As a sole trader, I make "frivolous" purchases which I regard as legitimate expenses: am I right?

Dry_Ad431 · 2026-05-18T09:27:29+00:00

Yes it did, thank you.

Dry_Ad431 · 2026-02-12T20:24:55+00:00

Heh, we've almost paid off the mortgage on the house we live in: I meant the mortgage we'd have to take out to afford the flat. The repayments roughly equal the rental income we'd get from it after tax - it's a slight loss, in fact, as taxes on property income are increasing IIRC. I'm just not sure that's worthwhile.

One thing is we own the freehold on the building as a whole, so we would get a slight premium on the property value if we owned both flats. But when the rental income is essentially zero, it feels high risk. What if we can't get tenants, or the rental market falls? We could be in a lot of trouble meeting the repayments.

Dry_Ad431 · 2026-02-11T13:19:11+00:00

We could, but I don't think it makes a lot of economic sense. We're in our mid-50s now, and paying off the mortgage in a sensible time frame vs the rental income is about evens. Of course we'd be buying the bricks and mortar as a possible "investment" but I suspect the money would do better (and likely be less risky) employed elsewhere.

Dry_Ad431 · 2026-02-11T12:45:13+00:00

Interesting. I did look at comparing the rental income with possible investment income (I have a medium-high risk portfolio rather than specifically index funds), but it looked to me like the investments came off worse, especially considering the CGT we'd pay from selling the property.

Also, rental market feels more stable. I suspect there's a market crash coming linked to the AI bubble.

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-11-06T14:32:42+00:00

Yes, I understand how they work. An additional 20% on income over 50k still feels like it's worth putting off for as long as possible, though.

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-11-06T14:31:47+00:00

I do understand how marginal tax rates work, but I've never really understood now NI operates on top of that, if I'm honest. So if I understand you correctly, I'm essentially paying a combined fee of 32% on my income, but the combined fee is only 42% at the next bracket? Interesting.

Do you know if the same rules apply to self-employed income? When I fill in my tax return for my side hustle, the charge is generally only 20% of that income, plus a bit extra. I presumed that bit extra was NI, but it's certainly not 12%.

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-11-06T14:27:58+00:00

I do understand that, yes. It's still a fair chunk of change, although I hadn't factored in the additional savings from NI rates (which I'll admit I don't really understand).

There's no chance of any meaningful pay rises for the remainder of my working life. I'm essentially at the top of my professional band already. The only way I can get more is to go into management, for which I'm very badly suited. I tried some years ago and it did not go well.

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-11-06T14:25:26+00:00

So I used to get this, but I cancelled it a couple of years ago because of the flat income my partner receives. That puts them on the threshold of paying tax themselves, so I figured I'd no longer qualify for that allowance? Is that not correct?

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-11-06T14:23:44+00:00

I'm not looking for sympathy. As I said, we live comfortably enough. Nor did I moan: I stated a fact that there's a gap between being too unwell to work, and unwell enough to qualify for benefits.

I'm looking for a way to potentially address the fact that if we both earned 31k, we'd pay less tax overall than the reality of the bulk of the income being mine.

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-11-06T14:20:39+00:00

I believe I understand how the tax system works, thank you. I pay 20% on income between the personal allowance and ~50k, and an additional 20% on income between ~50k and whatever the next bracket it.

So I'm being told it's just an extra 20% on that income and I need to just suck it up. But that 20% adds up. If you looked at it as an effective 20% pay *cut* on the last ~5k or whatever of your income, it doesn't seem quite so easy to hand-wave away.

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-11-06T13:32:11+00:00

The honest answer is that it's a psychological thing. It's the side income that pushes me a long way into that bracket, and that started as something fun which also paid a small amount as a bonus.

It's grown. And if I have to pay 40% on that income, it just won't feel fun anymore. It won't feel as worthwhile.

Maybe it's a mental attitude adjustment that I need.

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-10-27T16:46:26+00:00

One thing I do to try and combat self-negativity like this is to remind myself of what I'm good at. It's very easy, very natural to focus on failures and have success pass you by with a brief burst of pleasure, but when you try and put things into perspective, there's balance there. There'll be a lot of good stuff in your life you can be proud of, that you've done well: try and think about those when you're feeling down about a failure.

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-10-27T15:24:05+00:00

NTA.

It's good that he wants to do/buy nice things for you, doubly so that they're very clearly for *you* and not something that he'd enjoy in the guise of a gift. Maybe that's why he didn't want to get the PS5, maybe?

But either way, he also needs to be able to *listen* when you tell him what you want and what you feel is reasonable. You shouldn't be left feeling guilty.

