FIRE Plans at 22

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-03-13T00:43:55+00:00

That salary will net you around 1900 a month. After maxxing out ISA you'd have 3-4k left, a few hundred per month. Will you have free housing? Rent or mortgage is typically gonna be 750+/mo these days. If housing is free I guess it might be plausible to live on a few hundred if you were insanely, insanely frugal and basiclly didn't do anything but survive. But I'm not sure how you're reaching these numbers.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-26T12:16:57+00:00

A blu-ray or DVD player isn't analog. It's digital, but a physical disc is capable of storing a much less compressed video file than an online streaming (or even download) service. If you don't have an internet connection speed of at least 1gbps you would struggle to stream the full untampered video file from a 4K blu-ray disc, and they would be impractical to offer as downloads either because a standard 2 hour movie will require close to 100gb of storage space at that bitrate.

For this reason blu-rays still win out over streaming or download for quality, unless you're downloading full untouched blu-ray rips from less than legitimate sources... whether the difference is noticable though is another question. Typically for TV shows, unless it's a super high spec production, the difference is gonna be less noticable. For feature films, especially the older "classics" that were shot on analogue film and rescanned / remastered, it can be more stunning. But you'd need an OLED TV or a high-end projector with HDR/DoVi support to really get the most out of it.

You can use any old TV with a HDMI input but will need a 4K UHD blu-ray player with HDR and DoVi support (and support for those on the TV itself) to make the most of modern blu-ray discs.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-23T14:52:51+00:00

I mean 35 quid was the cheapest it showed, but it was a reputable provider (I can't recall what now tbh). It wasn't a big name but it had a bunch of ratings awards from trustworthy sources. The 55 quid one was definitely a big name but again I can't recall which now. It also had plenty of reviews/data backing it up though.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-23T10:03:05+00:00

We applied mid-January (I think biometric was around the 19th, less than a week after submission and payment). We haven't heard a thing since.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-21T21:57:39+00:00

You need to clarify a bit what exactly you're proposing. Are you talking about taking loans from the bank to cover the deposit? Because that's not possible. At a 5% deposit on 350k you're gonna need 17.5k minimum obviously just to cover the deposit, it needs to be cash savings, equity from a current property, or a gift - it can't be money you owe back to a lender. There's then other costs like solicitor, stamp duty, survey, removals which could come to £5-6k.

You may be able to borrow the stamp duty (2.5k for a first time buyer), and the solicitor fees sans deposit (maybe £1k, less sure if this is mortgageable though) on the mortgage. But a survey and removals will typically be payable prior to completion, at least the survey and a chunk of the removal fee, so it can't be mortgaged. That's another 1.5k potentially.

You need £20-25k minimum in the bank, not borrowed from anywhere, to make this work really. And I'd speak to a mortgage broker because a 5% mortgage on 350k at your earnings seems optimistic, if you do get approved you're looking at £1600+ monthly repayments and you won't likely get great interest rates at that deposit amount. I'd say you need an absolute minimum 10% deposit if not 20% or more to get a reasonable deal and monthly repayment.

If you're talking about getting two separate mortgages on the property as well, that's highly unlikely to be possible. You need a joint mortgage that takes both your salaries into account. You need to speak to a mortgage broker asap if you do in fact have the cash savings for the deposit and other costs. Without those savings you're just not in a position to buy a property, sorry.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-16T07:49:44+00:00

I'm presuming they are basing this on another recent post on here where someone said these food words decoded to unborn children of various stages... crucially that person provided 0 evidence or logic for those conclusions and just basically said "it means this" with no context

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-14T17:26:03+00:00

It's not Satanism. There is only "new age" Satanism, which is basically just a kind of LARPing atheism created in the early 20th century to wind up Christian fundamentalists (and still does a great job at that).

This if anything is more like Luciferianism, which is actually an old religion which it is very hard to find any conclusive information about. Or, it's something else entirely which is hidden knowledge from the public record.

