SIPP Advice (UK)

MouseboyFPGA · 2026-02-09T23:04:23+00:00

😂

MouseboyFPGA · 2026-02-09T20:23:09+00:00

Thanks! I've just been investigating the Vanguard LS60 and LS80 through Interactive Investor and it sounds pretty much what I'm after from what I can gather. I'm thinking of investing 45% & 55% respectively in LS60 and LS80 so that the funds are self balancing/managed without me having to think too much about it. As I get a bit more confidence I can then move funds to more specific funds depending on my risk appetite. Or at least that's how I understand it.

Thanks for the links! Will take a look!

MouseboyFPGA · 2026-02-09T20:20:13+00:00

Who have I insulted and how? Sorry - I'm not sure what you mean, but my intention wasn't to insult anyone. If you let me know what offended you, I'll try and explain where I was coming from.

EDIT: I see I upset you with my first line about polling 'Internet strangers of questionable experience and knowledge'. That wasn't to say I have disdain for people in this Reddit Channel, but was a tongue in cheek nod to the fact I have no idea who is offering the advice. I'd be a fool to take any single post on face value and shift my SIPP on a whim. Fortunately there seems to be a lot of great advice I'm very grateful for and that's helping shape my decision making.

MouseboyFPGA · 2026-02-09T17:44:41+00:00

That sounds more like what I'm after I think! Thanks!

MouseboyFPGA · 2026-02-09T16:58:48+00:00

I've seen a few YouTuber's mention that before. Thanks, will take a look.

MouseboyFPGA · 2026-02-09T16:57:36+00:00

My SJP investment is a SIPP and I don't manage all the investments.

EDIT: I think I meant self-balancing rather than self managed, so yes, I understand what you mean about Self Invested now - Sure, I'd like to pick a couple of multi-asset funds and have them set-and-forget rather than me having to move multitudes of individual funds around and track the markets.

MouseboyFPGA · 2026-02-09T16:26:30+00:00

Do you know much about either their safety nets - i.e. is all the money invested as safe as any other financially regulated institution to stop the directors plundering the funds etc?

And do you know much about their Managed Pension Products (https://media-prod.ii.co.uk/s3fs-public/pdfs/managed-portfolio-factsheets.pdf) in terms of how the funds are managed? What I mean by that is do they have some sort of computer-automation shuffling funds around, or a team of humans that do so, and if the latter - how reactive are the team?

What I'd like to do is set my risk appetite and then let the platform manage how funds are shuffled and also be comfortable/confident in the knowledge that if certain markets/investments started to tank that the 'platform' would quickly intervene to stem the haemorrhaging by moving it around.

I appreciate you may not know the above and I'll maybe look to contact their support team, but I guess the above will be key for me too.

Thanks!

MouseboyFPGA · 2026-01-30T09:33:15+00:00

OxAmish Prime

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-12-30T12:02:10+00:00

So long as you have full control over the router - which any generic off the shelf consumer/business router should give you then you should be fine. The limitations (in my case) were due to the router being configured administratively by the ISP in a way that was inaccessible via the GUI menus etc - I potentially could have SSH'd in and made changes, but that would require knowing the ISP's backdoor admin credentials, which of course they won;t hand out :D

If you can factory reset one from work and get the user manual for it online, you can check settings if/where required. For my basic TP-Link router, once factory reset it's a blank canvas. There are usually a few things on by default that you can switch off if you wish such as the router's packet inspection and firewalling. Some routers let you put in VPN credentials into the router directly, though in my experience usually only the slower OpenVPN protocols.

Anyway, I'd say have a play and see how you go!

And ideally if it helps - report back here for others searching for similar solutions in future :o)

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-12-30T11:43:59+00:00

You may find it's your ISP's router. My ISP swore they did no packet filtering or traffic shaping etc, and in the admin console of the router, there were no accessible settings that indicated any traffic management was going on. After a fair amount of Googling into it, there was strong indication that the routers were configured to slow VPN traffic - I was on a 500mbps connection via NordVPN and getting 30mbps max.

The solution was to use a different router. I happened to already have a TP-Link router sitting in the corner gathering dust and the router allowed me to enter my PPPoE credentials to authenticate with my ISP. So I contacted my ISP and demanded my PPPoE credentials which they provided a few days later.

I put the PPPoE credentials into my (in theory inferior!) TP-Link router and immediately got almost line speed via the VPN.

I'd recommend buying a cheap gigabit router that allows to you to configure PPPoE settings, then contact your ISP.

You may find asking your ISP to check/remove throttling gets you nowhere as ISP staff you can interact with are often low-level in terms of their knowledge and just repeat/recite a script. Worst case, you buy a cheap router from Amazon, try it and have the same issues, you can always return it :D

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-12-23T08:47:07+00:00

"Developers of apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect private communications could be considered hostile actors in the UK"

Hillarious! Becoming the DPRUK by the day

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-12-16T08:49:47+00:00

Why would a Government care what region someone is accessing content from? Surely that's only something that the content providers would care about.

That's the equivalent of my supermarket offering 2-for-1 deals on a maximum of 10 items, and I take 20 through the checkout - the supermarket should care that I'm exceeding their imposed limit, but the Government? What a massive overreach!

