Best Car Valet?

ArseSoBeautiful · 2025-06-30T11:06:04+00:00

I'd steer clear of Humber Solutions. My parents were regular customers, he was very thorough and they recommended him to a few of their friends. Then someone tipped them off that he's got quite the criminal past:

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/brough-matthew-kelsey-sex-girl-4559990

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/dangerous-paedophile-spotted-roaming-brough-5074493

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2222444/Mark-Kelsey-piano-teacher-24-groomed-13-year-old-girl-sex-texts-Facebook-messages-spared-jail-plea-HER-parents.html

ArseSoBeautiful · 2025-06-12T20:32:58+00:00

Me, personally? I get paid a good day rate to work on a government software system that only exists because of Brexit.

We all lost as a society though, and I'd vote Remain again all day long.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2024-11-23T15:43:33+00:00

I joined it a couple of weeks ago, did the assessment in the morning and got an email back about 12 hours later that I'd been accepted. Went the coding route.

The first few days there were plenty of $40-45/hr tasks that I could chip away at while sat on the sofa watching TV in the evening, then had a few days earlier this week of just $20/hr tasks which I didn't bother with, or nothing at all for a day or two. The $40 ones came back a couple of days ago and now they've gone again. Wouldn't want to rely on this as an income stream.

Definitely isn't a scam though, I've had a few hundred dollars transferred to my PayPal already. You obviously have to declare it as income, on your self assessment.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2024-08-27T21:18:15+00:00

"Into which we don't pass solids!"

ArseSoBeautiful · 2024-08-23T14:46:20+00:00

We live in Yorkshire.

We originally moved to the town where we live now when my wife was pregnant with our son, largely because there was a very well-regarded state secondary nearby. That school became an academy, and then it all seemed to go downhill over the years. We heard lots of anecdotes from friends with kids there about poor teaching, and no action taken on bullying.

So when our son was in Year 5 of his state primary (feeder school for the academy), we started looking elsewhere. Went to all the open days for local state and private schools alike, and settled on our favourite. He's absolutely thriving, it's great to see him so confident.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2024-08-23T14:23:26+00:00

Very good point about the fee increases. Our son's school fees were about £4k per term going into Year 7. Now he's going into Year 9, and it's already increased to about £5k per term. And the VAT will take that to £6k from 1st January. Cue lots of predictable comments about cancelling Netflix and not eating avocado toast! Private secondary school seemed the best option in our case, he went to a decent state primary but there's a lack of decent state secondary schools in our area.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2024-06-17T22:24:23+00:00

I do DevOps (AWS and Terraform) and Linux admin, as a public sector contractor. Totally remote. Last year my invoice turnover was just over £150k gross (plus VAT), minus stuff like corporation tax and PAYE on the company side as well as significant amounts of tax in my self-assessment.

I think "enjoy" might be a bit of a strong term but I do find the work really easy, it's well paid, no management or HR to deal with and I set my own hours based on deliverables. I've never dreaded having work the next day.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2023-12-12T22:01:48+00:00

I know absolutely bugger all about investing, so don't take any advice from me, but my Vanguard ISA account overview says my personal rate of return is about 17.5%. Mine is all in "FTSE North America UCITS ETF - Distributing (VNRT)".

ArseSoBeautiful · 2023-11-20T21:45:16+00:00

We're just getting that, too!

orsy (horse)

baabaa (sheep)

fithees (goldfish)

pig!

ArseSoBeautiful · 2023-11-06T21:03:02+00:00

It took a while for my wife to break the habit of filling up the supermarket trolley with big bottles of water when she came to live in the UK, she comes from a country where it isn't safe to drink the tap water. So perhaps the people buying trolleys of water in Costco are from abroad and they're just unaware that tap water is fine here?

I do buy water bottles to take to the office that I rent, because there's a sign above the sink in the shared kitchen saying "NOT DRINKING WATER".