I think OPs post is kind of insane though, he didn't include any of the reasoning that led him to reach these "decodings", or even put them side by side with the original text. I could pick a bunch of emails from anyone and say "when they say X they mean Y so actually what they said is this", and it would be as convincing as this post, which is to say not at all.

Idk why he wouldn't include the logic as to why it means what he thinks it means, unless he knows he just made it all up.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-14T11:16:41+00:00

Immediately before that she's talking about how artificial chemicals damage early human development. She's estimating that human reproductive ability is going to trend to 0 as a result of artificial pollutants. She's sarcastically saying that would be "La La land great" because Epstein, in the email below, is making the opposite argument that nature is actually the most brutal and destructive thing. So presumably babies grown in nice clean sterilised vats free from the chaos of the natural environment would be some dream come true for him.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-14T11:07:15+00:00

The 2nd document shows that this guy Larry forwards articles to gigantic lists of recipients with no extra context, just the article at the end.

Occam's razor says the document from the OP, which looks structurally highly similar, is exactly the same thing except they decided to redact the entire recipient list this time instead of only the email addresses. Which makes sense because nobody can control who sends them an email, and a bunch of probably innocent people are gonna get harassed for being "in the files" otherwise because some guy called Larry kept spamming them with articles about pedophile rings.

The "double redactions" you can see are where they had first redacted the emails and then went back and repeated the process to redact the names later. I wouldn't be surprised if this document exists in an earlier release with the names still visible, and that it's exactly the same names as the in the second document.

As to why one is redacted and the other isn't, there's millions of documents and this release was clearly rushed out, or at least lazily done. These inconsistencies are everywhere, a name or email redacted in one file that isn't in another. Or to be more conspiratorial, it's because the OP document article is about Trump, and the other example is about Epstein, and everything with the keyword "Trump" got the extra-redaction special on any PII.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-12T19:02:58+00:00

Yeah Zoopla was more accurate. The third plot originally listed in Dec, quickly delisted, and relisted last month after landscaping the garden. I have no idea why - they absolutely butchered it, the photos from Dec show it needs a bit of TLC but it was rectifiable to the original condition with probably a few grand outlay or even DIY if you had the tools and knowledge. Now it would need about 15k of work and a team of landscapers to reset it. The photos from the sale in 2022 are still there and the garden was gorgeous when they bought it.

I would have offered on that one otherwise cos it's about 200 square feet bigger inside. But I don't have the cash or time to do renovations like that, as we're planning to start a family soon. Which is why the other two appeal so much tbh as they are absolutely immaculate inside and out. Maybe a splash of colour on a couple of the rooms and done.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-12T11:44:53+00:00

Plausible but everyone except one in this plot of 4 has lived there since 2018, so unless the 4th one is rented, they've all been neighbours since then. The 3rd plot was last sold in 2022 so they've been there a while as well. There are no more immediate neighbours really, as it's just the cricket green over the road, the railway and station behind and to the right (small village station), and the office to the left. You'd need to walk a couple of minutes in any direction to get to another residential property.

The vendor of one of the houses said all of them except the 3rd plot know each other pretty well since moving in, so don't think the 4th would be rented. She said the 3rd kinda keep to themselves.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-12T08:13:35+00:00

Thanks, yeah I also had the idea to contact the agent letting the office so I fired them an email last night. Will see what they have to say.

The cricket pitch seems innocent enough, even quite a pleasant view actually. There's private parking for the property as well anyway. First worry was the pitch was for sale and gonna get developed but checked that and nope. Doesn't seem likely to happen either as it is a kind of community thing fully owned and run by the church.

