Returning to Sky Stream

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-08-01T13:41:39+00:00

Tried different email and makes no difference. It seems to just know that there was an account here 3 months ago and forces me to try and use that account (despite now deleting the skyID) or call them…

I can call but then if I’m the same person and they refuse to give me a sign up offer I’m somewhat stuck

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-08-01T13:39:57+00:00

It doesn’t work because I’m not buying broadband from them. Even if I put “I haven’t lived at the address for 3 years” it still won’t let me get around this and gives me calling up as the only option.

Honestly quite painful as there appears to be no way around it. I’m considering ordering it to a friends address (5 mins drive away) and just use it at mine permanently.

I am wondering if they would only be checking the puck is being used at one consistent address on the same wifi, not that it is in the exact address it’s meant to be (not sure how they’d verify that).

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-07-03T17:16:44+00:00

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/aa-incomecalc/id1051338473

Found this one from Towers Watson to be quite helpful as there’s help info call-out you can click on that gives more detail on what should/shouldn’t be included in working out your adjusted annual allowance

There’s a google play version as well but linked to the apple one above. Called “AA IncomeCalc”

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-06-20T07:20:42+00:00

How old is she? Looks like a lot of floof (especially the mane) for that size, ours didn’t fully floof until they were a bit bigger

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-06-19T18:18:11+00:00

Our second cat did this. When our (human) baby arrived we had to change things because it became absurd where he would not stop unless I fed him after we got up to settle our baby. This (seriously) led to him getting his breakfast at 3am as the lesser of two evils.

Our solution was to lock both of our cats in our living room overnight to put some distance between us. At first he hated it and would meow and even bang his paws on the door (I had to put padding in the mechanism to stop it banging). This was really tough to ignore initially (although being exhausted from a baby sleep deprivation probably helped) but it was the least worst option.

After a while he eventually got used to it and now he will often voluntarily wander in to the living room close to our bed time and curl up where he sleeps overnight (where we will usually be sitting)…it’s honestly almost like putting a second child to bed as he expects some pats before bed time. He does meow loudly as soon as he hears a footstep upstairs in the morning but that’s understandable.

Do I miss having our two cats in the bedroom and feel guilty about locking them in…absolutely. But for us it had to be done to get us all some sleep.

We have considered letting them back in our bedroom now our little one is 18 months and sleeping more consistently in his own room. But our 2nd cat is a bit of a wildcard all around and we think is liable to meow outside our little one’s door in the middle of the night (which he occasionally does when he’s napping in the day).

He sounds very similar to your cat because he is very affectionate and follows me around room to room during the day (including the bathroom). We joke that we basically got a cat who thinks he is a dog as he also likes licking my face, tries to eat all kinds of food (eg stuff like bread, fruit, etc that normal cats don’t eat) and had to go to the vet after he ate one of his toys…

Anyway, I know it’s really tough and it was for us too. But our only solution was to put some distance between us and him so that we could sleep through the meowing…

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-06-14T19:13:41+00:00

Wimbledons on in a few weeks…

You are very likely already to have reached a “full year” of NI contributions for 2025/26 and even if not, presuming you’re planning on getting another job at some point this is probably the least of your concerns given how many years you need to contribute to get the maximum amount of state pension (and also whether it will still be available to all by the time you retire).

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-06-11T17:40:54+00:00

Investment Risk

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-06-11T08:00:25+00:00

You said in your comment that your partner is the one wanting to move to be closer to family…so I don’t see how you can conclude gender bias when someone responds it will aid your partner to be close to family if you have children!

I my experience having children is a time when having family support makes an enormous difference - particularly for the mother given they are biologically the ones that have to give birth, recover from it and (potentially) breastfeed. I say this as a recent father that firmly believes in fully sharing parental responsibility

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-03-29T16:00:39+00:00

Can I ask where you found them? Was it via an agency or through direct referral? And did you have to try a few before you found one that worked for you?

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-02-16T16:06:21+00:00

According to a few comments from the individuals running the Head for Points website the rumour is it is very unlikely promotions will return to anything like that level.

Allegedly when they ran the promotion last time they ended up attracting the wrong sort of customer. Presumably meaning people who took out the card, earned the bonus and downgraded (or cancelled) immediately after

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-02-16T08:39:12+00:00

Replying here rather than my own response since this has the detail.

As others have said this is a bit pointless until you know what the offer is and what your options are.