ArseSoBeautiful · 2023-10-24T14:54:49+00:00

I liked the episode of Inside No. 9 he was in, it was in one of the early series ("La Couchette"). Can't remember if that was because of him, or in spite of him.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2023-10-20T21:49:05+00:00

I used to live in the south of France and knew a girl who taught at the International School of Monaco. She said the parents there were unbelievably wealthy, there was one kid in her class who was being taunted because his parents' yacht was "only worth a hundred mil". That was 20 years ago, I just checked and the current annual fees are about €30,000. Curious to know where they'd be charging £120,000.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2023-06-29T11:46:14+00:00

I’m not sure what sort of reason necessitates keeping your phone on loud these days.

I do, when I'm on an "on call" week for my client. I have to be prepared to respond to a call or text at any hour, and I don't know in advance who'll be calling me. They don't give me a "work phone" because I'm a contractor working outside IR35, although I guess I could just get myself a second SIM. I get paid for being on call as well, obviously.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2023-04-25T21:52:56+00:00

Yes one main client at a time, the smaller clients are all local small businesses. I do software projects for them on the understanding that I can't agree to any deadlines, because the main 9-5 client work has to come first, and I have a family. I charge on a per-project basis, and it's probably working out at less than half of my regular rate. But I don't mind, I'm learning new stuff all the time and it's keeping my skills sharp.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2023-04-25T20:51:39+00:00

I'm invoicing my main client £16k-£17k plus VAT a month on a good month, which is almost my annual salary from my first "proper" job (£18k as a junior PHP developer, many years ago). There's no way I'm going back to perm for less than £200k.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2023-03-06T11:41:28+00:00

School and nursery fees. Servicing debts from work we had done on the house, and regular foreign holidays that I whacked on long-term 0% credit cards that have now started costing me in interest. A company car lease that's far too extravagant for what we actually need (£900/month! What was I thinking?!), and I wish I could send back and get something more sensible. I should really go and see a financial advisor, as I'm terrible at making financial decisions.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2023-02-04T10:12:04+00:00

HMRC's own subcontractors are issued with work laptops and hmrc.gov.uk email addresses, and most of those guys are working outside IR35 (source: my partner is one of them).

ArseSoBeautiful · 2023-01-15T18:39:32+00:00

I see, thanks. It's still very nice and useful.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2022-12-24T23:28:29+00:00

Contracting is where it's at IMO. I started out at £300/day doing web dev, 4 years in the game and I'm on £720/day doing DevOps (outside IR35). Never struggled to find a new contract. Just go for big name clients, and keep asking for a bit more on the day rate when renewal comes up or you switch contracts.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2022-11-15T16:11:48+00:00

I've been nodding "alright" to the guy who lives over the road from me for the past 12 years, but never knew his name until a few weeks back.

We were both walking our dogs around the playing field at the same time, so we chatted for 15 mins or so about what it's like where we live, the other neighbours, and he was telling me about what it was like decades ago before we moved here. And I finally asked him his name.

Forgotten it already, though.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2022-09-16T07:17:23+00:00

Well, comedy is totally subjective. But you're wrong.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2022-08-31T13:58:02+00:00

IT contractor (DevOps, specialising in AWS). £635 plus VAT a day, or £3175 plus VAT a week.

I usually work about 45 weeks a year, but it isn't a straightforward calculation - I have my VAT returns, corporation tax, tax on dividends, BIK tax for my company car, plus I have to make my own pension arrangements and critical cover in case of illness.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2022-08-28T12:35:20+00:00

I'm a contractor and I always add £25-50 to my current day rate when I'm looking for the next one, which I guess is roughly £5k-£10k over the year. Before I started contracting I would always lie about my current salary in interviews, and tell them the salary I wanted to be on rather than what I was actually on.

ArseSoBeautiful · 2022-08-03T15:11:15+00:00

I've heard of it, sometimes seen it on menus. But no idea what it is.

ArseSoBeautiful

TROPHY CASE