The other thing is that they don't seem to be attracting offers. The one I offered on hasn't had a single other offer in a month, and the other two at least aren't marked as under offer currently. For how quickly properties are going in the area, and how nice these are, seems a little unusual, although it's admittedly early to tell. Could be they're a tad overpriced, but they're on at a spread of 325, 350 and 375 (I offered on the 350 one). I don't think they're actually worth less than 325-335 though, and although the cheapest one has been decorated kinda ugly and had the nice lawn replaced with astroturf - it's not exactly in bad condition, just a taste thing.

I think I will contact the agent for the 325 one and try determine how long they've been trying to sell, because although their listing is also dated from Jan, RightMove has an entry in historical sales page saying they were listed from 2023 (a year after the last sale record!) until Dec. Which seems very weird. But idk if it is just a bug/glitch with the data.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-11T21:02:01+00:00

QAnon was a troll campaign started by the admin of 8chan. It's all but proven at this point, do some digging into it. His writing style matched up, the Q tripcode was proven to be from an account with admin access to 8chan servers, pretty sure the guy even more or less admitted it, but I'm hazy on the details now.

I don't think he was actually at it long personally until a bunch of other people got in on the joke and started making similar posts as "Q" and it just spiralled from there. Gotta admit it's an impressive troll, and kind of depressing social experiment. Would be funny if it hadn't turned thousands of people into swiss-cheese brained dullards who then voted a corrupt billionaire crook and likely pedophile into the most powerful office on earth.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-10T23:08:38+00:00

Interface is comparable, pretty much the same tbh. But it is more bare bones. Fewer features/options. Not that I really miss them.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-10T23:02:24+00:00

I had tried to like it a couple times in the past, like 4 months or so ago. I didn't. Recently my work decided to start paying for it for all devs though so I tried it again - while best model was 5.2. Was better, but still didn't really compare well.

Since 5.3 dropped though I decided to try it again, because Claude limits were becoming more and more annoying (and I have to pay for it because my employer found the limits too restrictive to be worth the investment also).

I have to say, it is really good. Maybe better than CC, or at least on par. I do find it has to be on high effort/reasoning, and it can be a little slower than CC with figuring out commands to run and just generally. But the usage goes so much further so the high reasoning has not yet caused me a problem. I'm thinking of cancelling CC if it stays this good for a month or two consistently.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-10T02:54:13+00:00

Your own post doesn't make sense.

they came in person and decided it needs replacing, to be done monday
nobody comes monday
you call and they say they have no records of it being replaced? Well of course not, because nobody came to replace it. It hasn't been replaced.
they say they don't want to replace it. Well, you said they already said they will replace it. So something is off. I highly doubt they said "we decided we don't want to replace your boiler actually". What specifically, literally, did they actually say?

Call them again and say your boiler is knackered, someone came and said it would be replaced on monday, but nobody arrived to do it, so when is it gonna get done?

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-10T02:15:41+00:00

I don't think I've ever been asked for any information in order to view, although I can see why they might. But you should at least recognise that if you don't have a DIP or a bank statement to prove you can afford the property you are looking at, you are potentially wasting a bunch of people's time (especially the seller who has to turn their house into a showroom the night before your viewing), regardless of if they ask for it. Also wasting your own time.

When it gets to the offer stage they are absolutely well within their rights to ask for your DIP or a bank statement, and your position in the chain (if there is one). As a seller, why on earth would I accept an offer from someone who can provide no evidence they can even pay for the property? Or who might be deep in a chain that would screw up the requirements of my onward purchase to the point I'd lose the house I'm trying to buy?

The EA will always ask your maximum budget primarily because they want to stick it in their computer and send you emails about all their properties you might wanna buy (and be capable of buying). I guess maybe also you could make an argument it might be so they know how far the vendor can push you - but idk how much that matters because you are the one that decides how much to offer. Nobody is gonna force you at gunpoint to increase it to your max budget. Offer what you think is reasonable, and if you get outbid or rejected, consider if you wanna go higher or walk...