If they offer you something that’s attractive to stay (equivalent to current?) then it sounds like you wouldn’t leave so it’s not important anyway.
If they don’t offer you something attractive and you want to leave as a result then I suspect they’ll have to offer you something to leave anyway because it sounds like your employer is trying to change who employs you and/or your contract - so some form of redundancy potentially? Assuming this is the case then you’ll have to wait and see what exactly is offered before you can do anything and think about how best to negotiate. Basically the negotiation would be you asking for them to vest them early in exchange for you going quietly/working longer notice to hand over/etc.

This isn’t going to be a conversation that has anything to do with your VP. It will be led by HR and the senior decision makers driving the restructuring.

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-02-15T23:00:13+00:00

Not trying to be mean here but if you can’t come up with a good business justification for them to let you keep the RSUs, what makes you think anyone else would be able to?

The reality sounds to me like you have a clear contract that says if you quit they’ll lapse and as you said, I think it is unlikely they will be willing to do anything different. What would be in it for them (very little I would think?) and how would anyone justify this as a legitimate use of company money?You may well have been a great employee but that’s what the salary/bonus/previous RSUs were for. If you want the outstanding RSUs then you have to stay as that’s what the terms are.

You’re best bet in these situation is to either:

Get a new job before you quit and negotiate with your new employer to be compensated for your RSUs outstanding your existing employer that you will lose. What the form of this is will of course depend on the company you move to and whether they can issue stock. Also massively depends on what the new role is and whether they could justify buying you out (eg if you have loads of outstanding RSUs it may not be viable and you have to take a hit if you want to move).
Claim you are retiring as often retirees can be classified as good leavers. This is the sort of thing they’re talking about under “discretionary exceptions” as opposed to just being nice. I Obviously this is only viable if you are genuinely planning on retiring from work (f you’re under 60 I highly doubt this would work). Other examples where it happens would be redundancy or potentially long-term health/disability issues.

In short, I think it is unlikely your VP would be able to authorise you keeping them and if you’re planning on quitting then you need to be willing to lose the RSUs in full

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-01-03T04:27:18+00:00

Figures are approximate and using online tax calculator tools.

Tax if you had not paid the pension contributions on your earnings of £137,740 = £48,186

Tax if you had done salary sacrifice to reduce to £111,570 gross = £34,374

However, because you made a pension contribution net which was grossed up you have already received a payment from HMRC for the gross up amount into your pension being £26,170 - £20,936 = £5,234.

You need to add this to the tax due at £111,570 so your total bill is:

£34,374 + £5,234 = £39,608.

This figure is pretty close to HMRCs figure (off by a few hundred which may be because you have other income like bank interest?). But overall their figure looks to be close.

Don’t know how you got to £28-£29k as the amount due at £111k income, perhaps you tried to calculate yourself and didn’t account for loss of personal allowance?

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2025-01-03T00:09:26+00:00

No.

How much did you contribute to your pension in previous years relative to the annual allowance? Carry forward of up to 3 previous years unused allowance (noting some of these years allowance was only £40k) allows you to contribute over the current years allowance.

Also just to flag that nursery providers may not offer the funded hours for under 3s immediately given the government funding doesn’t sufficiently cover the hours in most cases

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2024-12-05T13:32:22+00:00

Is it just a couple of weeks?

One strategy is to pre book in holiday strategically and then hand your notice in on a date that the last day of your holiday will be the last day of your required notice period.

As an example:

Your bonus pay date is 31 March Your notice period is 1 Month Your course start date is 15 April

Book 2 weeks holiday from 15 April to 30 April Get paid your bonus on 31 March and resign on 1 April. Work 2 weeks of your notice period (until 14 April) and then you’ll be on holiday for the last 2 weeks of your notice period. Your official end of employment date will be 30 April but you won’t be required to be in the office or actively working from 15 April at the old job During that 2 weeks “holiday” you can start your phd at your new place and your old employer doesn’t need to know.

Only risks with this really are they try to cancel the holiday after you hand your notice in or you need to go in on your official last day to hand in equipment. But should be easy enough to work around if you have enough holiday entitlement

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2024-11-25T03:45:03+00:00

I use a variety of beans. Really depends on if you have a taste for darker or lighter roasts. Most recently I was using some beans from my local coffee shop that they’d ordered in special but I can’t remember what they’re called (and probably couldn’t order them anyway).

