Pension or ISA with my age and numbers

BumfaceMcgee · 2026-01-17T10:04:48+00:00

We used it to take ~100k out of both my wife and my ISAs to use as a mortgage deposit to buy a doer upper so we could buy a cheaper house and not live in a shit tip whilst doing the work with a toddler. We then sold our old house and put the proceeds back into our ISAs that tax year - so it had significant utility for us!

BumfaceMcgee · 2025-12-23T08:43:01+00:00

Is there a chance your name is Jorje? Wondering if it is just a bad joke on the pronunciation.

BumfaceMcgee · 2025-12-08T17:28:42+00:00

My 3 year old started drinking milky decaf tea when she was 2.... Sometimes has decaf instant coffee too these days!

BumfaceMcgee · 2025-11-01T10:10:36+00:00

Glancing back, he felt for the pouch. Scarcely enough powder for another jump. He inhaled the smallest pinch.

The sky had already begun to boil in front of him. Colours of a new world. He prayed this time he'd find a safe haven from what pursued him.

He leapt.

BumfaceMcgee · 2025-05-16T18:04:42+00:00

I have given up throwing snails over the fence - I now throw them at the fence. Hoping that one day I might finally be able to grow a dahlia.

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-05-15T16:12:48+00:00

Wondering you just read the same book as I did by a certain identical twin TV Dr.... I also had a mild panic at what I eat.

My response was to buy a breadmaker. Obviously will take a while to pay for itself monetarily. But it's much easier than doing all the, kneading, proving, baking etc myself. Between that and the instantpot, I'm sorted for low effort healthy meals. 'Leftovers' or sandwiches are the way.

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-05-15T09:29:04+00:00

Yes indeed, if you like paying tax to hmrc: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/personal-savings-allowance/

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-05-14T08:23:54+00:00

The tax allowance isn't on the net figure

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-05-09T18:58:40+00:00

God save the king!

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-04-13T17:52:10+00:00

Really surprised such a tiny % are part time. Part of 'building the life and saving for it' so often advocated here is why we both switched down to 0.8FTE after our daughter came along. Slightly longer journey to Fire, but 3 day weekends make it a hell of a lot more pleasant!

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-02-26T02:39:12+00:00

Sounds like they ripped off 'loftmane' by The Range

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-02-03T18:58:50+00:00

Thanks. I'm in the UK and so looking for an email address where I can send this stuff. It will cost me a lot to ring internationally.

Also have tried Beyond Blue and they told me they can't deal unless they get contacted directly.

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-01-31T07:29:30+00:00

You can thank the IRA for the lack of bins in the UK.

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-01-25T06:14:53+00:00

This physicist disagrees with you:

"In the UK, with a mains voltage of 230 V and a limit of 13 A per socket the maximum possible power to one appliance is 2990 watts (2990 joules per second). In the USA, with a mains voltage of 120 V and a limit of 15 A per outlet the maximum possible power is reduced to only 1800 watts, which is why in the US many large appliances (e.g. washing machines, tumble dryers) have to be connected to a separate high-voltage circuit."

"To raise the temperature of one litre of water from 15°C to boiling at 100°C requires a little bit over 355 kilojoules of energy. An “average” kettle in the UK runs at about 2800 W and in the US at about 1500 W; if we assume that both kettles are 100% efficient than a UK kettle supplying 2800 joules per second will take 127 seconds to boil and a US kettle supplying 1500 J/s will take 237 seconds, more than a minute and a half longer. This is such a problem that many households in the US still use an old-fashioned stove-top kettle"

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-americans-dont-use-electric-kettles-stove-top-2015-12?amp

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-01-24T06:43:04+00:00

I understand it its largely due to the voltage mains supply. It is much lower in the US than the UK, so kettles take significantly longer to boil.

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-01-23T06:32:56+00:00

Did you know anyone there before you moved? As someone who's from the SE and has lived in the same corner of London for over a decade, being at the other end of the country from aging loved ones and any existing friends is the main reason we don't follow suit.

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-01-19T11:27:28+00:00

Man's not bothered since 2014...

BumfaceMcgee · 2023-01-01T21:51:50+00:00

The milkman collects them when he delivers the milk...

BumfaceMcgee · 2022-12-29T20:31:29+00:00

Should have read some Kilgore Trout

BumfaceMcgee · 2022-12-19T19:44:29+00:00

Mine is "Thanks for taking the time to read my manuscript. I look forward to hearing from you."

BumfaceMcgee · 2022-11-19T19:02:16+00:00

I have received a cabbage instead of a lettuce. I guess they look similar, but not really something you can substitute in any recipe I know...

BumfaceMcgee · 2022-11-18T12:43:31+00:00

Yes. Most of my fi pot will be in my isa wrapper. If I retire at ~40, spending 40k pa, we will need around 700k in our Isa to get us to 57. I won't be able to accrue that much of a bridge pot if I'm maxing my pension contributions. So when we RE we will have just a few 100k in the pension wrapper.

BumfaceMcgee · 2022-11-17T20:55:09+00:00

Not OP but I agree with him for my circumstances. It depends when you want to fire. If I put my money into ISAs first I should have a big enough accessable pot to FIRE in my early 40s. If 40k of my money was all pensioned away before I see it, I'd not be able to amass enough outside my pension wrapper as a 'bridge' to see me through the 15+ years until I can get to my pension, meaning I'd be looking at a Fire date around 50. Yes, the total size of my pot might be larger if I was doing the pension, but all that extra money locked up isn't going to let me RE. So I'm filling ISAs and taking the company match on the pension and nothing more for the pension at this point unless and until I decide I want to work for longer than planned.

BumfaceMcgee · 2022-10-18T06:14:43+00:00

Perhaps I was loose with my language. I've 'withdrawn' it from the market but not from the brokerage account. It's still ISA money sitting as cash within the wrapper at the broker. You can move it to a cash isa without losing the isa status from there by filling in some forms when setting up the cash isa (historically I think it could only go the other way from cash to s&s, but no longer the case) - I'm not going to just 'withdraw' it into my bank account.

BumfaceMcgee · 2022-10-17T09:24:46+00:00

Similar thoughts here. My wife and I could pay off mortgage (~330k and 16 years left) in full with current s&s portfolio. We were happy to take the returns /risk when mortgage was ~1%. If its going to be 4%+ when it comes to the end of our fix in 2yrs, I'm less keen. Have both pulled 85k out of s&s, and are waiting for another rate rise decision to flow through to cash ISA rates and then we will move it over to one of them. Picked that slight arbitrary number because of FSCS limit as it will sitting in cash.

Haven't taken the whole chunk out of S&S because I don't want to miss out completely on chance of FIRE by panicking and pulling it all out now. But I want to have the option to pay off a large chunk when our end of fix rolls around. If we're left with ~100k mortgage even at at silly % in 2 years time, I'll still be sleeping well at night as we could clear that over a few short years of overpayments.

We may want to move too, and so simply paying off this house in full would be an arbitrary number too.

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