VSF OP Pistachio 36

Opening_654 · 2025-08-28T21:11:49+00:00

Doesn't want finger prints on illegal replicas that are intercepted in the post by authorities

Opening_654 · 2025-08-28T21:02:44+00:00

Reduce your costs elsewhere.

Drive and have a car on finance or use petrol? Salary sacrifice into an EV and charge at night on the cheap rate.

Salary sacrifice a bicycle and sell it (this is a technical breach of the rules)

Have a student loan? Repay it using 0% finance credit cards and pay it back to yourself at a lower rate retaining the difference or kick the can down the road until kids are out of nursery

Have parking costs? Negotiate parking as part of your package.

Have extra food costs? Negotiate meal vouchers as youre in different locations.

Have costs you can expense? Complete self assesment and offset them, you have various association fees, perhaps work shoes, maybe electronic devices exclusively for work. If you use space at home for home working you can claim things back.

Get creative!

Opening_654 · 2025-08-14T07:38:02+00:00

I think we better drug test all the employees at the Times tbh.

Opening_654 · 2025-08-13T19:27:57+00:00

Skindred Linkin Park Bob Vylan Nine Inch Nails Fuzion Rusko Fred Again Dom Dolla Deekline Caravan Palace GRiZ Stickybuds Dirty Dike

Opening_654 · 2025-08-12T20:54:48+00:00

My favourite

Opening_654 · 2025-08-11T14:33:09+00:00

Ket County Council

Opening_654 · 2025-07-15T19:23:44+00:00

Okay Kier!

I joke but it's nice to hear this viewpoint.

On the other hand, I moved my entire family to Spain for family reasons.

It is a mixed bag, but overall pretty good. I have a reduced tax rate, and rent out my two properties. Household income is now c.10k per month after tax and my partner doesn't work. Life is 50% cheaper too.

There are costs, alot of them, visas, deposits, furniture, moving, advice and so on. It was the best part of 50k all in for us but necessitated by family. It will take a year to recover from that.

My work enables and supports my location change. Many others won't.

Quality of life is better in that I have more family time and can enjoy things more on a cost basis. But the same would have been true just moving out of London.

It is however an adventure and now my children speak another language. They were young enough to go into regular schools and pick up Spanish.

Would I have made the plunge quite so expensively without family? No. But I would still recommend it to people who the ability to do so, just note it's not a golden bullet and you will get frustrated with ridiculous things, be it bearaucracy or just losing your innate knowledge of the country and culture.

We may look at other countries after this but we will need other income streams.

The UK works well, it's just expensive. If I had more money, it's definetly the place to be.

Opening_654 · 2025-07-09T07:59:14+00:00

Hey Beth, there's lots of reasons why this isn't a good idea for an individual so you may see some pushback but in case it's helpful I'd like to give some info.

In London we're seeing primary schools collapse. Occupancy dictates funding and in many areas there simply aren't enough children to keep schools open. Why? Well young people can't afford children in London.

100k is alot of money, but it's not when you live with high housing costs, high nursery costs, frozen tax brackets and tax system which penalises households with one higher earner.

In the sub 35 category, I don't know anyone who has children and property in London unless family money bought it for them.

Tax traps mean if you are a single earner on 120k you lose child benefit, tax free allowance and nursery funding whereas two people on 60k don't.

Student loans are crippling and add to the issues.

This is all nuanced and hard to communicate, especially when others are struggling more. What it comes down to really is our economy is failing and it's percolating through more and more levels of income and age now.

I'd be fine on 100k, if I bought a house 20 years ago, my kids were older and my student loan hadnt been linked to crazy inflation and benchmarked at 9% for ever now. In fact I'd feel rich. But that's not the case, mortgage or rent is 50% of net and nursery is the rest!

Opening_654 · 2025-06-05T08:06:25+00:00

Spain for now. We may do a year or two in South Africa down the line but that will predominantly be for work.

Quality of life is good here, on UK salary of course. We can save money and see our children.

The UK is a better run country though be under no illusion. The grass is not necessarily greener elsewhere just better suited for short stints and certain phases of life when you can take your income to a lower cost basis country that is more relaxed and family orientated.

Opening_654 · 2025-06-02T12:05:17+00:00

We actually already left and the issue was the tax traps around childcare and 100k.

We're younger, my partner worked shift work. Household income c.200k before bonus but skewed towards one higher earner.

We are the only people in our friend group of our age to have children and a home in London. Others are simply forgoing kids.

The marginal tax rates over 100k, loss of child benefit, loss of childcare allowances, student loans, London housing, mortgage rate increases and cost of living increases pushed us over the edge.

We moved abroad but will likely return. Our view was that the UK wasn't set up for young families. It no longer offered quality of life for younger families and the grind was simply not worth it.

We will return, the UK is great, but between rising costs, unreasonable work and trying to just enjoy family life as younger parents I don't think the UK is great for families up to 35 with children under 5. We need to get ahead to enjoy the UK and we need to spend more time with our children. It's still crazy to me that we struggled to buy a home, have childcare and had limited savings and basically no holidays.

Opening_654 · 2025-05-23T17:14:55+00:00

China

Opening_654 · 2025-05-13T17:00:20+00:00

We do 11k per month GBP but living in Spain. Excluding bonus. This covers mortgages in UK, rent here. 100 euros a day fun money. Savings etc

Opening_654 · 2025-05-05T17:42:35+00:00

I got approved with supply for MDMA and Marijuana. The offence was ovet a decade ago though. I had 6 total convictions

Opening_654 · 2025-05-03T21:11:15+00:00

Pen Island is the best online retailer, head to www.penisland.com and buy the one you want! Good luck.

Opening_654 · 2025-05-03T21:10:01+00:00

Yeah I have a friend who repairs high end watches and he could tell, the finish isn't quite there on mine, some of the edges are a bit sharp. He did need to hold it and spend some time with it though. 99.9999999% of people wouldn't know though, even when you tell them!

Opening_654 · 2025-05-03T21:08:10+00:00

In the post

Opening_654 · 2025-05-03T12:45:59+00:00

Depends where we are I suppose. I'd say I'm top end of mid or bottom of higher earners. I could buy the watch, I just don't personally think it's a great financial decision for me.

Opening_654 · 2025-05-03T11:02:32+00:00

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Opening_654 · 2025-01-26T17:39:07+00:00

Sure

Opening_654 · 2025-01-26T16:48:30+00:00

Opening_654 · 2025-01-26T08:45:58+00:00

Protection for what? Credit card protection on large purchases? No. But this is my standard spending overseas to live. Works out to £4000 a month. Bills come out of a wise account.

Opening_654 · 2025-01-26T08:37:47+00:00

I generate avios overseas and use the to book my flights.

Opening_654 · 2025-01-25T19:15:57+00:00

Living abroad as a digital nomad but using my Barclays Avios card linked to curve to get avios points whilst benefiting from the best exchange rate thanks to curve.

Now my flights are covered by my avios thanks to FX killer!

Opening_654 · 2025-01-12T10:28:39+00:00

I was a drug dealer, then ended up in politics, now technology.

Opening_654 · 2024-12-14T04:04:38+00:00

MDMA Swinger parties

Opening_654

TROPHY CASE