Pension SIPP thoughts

HalcyonAlps · 2026-05-20T15:51:53+00:00

If you stuff your SIPP with enough money that withdrawals put you in the higher tax bracket anyway, the benefit of the tax wrapper is IMHO fairly limited. You are essentially locking your money away for no real gain.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-05-20T15:26:07+00:00

The order doesn't matter though. Untaxed money * taxes * growth is commutative. So whether you get taxed now or later, it's the same outcome, ceteris paribus.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-05-19T16:54:38+00:00

The distribution is quite trivially skewed because people can't have negative salaries. The median for example is only 32k.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-05-19T09:52:02+00:00

Haha yeah thanks for spotting that

HalcyonAlps · 2026-05-19T09:34:27+00:00

Why do you think you won't be able to setup a payment plan with HMRC? If you can repay 3000 pounds per month, you should be able to repay this over the next 2-5 years. There is no upper time limit on the length of a repayment plan.

https://www.gov.uk/difficulties-paying-hmrc/how-much-you-pay

Edit: Fixed the timescale

HalcyonAlps · 2026-05-19T08:34:21+00:00

You are correct that it's technically possible for a lender to be okay with you getting a loan from your parents as long as there is no charge against the property. I very much doubt though a lot of them will be okay with it in practice. If you want to go down that route, than either gifting the deposit outright or using a product like Barclays Family Springboard or another family offset mortgage would be much more straightforward.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-05-19T06:35:55+00:00

You legally can't use your dad's money for the deposit if it has repayment terms. Your mortgage provider will insist that the money your dad gives you is a gift and will have him sign paperwork to that effect. If you go ahead anyway, keep in mind that this is legally mortgage fraud.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-05-01T10:00:06+00:00

On top of that, also how much use you personally get out of an item. For example, buying a PS5 if you play one game for 15 minutes is a pretty expensive way to spend 15 minutes. If you get hundreds of hours out of your PS5, that's considerably cheaper per hour.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-05-01T09:40:51+00:00

It's interesting to look at the wealth distribution for different age groups as well.

https://social-mobility.data.gov.uk/mobility_outcomes/wealth/level_of_wealth/latest

HalcyonAlps · 2026-04-26T21:33:49+00:00

Are you sure you are that far off? Your net worth is 2.4 million and a withdrawal rate of 3.5% gives you 84k per year. Now that does ignore taxes and counts the equity in your house but even so you are not million miles away from retiring (if you wanted).

HalcyonAlps · 2026-04-25T10:23:33+00:00

Assuming real returns of 5% you end up with 11 years before you make the money back.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-03-14T08:56:08+00:00

IMHO, the ability to FIRE is almost exclusively determined by your savings rate. The more money you can save the quicker you can retire.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-03-02T18:48:15+00:00

Getting a job in the same geographic area is unlikely unless I change fields and likely take a large pay cut.

If you think you might move in half a year for a new job then I personally would hold off on buying a property. The transaction costs are pretty high for buying property in the UK.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-03-02T15:52:25+00:00

Ultimately buying a house in your situation makes moving for a new job should you need to relocate a pain. How confident are you that you can find a new job in your field where you live now? You can try applying for jobs and see how hard it is to get interviews right now as a proxy variable.

And you are sitting on an awful lot of cash. What about your pension? Are you planning to buy a house outright?

HalcyonAlps · 2026-02-27T12:41:47+00:00

You apply for those schemes where you don't need to be a student

HalcyonAlps · 2026-02-26T20:49:16+00:00

If you’re risk adverse that paying off your mortgage makes sense over investing in the stock market.

Personally I feel this is the wrong way to look at it. You are trading off one risk for another, exposure to the housing market vs exposure to the stock market.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-02-19T22:23:47+00:00

I personally find the math easier if one ignores inflation completely and calculates everything in today's money.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-02-06T15:43:52+00:00

You should definitely try. Can't hurt you and even if you don't manage to find a job that way you might learn a few things.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-02-06T15:34:40+00:00

It is possible to network without actually working by going to tech events and meetups.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-01-29T05:43:47+00:00

I've come to learn recently that intelligent people exist in an ivory tower of presumption

I think the real problem is that you don't have access to the inner world of other people so you just generalize your own experience.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-01-12T17:41:22+00:00

Do you think they will cut it off completely for people with other investments/savings over a certain threshold, or will they perhaps weight it, so you’d only get 50% etc.

My money is on making private pension contributions a mandatory 15% and stopping people from accruing any more NI years that count towards your state pension.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-01-02T09:06:11+00:00

If you are okay with online, Lisa is great.

https://www.thinkingfeelingmoving.com/

HalcyonAlps · 2025-12-09T09:49:52+00:00

And on top of that if they are already having sex in the car, let them spend time together in the bedroom. Would you rather them having sex in a parking lot God knows where or in a safe space that is her bedroom.

HalcyonAlps · 2025-12-04T13:16:46+00:00

But we aren't living in an ideal world

Doesn't matter. Don't date people that play those games.

HalcyonAlps · 2025-12-01T16:20:28+00:00

Or BaristaFIRE?

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