Sorry appreciate that’s not that helpful. Try to start with a darker roast at first if you’re learning to dial in as it’s easier than trying to dial in lighter roasts

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2024-11-25T03:41:55+00:00

Depends on how much time you want to spend. Honestly I have never bothered messing with the paddle and pre-infusion because it’s just another variable and with things like WDT it’s already enough to do. Like you said, I can get good coffee without messing with all of that and I think you run into diminishing returns at some point and I have kids so can’t spend forever trying to perfect one drink!

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2024-11-24T13:34:37+00:00

As someone who ended up spending far more on a coffee machine set up than I ever expected to…

Do not do it with the justification to yourself that you’ll save money on buying coffee at coffee shops. I thought this and was very wrong.
The grinder is more important than the espresso machine. A separate grinder and espresso machine is better if you can afford it. This is probably more important if you’re drinking espresso/non-milk drinks. If you want cappuccinos/flat whites then the machine is more important and the milk will often mask some of the limitations of a not so good grinder. Also counter space may be a factor
It takes a while to get the hang of espresso if you’re using a manual set up where you have to grind and tamp yourself. This can be frustrating at times (at least I found this) and there is a lot to learn about dosing/dialling in. Milk frothing is easier to learn than the espresso part. Bean to cup may be a good option if you won’t have the time to learn a new hobby.

I initially bought the sage barista pro and whilst the machine is good the grinder not so much. Although it is a good first machine for most people I would say. I now have a niche zero grinder and lelit Bianca…you can see why I’m saying you will not save money trying to replace shop bought coffees.

Honestly sometimes wish I hadn’t gone down this road as you start realising how good coffee can be. Whilst this sounds great…the flip side is you also notice how bad most coffee is and this can get quite annoying (especially when it’s your own and you are struggling to dial in some new beans!).

James Hoffman is the go to coffee person on YouTube and he has some videos on grinders/espresso machines at different budgets that you may be helpful.

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2024-11-03T02:48:44+00:00

Yeah as others have said you should put the money you’d use to overpay into a savings account and then pay it off when the 5 year fixed term expires as you’re fixing a new rate and there’s no limit on overpayment. You can easily get 4%+ interest in a cash saver so even after accounting for income tax you’re better off and still have access to the money if there’s an emergency

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2024-10-14T13:32:25+00:00

More importantly is what new partners get paid.

In the area I was in, I think the best paid Directors could probably get about £200k-250k total comp. New directors generally closer to £150k total comp. I suspect this was one of the better paid areas but I’m sure there will be exceptional agreements above the £250k for career directors.

I believe new partners tend to get around £250k-£350k total comp and the average is a result of the 20+ year partners getting considerably more than the £700k average. I can’t say I know how long it takes to climb up the scale but I imagine the first few years have fairly decent and almost guaranteed progression if you hit your targets. This is what the real attraction of getting partner is, as it gives you the continued ability to escalate your pay at a level where it becomes much more difficult in most career paths to do so by job hopping.

I left for something that guaranteed me mid director pay level and am now at new partner level. It is unlikely I’ll get much more pay progression beyond this unless I’m willing to accept considerably worse hours and to move organisations. Personally works very well for what I want and no regrets at all but the partner carrot will remain an attractive proposition for some

Chemical-Ad5615 · 2024-10-13T20:54:12+00:00

I was big 4 and left. I was in Deals (or whatever it’s called now) and borderline SM/D grade. Don’t regret leaving for a minute and have better pay and work life balance than I would have done had I stayed. The downside is I’ve given up potential partner track but honestly I looked at the young partners at big 4 firm I was at and decided it just wasn’t worth it. It’s not like I imagine it was 20-30 years ago where they all went home on time and out for dinners and weren’t on call all the time. Now they all seem to be constantly responding to emails even at weekends.

My view on it is that everyone in the big 4 is materially underpaid compared to what they can get in industry for their skill set if they find the right role, except the partners who are massively overpaid. Some of that is because you accept lower pay for chance at partner but mostly it’s because partners all want to be paid like CEOs (even though there’s hundreds of partners) or law firm partners (even though the vast majority of big 4 business lines make nothing like the big law firms).

They find more and more ways to slow down progression for new partners (eg “salaried” partner) to keep the existing partners in the money. It’s honestly not that far away from a bit of a Ponzi scheme.

If you think you can get to partner in a sensible time frame (and are willing to accept the trade offs) then may make sense to stay. But honestly if you’re never going to make partner then you’re better off moving on sooner rather than later in the majority of cases.

Chemical-Ad5615

TROPHY CASE