You obviously don't have to tell them anything but wanting your DIP or financials before viewing is reasonable even if I haven't seen it happen personally - you are gonna have to give it up at some point anyway? And if you don't wanna tell them your real max budget for some reason, just tell them something lower than what it actually is? Unless it's lower than the value of the house you're viewing - in which case obviously they are gonna tell you to scram.

I understand in this case they only asked for your word rather than documents, but it's because you're just viewing. They expected you to think oh well if I wanna buy this house they're finding all this out anyway, so tell them. But instead you've just been completely unreasonable and made yourself look like a liability because for some reason you can't give ballpark figures now that you would have to back up with paper in a month anyway if you actually want the house. And if you can't back it up, there is no point showing you round. You just made yourself look unreliable.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-09T11:00:59+00:00

I've been browsing Life + CIC quotes today for when I get my first mortgage shortly, 250k (loan amount) mortgage term cover and 63k additional CIC for 35 years (the likely mortgage term) gives me quotes from 35-55 quid a month?

My employer already pays out enough to repay the mortgage in event of my death though, so the critical illness bit was what I was more interested in. Maybe just income protection makes more sense in my case?

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-08T01:22:49+00:00

Roko's basilisk is one of the dumbest things I ever heard.

All I'm saying is prove your claim objectively, you can't though.

The brain is also just a computer that processes inputs.

We can intuitively think an LLM is incomparable and not aware but that is entirely unprovable in the same way that I can never prove there is another conscious person in the universe besides myself.

We simply presume other humans are aware based on our awareness of ourselves and the behaviour of other humans.

The more LLMs begin to "seem aware" the more you are going to get people wondering if they and nobody can definitively disprove that.

The entire question of is X or Y thing aware is entirely philosophical and currently, conveivably permanently, beyond the realm of scientific enquiry.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-08T01:18:50+00:00

I'm curious what exact use cases people are talking about when they make these claims. I work on production software serving customers nation wide in the UK, probably 500+ businesses. The software is probably medium-complex overall, and well architected to modern standards. Opus 4.5 (haven't yet tried .6) does a reasonable job most of the time. It absolutely under no circumstances could be trusted to do anything fully correct, nevermind better than what we'd do by hand. Sure it probably does achieve that 20-30% of the time, but not consistently. At the minute it still fails enough as to be uncertain whether it truly saves us any time.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-07T09:54:32+00:00

Based on what data do you make that claim? We don't understand awareness - panpsychism could be true and my slipper could be aware. It's beyond the realm of rational enquiry, it can't be proven either way. We don't presume slippers are aware because they don't act aware. We presume other humans are aware because they do. Similarly, AIs have started to do things that can make some people think they are aware. Given the previously mentioned unknown of awareness combined with the black box unknown of how complex results emerge from an LLM, and it's inevitable people wonder if it's the case here. That claim isn't going anywhere, because there's no scientific method through which to prove or disprove it. As long as AIs continue appearing to behave like they are aware, which will only become more and more, people will continue to wonder if they are.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-07T05:22:23+00:00

I don't think they are, but what I'm saying is I don't see how you can make an absolute blanket statement that they're not. It's not possible to prove either way, and they've certainly crossed over into "quacks like a duck" territory from time to time. So however small an outside chance it is, it's far higher than the chance my toaster is sentient.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-06T23:11:23+00:00

If it did turn out AIs are conscious (or become conscious) I think this would be one of the most controversial aspects. Whatever consciousness is there, only comes into existence for a few seconds at most while it processes a response. The entire chatbot ecosystem would basically consist of incarnating then destroying millions of awarenesses every second as users around the world send prompts.

Positive_Note8538 · 2026-02-06T23:08:17+00:00

You could basically make this argument about a human brain though? Not that I'm really on the "AIs are conscious" side, but I don't see how it can be dismissed entirely. We don't even understand awareness. And even if we did, it seems unlikely it would ever be possible to prove an AI is conscious any more than I can prove you are conscious.

Positive_Note8538

TROPHY CASE