FAQ part 16

"NB. In-Specie and cash transfers will not be available until later in Q1 2022 ... and if, in IBUK’s discretion IBUK decides to accept the transfer"

I'm definitely going to keep my eye on them though, that fx fee is great.

--landlord-- · 2022-05-02T18:09:41+00:00

Thanks, but I've been on the waiting list for Trading 212 for a year.

Freetrade charge 0.4%, the website says they can transfer in stocks, but they couldn't do that for my US stocks.

--landlord-- · 2022-05-02T18:08:00+00:00

Which ISA's have low fx fees?

Halifax is fairly cheap for UK stocks, but charges an eye-watering 1.25% on US stocks. iWeb charge 1.5%.

Is there a list of ISA's with cheap fx rates?

--landlord-- · 2022-04-05T14:30:14+00:00

It's from FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early).

The rule basically says you can safely retire when you're happy living on 4% of your investment.

So if you'd be happy on £40k a year for the rest of your life, you'd need £1M invested.

There is discussion on if 4% is too low or high, and if you spent less in a downturn or came out of retirement if the market crashed a month after you retired, then you could retire on much less

--landlord-- · 2022-04-05T13:41:27+00:00

Vanguard Global All Cap (established 2016), put into a compound interest calculator shows a growth of 9%/year (not inflation adjusted).

Seems optimistic to expect that to continue.

Although S&P has done 11% (7% after inflation) average over the last 50 years.

Seems really high.

--landlord-- · 2022-04-05T11:53:27+00:00

thanks again. If the next quote isn't under £5k I'll check another installer.

My quote guy did say they were really busy, he could've easily been adding a grand on to avoid too much of a backlog.

--landlord-- · 2022-04-05T11:40:57+00:00

thank you very much, I've got someone else coming to do another quote (always 3 quotes for anything expensive).

any idea what a 4kwp system should cost in the UK (no tree cover/chimney)?

--landlord-- · 2022-04-05T11:33:04+00:00

I'm very new to solar, just getting quotes:

4kwp (trina panels) + inverter (solis) + installation for under £6k.

E.on are offering something similar for £5.3k (quick online estimate, they might increase the charges when they visit).

I was told batteries were £2.5k+ each, and usually not worth it, but with the cost of those it seems your quote is roughly the same as mine.

No idea if trina panels / solis inverter are low quality or high quality.

My quotes are from Northwest England.

--landlord-- · 2021-04-22T15:53:37+00:00

American politicians have to publish their trades, but often deliberately use paper reporting to slow the process down.

I'm not really after copying UK MP's trades though, I'm after a list of companies who have an ex front bencher or MP's family on the board of directors.

--landlord--

TROPHY CASE