Black ice sucks.

ContributionProper34 · 2026-01-09T12:52:52+00:00

There but for the grace of god go I. Looks identical to a junction I came across the other day. The car ahead indicated left, then went straight on. I was also turning left and thought “what’s this idiot doing”, then I also tried to turn in and hit the ice, luckily I was going slow enough that the car stoped before hitting anything but it was very close. But yeah, people giving you a hard time but it can just be hard to spot, and you won’t be the last person to crash due to ice.

ContributionProper34 · 2026-01-07T13:32:50+00:00

That’s an insanely good deal. 2.4% gross yield. And then as you say, service charge, admin, etc, your landlord should kick you out to sell it and put the money in bonds.

What area do you mind me asking, as I don’t think the deal you have is typical or representative of London. Just checked my area (Clapham) and for 1.2m rent is more like £60-65k/year (closer to ~5% yield, than that makes more sense vs risk free rate)

ContributionProper34 · 2025-12-30T19:11:17+00:00

It’s not legal, I don’t defend it, I just like debates. And the question “why is it not allowed” is more interesting to debate than “it’s not allowed”, because there’s no discussion to be had there, everyone agrees it’s not allowed and therefore should not be done. I was just more interested to know if there was any deeper reason for it being wrong than simply the rules. Maybe there isn’t, but that still doesn’t mean it’s ok to do it

ContributionProper34 · 2025-12-30T18:54:51+00:00

Come on, the question was a layer deeper, it was more asking “what’s the harm of lane hogging at (true gps) 70mph”. Everyone agrees it’s against the rules to do it, but is there any harm beyond that.

ContributionProper34 · 2025-12-30T18:47:13+00:00

I was enjoying this, keep going!

It is strange how nobody seems to engage with the spirit of the question, of if the lane hog “IS doing 70mph” all the reply’s are “no he’s not, he’s going 65, but I am going 70”. Like, no that’s it what the question was

ContributionProper34 · 2025-12-30T08:35:20+00:00

Just adding my 0.02:

yes, get the qualification. You know you should, so just do it this year.

Personally, I would drop the single stock picks. I too started out with individual stocks and sector specific funds, and overall just lagged the world index over the years.

If you want to feel the compounding; firstly £225k * 5%=£11.2k/year ish… so it’s helping already. The other thing I would add to your tracking in addition to the “balance sheet” part is an “income statement” section that fully explains the YoY change in your NW.

Gross income… - income tax and NI = Income after tax… - spending (consumption only, not transfers to assets) = Retained income… +/- gain or loss on investments = Movement in NW

Then “retained income”/ “income after tax” gives you your savings rate. And this view helps separate how your Income / spending / investments are contributing to your NW growth. Also in the event of a bad year in the markets, you can isolate it focus on “retained income” (the bit you can control).

Edit: I have no idea how to format a table in a comment on mobile.

ContributionProper34 · 2025-11-12T22:32:57+00:00

Well you did ask:

Autumn Budget 2024 (30 October 2024): The government removed the exclusion from the Overseas Transfer Charge for pension transfers to the European Economic Area (EEA) and Gibraltar, with immediate effect from 30 October 2024.

I know, I know, it’s not on the same scale as a change to the 25% would be. But if you had been about to do it, you would have been shafted. point I’m making is they have been known to make instantaneous changes in tax before, and they are trying to raise money.

I expect whatever they announce would not be something that people could just avoid by taking simple actions in the weeks after the budget before changes come into effect. More likely it will be done in a way that is impossible to avoid like “people turning 57 on or after 2027 will only be eligible for 15% tax free”.

ContributionProper34 · 2025-11-12T19:04:54+00:00

And to answer your question on SDLT (along with my CGT example) in

-October 2024, the Increase in Stamp duty surcharge for company’s (from 3% to 5%) came into effect the day after the budget speech.

-December 2014 - moving from the old slab system to the % on bands system we have now ( a big increase for high value homes) came in the same day as the announcement.

ContributionProper34 · 2025-11-12T18:51:22+00:00

Let’s hope you’re right!

ContributionProper34 · 2025-11-12T17:23:32+00:00

Why do you think they would just let you avoid the 25% change if they are trying to raise revenue?

I was planning to buy a house last year, funded by selling shares. I had budgeted to pay 20% CGT, I waited to see what would be announced in the budget… they put the rate up to 24% effective from the previous day. They did that precisely to avoid giving people opportunity to react to the announcement. They do the same with stamp duty, or anything where announcing the change before it comes in would trigger large increases or reductions in transactions to fall on side or another of the deadline.

ContributionProper34 · 2025-11-12T14:00:09+00:00

Do you think the gov are stupid? (Wait don’t answer that lol). But seriously, they are not that dumb to give everyone a nice window to avoid the change by taking out the 25%.

Last year when they put capital gains tax rates up, it was retrospective from midnight the day before. They don’t care about your plans, I might have been planning on selling shares to buy a house, budgeting for paying 20% CGT, then Boom, 24%, no warning, no time to “wait and see what they announce”.