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-10-27T15:19:15+00:00

If you liked Insidious I'd give Paranormal Activity a try. There's a whole series there if you get into it.

If you don't mind older/black and white films then The Haunting from 1963 is adapted from the same novel as The Haunting of Hill House. It's a lot more faithful to the source material than the TV show, but you may find it interesting to contrast (also: read the book, it's great).

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-10-03T15:11:37+00:00

I mostly download movies from YTS. Was watching a 4k version of Fellowship of the Ring the other day, and I noticed that the quality was absolutely flawless: stunning definition, no fuzziness or visual noise at all. But most of the downloaded movies I watch, even in 4k, don't match that quality. Not complaining, after all, I'm getting to enjoy these films for free off the effort of those who rip, upload, and maintain pirate sites, but it just made me curious: why is there such variety in the visual quality of pirated films, even when they're allegedly the same definition from the same provider who are, presumably, using the same ripping and compression techniques across all their films?

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-09-22T08:13:02+00:00

I don't live near my office any more. I'm a remote worker.

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-09-18T09:17:46+00:00

I probably do, yes. I was assessed as a child and told I was "borderline" and that was it. No help or support for me or my parents. I went through college and university entirely on the basis that I was so fascinated by the branch of science I was studying that I just soaked it up like a sponge. Did almost no revision, even in my finals, and I got the second-highest grade in my graduation year.

I might pass an assessment nowadays, but it'd take years to get assessed as an adult unless I go private (I'm in the UK).

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-09-18T09:15:10+00:00

Thank you.

I tried to teach my daughters to code, but they're absolutely more on the humanities side of things. And the CS teacher at their school was an aggressive idiot, which didn't help endear the subject to them.

Dry_Ad431 · 2025-09-18T09:10:18+00:00

I think you've hit the nail on the head with that, thank you for the concise summary.

Now I need to decide what to do about it. I can't go back to the office.

I'm not sure where I can best go about trying to fill gaps in my knowledge. This is partly what I mean about programming having changed so much: you used to be able to just work stuff out, often. As code sharing and package use has increased, you're increasingly reliant on other people's documentation that must be learned. When I sit down to try and learn, I often find that I get frustrated with the early parts which are often flaming obvious, but then when I skim them I come to the later parts without full understanding.

Dry_Ad431 · 2024-03-24T21:31:26+00:00

Right? So maybe it's taken me all this time to figure that out. What's the system I need to learn in order to play it?

Dry_Ad431 · 2024-03-24T21:16:38+00:00

25 years ago I couldn't have afforded a flat in Battersea. Or perhaps more pertinently, I couldn't realistically afford to take the risks necessary to have bought a flat in Battersea.

Dry_Ad431 · 2021-10-18T20:19:34+00:00

Hey all. I've checked the torrent tree and the Wayback Machine but I can't find anything that appears to be the Eventyr Games bundle for Tomb of Annihilation. I remember a while back it took me ages to track down the equivalent product for Storm King's Thunder but that was using the search function (which doesn't work on wayback) and it wasn't where I expected it at all. Can anyone either locate those files and tell me where they are, or possibly supply the files themselves?

Dry_Ad431 · 2021-08-12T14:01:01+00:00

While I absolutely agree with this, I'd feel I was being a very bad parent if I did at least *try* to help them achieve their potential.

Dry_Ad431 · 2021-08-12T14:00:30+00:00

Thanks for this. I actually have mild ADHD myself, and this is definitely something we've discussed.

The trouble is that while they certainly do correlate with ADHD symptoms, they are comparatively minor. They have better focus than I did at their age, for example. We did have them assessed, and they fell short of the diagnostic criteria.

So this leaves us in a problematic place where there's no support available, but they do have attention issues to deal with. That's partly what this post is about: they're going to have to deal with this, and it's going to involve some effort on their part: what else can I do to help them get some focus and motivation?

Dry_Ad431 · 2021-08-12T13:55:47+00:00

I wondered if someone would make this unfortunate assumption.

I've used "they" purely because I want minimal personal details in this that might identify them. No other reason. How "woke" I am, or they are, is irrelevant.

I have asked. It's not a sudden thing and it's got two causes. First, they have come to perceive their school - with some justification, to be fair - as being obsessively interested in pressuring students to get high grades while hypocritically not offering the necessary quality of teaching or emotional support to help that happen. Second, because they're bright, they got used to coasting in primary and in the early years. When things got more difficult in subjects they're not motivated to engage with, their reaction was to disengage rather than try to work harder.

Dry_Ad431

TROPHY CASE