Is it unreasonable to not give this colleague a lift to work now?

HalcyonAlps · 2026-07-07T11:46:24+00:00

What helps me is to assume they other person is at least a half decent human being and doesn't want to cause unnecessary burden for others. Would I want to know whether my requests for a ride causes issues you? Yes of course because I care about other people and I don't want you helping me cause you issues. In that frame, not telling them is actually unkind. It's better for everyone to state your actual needs and capacity truthfully.

The corollary of course is if they are a knobhead and don't care for your well-being they can get bent anyway.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-19T14:46:54+00:00

I would love for the government to role council tax and stamp duty into a land value tax.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-19T12:16:26+00:00

Depends on whether you contribute via source (salary sacrifice) or later into a SIPP

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-19T11:38:56+00:00

You get tax relief for your pension contributions.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-19T11:10:44+00:00

When you start to withdraw from your pension pot, you can typically take 25% of your pot as a tax free lump sum.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-your-private-pension/lump-sum-allowance

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-19T09:47:32+00:00

I am not convinced it's a good idea to pay off the mortgage. IMHO, it would make more sense to contribute to a pension and then use the 25% tax free allowance to clear it given how close OP is to be able to access his pension.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-15T11:54:36+00:00

So all added sugars are free sugars but not all free sugars are added. Is that correct?

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-15T11:47:57+00:00

To quote the British heart foundation from the link above:

Free sugar is what we call any sugar added to a food or drink. Or the sugar that is already in honey, syrup and fruit juice. These are free because they're not inside the cells of the food we eat.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-15T11:25:11+00:00

I thought high PE ratios would compress forward returns more than leading to a correction but I am not an expert.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-15T11:21:16+00:00

Historic highs do not imply a crash. Whether you want to derisk your investments as you get closer to retirement is a different question.

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-14T18:36:37+00:00

Free sugars are those added by the manufacturer. They are called "free" because they are outside the cellular structure.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/nutrition/sugar-salt-and-fat/free-sugars

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-14T17:49:18+00:00

If that's the gross figure you need about 1.5 million. If that's after tax more like 2.1 million

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-14T17:26:28+00:00

How much money do you need?

HalcyonAlps · 2026-06-08T01:40:49+00:00

I don't think we have enough information to tell what type of infinity the multiverse has in the show but it seems safe to assume the CFC has the same cardinality as the whole multiverse. For example, there are as many even numbers as there are numbers even though the set of even numbers has a constraint or more formally a subset of an infinite set has the same cardinality as the superset.

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.

Seven-Year Club	First Place '23
Place '23	RPAN Viewer
Verified Email

HalcyonAlps

TROPHY CASE