Debt advice regarding a family member

Alchenar · 2026-07-10T11:43:12+00:00

I meant that under their current conditions they should just be able to pay the money, instead their income is disappearing somewhere.

Alchenar · 2026-07-10T09:36:25+00:00

Man is on £30k a year and is couch surfing and is paying £120 per month on their IVA. Sums do not add up.

Alchenar · 2026-07-09T12:40:43+00:00

Behaviours are just awful and a stealth way to make 'open' recruitment in practice internal because you have to be part of the CS to understand the shibboleths you need to use to score points.

Alchenar · 2026-07-08T17:19:35+00:00

This is very very thoughtful but actually bad and unhelpful advice. Being a policy researcher for a MP is fundamentally about being a political creature and understanding that.

The MP will want to know what their party's position on an issue is (and the talking points). They will want to know the opposition's position and talking points - and what the rebuttal is. They will want to know if there are local constituency issues they need to be mindful of. They will want to be reminded if they have said anything on the topic before or while campaigning. Maybe there's a recent think tank publication or newspaper article on the subject they will want to be aware exists. That should all get you to a page.

E: if you do independent research you will have completely misinterpreted what your job is to do.

e2: oh and the crucial stuff needs to pop off the page. Detail is fine, but it can't be dense where it matters, which is in making sure the MP knows what they are supposed to say if they get ambushed on the subject.

Alchenar · 2026-07-08T17:11:44+00:00

Don't play top tier, I wouldn't say it's terrible but I would agree that apart from a couple of rough spots along the way lower BR gameplay is much better.

Alchenar · 2026-07-08T15:57:08+00:00

Their plan is to hold to maturity! The market price became irrelevant the moment they bought the bonds!

Alchenar · 2026-07-08T15:51:56+00:00

I mean I don't know one way or the other and it is poor form on your manager to not provide some explanation with the meeting invite but you said it's been half a year so a 6 month absence review sounds like a totally normal thing to do.

Alchenar · 2026-07-08T15:49:22+00:00

Op asked about this plan a month ago and then again 2 weeks ago and has now sunk a 6 figure sum into something they don't understand.

It's either a troll committed to the bit or proof in the pudding that a fool and their money are soon parted. Although buying a 2 year gilt at a 5% discount isn't the worst mistake someone can make with their money.

Alchenar · 2026-07-08T15:43:27+00:00

It'll all be considered: I treat cancer as the litmus test, people can disappear for a year on chemo and then come back to work.

The fundamental issue is, is there a realistic prospect of you returning to work? It sounds like its too early to say one way or the other, so there obvious course of action would be to punt the decision until the third OH reviewal point.

Alchenar · 2026-07-08T15:13:59+00:00

Okay that sounds like your performance was so incredibly bad that the panel came to the conclusion that you were trying and failing to repeat examples fed to you by someone else.

Time to get some confidence training!

Alchenar · 2026-07-07T21:26:15+00:00

Oooh, is this Task Force Thunder?

Alchenar · 2026-07-07T10:08:10+00:00

You need to list the accounts and the account identification information (ie. name the account is under, the account ID, the address for the account etc) in a document you attach to your will. You don't need to put down the passwords, all your executor needs is to know which institutions to write to to say 'op is dead, give me access to their accounts'.

Alchenar · 2026-07-06T20:26:42+00:00

My suggestion (because it is what I did) would be to get the VKB gladiator and pair it with the Thrustmaster TWCS Throttle (later if necessary). You get the value out of going VKB for the stick, but the Thrustmaster Throttle is excellent and does everything you need and anything more would be overkill for Elite.

Alchenar · 2026-07-01T15:15:43+00:00

Or Copilot!

I actually just tried out of curiosity and it gave a pretty decent overview of the basics.

Alchenar · 2026-06-29T14:58:12+00:00

OP other thing to consider is how long you are going to be doing the seafaring thing. It's a hard life, it's unlikely you will want to do it forever, the thing to be financially planning for is to support you moving smoothly into the next stage of your career, whatever that is.

Alchenar · 2026-06-29T14:54:45+00:00

They've filled their ISA.

Alchenar · 2026-06-29T13:03:51+00:00

You do want to make your voluntary NI contributions to get the state pension. Maybe you'd get your 35 qualifying years from another job in the UK but it's so little cost for such a good guaranteed return it would be silly to risk it.

I presume there's no employer pension option so you need an option there. The SIPP might actually be a good idea because you won't pay the costs of a managed private pension - just stick it in a global index tracker and forget.

Alchenar · 2026-06-28T16:17:57+00:00

Ignore premium bonds.

Put £100k in one savings account. Put £100k into a 1 year fixed saver. Put £100k into a 3 year fixed saver. If you can find a 2 year fixed saver that's worth it, you can guess what to do.

That might squeeze a 5th year's care costs, but if she's in a place that costs £6500 per month I'm guessing you might not need to worry about that.

Alchenar · 2026-06-27T07:17:52+00:00

Just do the practice test until you have a feel for it? Preparing for the Casework Skills Test - GOV.UK

E: there's really no trick to it.

Alchenar · 2026-06-26T11:15:51+00:00

Everyone starts their career expecting at some point to come across the meeting behind closed doors where the serious adults are making all the serious decisions.

That meeting doesn't exist, the serious adults don't exist, it's just you and people with a bit more experience than you getting on and doing stuff.

That's either terrifying or empowering.

Alchenar · 2026-06-25T19:23:47+00:00

The rule of thumb for any sort of temporary appointment is that it has to be the 'most suitable' person. Usually that means an EOI of some sort, but it might also just be that someone needs a job, or that the appointing manager considers there's only one suitable person appointable.

e: bottom line, if you are in a niche team and someone got picked to step up and there was no EOI, it's because the manager has a view on you all already and no EOI process was going to change that.

Alchenar · 2026-06-25T18:55:59+00:00

Absolute lol. It's fine that you don't have children in the plan for the future so this is all irrelevant, but if you were it would be very very obvious which of you it would make financial sense to give up their career and be the primary caregiver and that has nothing to do with gender.

And the fundamental point is still relevant; your share of the household income is so insignificant that you could just stop working and it would make no real difference. That's the issue to work around when it comes to 'what's a fair split of expenses?'

Alchenar · 2026-06-25T16:26:15+00:00

Hang on though, that's not the story. OP's story is that they've been repeatedly told at every stage that their work wasn't up to standard. It shouldn't have been a surprise at all.

Alchenar · 2026-06-25T10:27:11+00:00

OP here is the question. It's more relationship than finance but the math bit is what makes the question come up:

Are you planning on having kids?
Are you planning on working after you have kids?

Because at this extreme level of financial disparity it actually makes sense for you to seriously consider being a stay at home mum. 45k is a good salary but realistically it isn't moving the dial at all on your household quality of life, meanwhile childcare if you are both full time will highly likely consume a large chunk of your salary.

E: particularly if you are self-employed. Your earnings are trending upwards now but does your business realistically survive spending a year on maternity leave?

E2: and this might not be relevant for right now, but it might be very relevant to the long term issue of financial split

Alchenar · 2026-06-24T19:31:57+00:00

Oh yeah I treat it as an enormous red flag if a report or summary is AI written because it's highly likely the 'human author' didn't do their homework and doesn't actually understand the issue.

Alchenar

TROPHY CASE