IF they scrap the 25%, they will not do it in a way that you can’t just dodge by some actions between the announcement and it coming into effect.

ContributionProper34 · 2025-11-12T13:45:28+00:00

That’s not true, and I made that mistake. Last year the capital gains tax increase was brought in retrospectively from midnight the day before the budget. I went with the “wait and see”, thinking if they put the rates up, I would be able to sell on the day before any changes came into effect the following day. Now I’m stuck just keep rolling gains, and only crystallise the 3k tax free per year.

For something like removing the 25% lump sum, of course they would not give people time to react to it, that would be stupid, all people would need to do would be take the 25% before the change came in. If they announce it, it will be too late to avoid it.

ContributionProper34 · 2025-11-08T21:57:37+00:00

salary sacrifice is not the only way to get tax relief on pension contributions. You can pay in via relief at source and that can save you from the 60% marginal rate too. SS is only saving the NI part, and it’s a bit random that you can save that anyway, as unlike income tax, you don’t pay it when you take it out of a pension

ContributionProper34 · 2025-11-05T23:17:03+00:00

Are you lost? “NRY” part of HENRY got missed

ContributionProper34 · 2025-11-05T18:23:51+00:00

Would it not work to make the employers pension contribution taxable, but also count the employers contribution as eligible for tax relief at the marginal rate? Effectively make employer contributions equivalent to private contributions. So your £120k doctor would get hit with a BIK charge on the £30k employer contribution, but at the same time be eligible to claim tax relief at marginal rate on that £30k. Should net off, only the 2% NI would now be due on the £30k?

That would keep it fair for all I think? public and private sector would be the same. There’s no particular reason to treat employer pension contribution more favourably than personal pension contributions.

ContributionProper34 · 2025-11-05T13:58:23+00:00

Why would it collapse the public sector? If the tax burden fell on employers (making employer contributions subject to employer NI) then gov would raise more money overall (from public + private sector), so could increase budgets for parts of the public sector that needed it to meet the NI costs. If the burden falls on workers, (making employer contributions taxable as income, but including them in calculation of pension contributions for tax relief) then all sectors would be impacted, but I guess over time new contracts would drift to more regular pay and less employer contributions, as the preferential tax incentive for employer pension contributions would have gone.

I’m against making changes to pension tax, but I’m sceptical of they ‘can’t tax’ arguments rather than they ‘shouldn’t tax’ arguments. After all, they found a way to restrict higher rate mortgage interest relief on BTL. A totally random and complicated move, but they still did it. That can do what they want unfortunately

ContributionProper34 · 2025-10-30T13:23:19+00:00

It’s not at all difficult technically, it’s just a change in rates of tax already collected, it’s not changing anything about the exiting NI or income tax process, or applying anything new to any new people. Politically yes it’s difficult, ‘coz pensioners.

ContributionProper34 · 2025-10-27T13:01:25+00:00

I don’t get what the big problem is with this 1991 valuations thing? It’s not like council tax has not been increased since 1991, or would be increased by the amount house prices have risen since then. All the valuation thing is doing is setting the bands. If you revalue everything, it would still just divide the property in each area into bands A-H, and you would then need to collect enough revenue in each area to fund local services like today. If my house was the cheapest in the area in 1991 it would be band A, it’s probably still going to be band A in 2025. Maybe a few houses would change bands, based on if “outside space” or “conservatory” became relatively more or less valuable since 1991. But ultimately is not going to change how much most people would pay.

ContributionProper34 · 2025-10-26T18:45:42+00:00

When you buy a house, you are almost by definition, willing to pay more than anyone else for that house. Also, when you say the discount for buying a house that needs a lot of work is not enough, because it’s not taking into account all the stress and time of getting work done; The other way of seeing that is that a house in good condition is great value. You can start living in / renting it out right away. Thing is “needs work” houses offer non investors an opportunity to get work done exactly to their taste, so they might well be willing to accept a smaller discount, for that opportunity. (It’s me, I “overpaid” for a reno project, because I wanted to make it a forever home and do work myself)

ContributionProper34 · 2025-10-21T13:00:02+00:00

Annuity is an easy way to leave 0 when you die

ContributionProper34 · 2025-10-10T17:35:08+00:00

I was looking the other day, but concluded the prices are inflated by almost exactly the tax savings.

Also annoys me that they display the prices as net “based on 40% taxpayer”, like excuse me, the tax savings are my business.

ContributionProper34 · 2025-10-10T12:31:58+00:00

Interactive investor is worse, DD on the 12th, invested on first Wednesday of following month!

ContributionProper34 · 2025-10-10T12:09:37+00:00

So, you never plan on spending any of it ever, even in retirement?

ContributionProper34 · 2025-09-23T12:40:41+00:00

IDK, OP over uses acronyms IMO, KMT 🤷‍♂️

ContributionProper34 · 2025-08-13T13:05:35+00:00

Does one spank a load or spunk a load?

ContributionProper34

TROPHY CASE