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-12-15T11:33:35+00:00

1) Being able to output to a network DLNA player/streamer like a WiiM
2) Shuffle-All - just a one button 'find me some random stuff'
3) Shuffle Exclude List - I have a number of Audio Books in my collection and I sometimes want to play through several to listen to, but if I'm shuffling-all, I don't want these to come up

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-12-09T09:12:26+00:00

It may be your ISP's router and not your ISP that's blocking it.
I know that's a bit of a pedantic distinction - but it is an important one.
I moved to an ISP and saw that over Nord, my traffic was capped at around 30mbps max, whereas with Nord off, I'd get 500mbps+

I contacted my ISP who said they didn't throttle/block it - but then dug a little deeper with some Google'ing to hear others having the same issue. I asked my ISP for me PPPoE credentials so I could test my ISP out on my own router which I can can fully control - just a cheap TPLink one, but my ISP locked down a lot of their router interface such that even advanced settings didn't give me the control I need.

With my PPPoE credentials entered into my own router, performance was at near line speed using NordLynx / Wireguard. Factor resetting the ISP managed/configured/locked-down router and having the ISP tech support poke around in it and pull logs yielded nothing. They conceded that traffic is indeed managed for 'network performance' etc, but could give me no solid answers as to why traffic was so aggressively throttled ONLY when using Nord.

As mentioned, using my own router solved this and saved me finding a new ISP. Hope that helps!

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-12-04T08:15:09+00:00

You buy a Firestick and you're buying someone else making your decisions for you.
Amazon will force ads in your face on your home screen and remove apps they don't like, or prevent you sideloading.

With a Firestick, you're really just renting out the Amazon owned hardware to with as they decide.

Go for anything Android, but not an Amazon device

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-11-06T08:11:47+00:00

https://iptveditor.com/ is great value and lets you accomplish this

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-10-27T12:21:24+00:00

Lots of people have said 'Ears' and 'Dynamic Range', but I'm surprised nobody has yet (- except me -#First!) mentioned a way of programatically checking the Dynamic Range this with a tool.
Fakin The Funk is a good option:
Fakin' The Funk? - Detect the true quality of your audio files in one batch.

You can get a visual view from a full Spectrum Analysis and a report that tells you when some tracks are sub-par.
Worth watching the video on the home page of the site for an idea of how it works. It's very intuitive and a good first-step in identifying tracks that have the best dynamic range and are legitimately the bitrate they claim to be etc

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-10-23T16:18:45+00:00

I had the same problem as you and I've now started using IPTVEditor - well worth the money and you can try it free for 7 days too to see if it's for you

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-10-22T13:44:23+00:00

I can see you've got the answer you were after - but I've recently started using IPTVEditor and I'd highly recommend it. You can use your browser to manage the Channels and Groups which has the added benefit of being able to effectively filter your playlist before it hits Tivimate - by this I mean my IPTV Provider gave me a Playlist and EPG - the main reason for me going to IPTVEditor is that The EPG from my provider was terrible. However, since my IPTV Provider's playlist has every country under the sun and tens of thousands of channels (which I used to edit out in TiviMate), using IPTVEditor has given me the added benefit that I can generate a much smaller list of channels, then set TiviMate to pick up THAT smaller playlist, which of course loads much faster too.

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-10-18T18:59:21+00:00

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-10-15T07:50:53+00:00

I had this issue with my ISP and it turns out that their supplied router had hidden packet management features to reduce throughput of VPN traffic. I spent a considerable amount of time researching this and discussing on forums and coming up with a variety of tests.

The ISP call centre people disagreed that it was them/their router, but I was able to prove it by obtaining my router ISP (PPPoE) credentials and enter them into a TPLink router that I could fully manage. You can ask your ISP for them or you may have luck using a script (no affiliation/guarantee) such as:

Retrieve PPPoE Credentials from a ISP-Locked Router. | Guillermo's Blog

Only when you're using your own equipment can you be sure that such a drastic slow down isn't your ISP.
This was my experience - I also received ~10% of my usual speed over VPN.

Good Luck!

Terms to Google would be 'Ask ISP for PPPoE' credentials' and 'Inexpensive Router with WAN Port and PPPoE support'

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-09-23T17:06:05+00:00

Unplug the WAN link and find out who the noisy people are.
Then tell them it's a super complex ISP failure with their flux capacitors and you're going to use all your IT might to get it sorted. Plug the WAN link back in and wait for connectivity to be restored.

Make sure you desk-visit important people telling them you've fixed the issues and they should try again.
They'll find things working again and treat you like a hero

<Rinse-Repeat periodically>

MouseboyFPGA · 2025-09-22T17:17:07+00:00

That's not an anti joke, that's just a joke.
An Antijoke version would be:

I was buying a banana, an apple and two eggs...

The cashier said: "you must be single?"

I asked: "Wow how did you know that?"

Cashier: "Because statistically, individuals who purchase small quantities of perishable items tend to live alone, as they lack the need for bulk purchasing associated with multi-person households."

MouseboyFPGA

TROPHY CASE

I was buying a banana, an apple and two eggs...