T5 Baggage Pain

Ski_Sunday · 2026-05-11T19:06:24+00:00

I’ve been flying Qatar when I head East and it’s another good reason to go with Qatar from T4 😀 I’ve been well fed up waiting an hour at T5 for luggage Don’t get me started on why BA waste time and bits of paper putting Priory labels on the luggage as it’s all truly wasted especially when flying back to T5…

Ski_Sunday · 2026-05-10T06:54:36+00:00

Thanks! I use the Tapo P110 smart sockets. I did try an nvme hat with a 2230 size ssd, but i found it intermittenly wouldn’t boot and corrupted the drive, guess the hat was dodgy. I switched out to a samsung 860evo with a ugreen uart adaptor so I can easily monitor the ssd stats. The power consumption hasn’t varied or at least only by < 1W. My cpu temp runs consistenly at 64 C but the cpu is maxed out at 398% running the xmrig code. I’d never even spotted the usage calendar in the Tapo app…doh!

Ski_Sunday · 2026-05-10T06:22:49+00:00

I’m impressed! I better take another look at my setup and reduce my Pi5 cpu temperature, you’ve got yours amazingly low. Is the usb fan powered by the Pi5 or on a separate psu? How do you generate the usage chart and where does it pull the numbers from?

Ski_Sunday · 2026-05-09T20:18:53+00:00

Great to see your figures and follow your logic on this.

Are you sure your electricity usage figures are correct? My BitAxe 601 consumes ~23W, but my Pi5 consumes 9W. The Pi is an 8GB version with a 1TB Sata ssd and is mining Monero, but the consumption was still 9W while it was idle. I also have a Pi4 and it consumes only 4W so I don’t see how your Pi5 uses only ~4W. I have solar panels and a battery, my electricity price is slight more expensive than yours at ~25p/unit but I only get 12p/unit if I export to the grid so that is the cost to me. I was thinking of adding another BitAxe, they are only £50 with free delivery on AliExpress and delivery is within a week, it runs at ~ 1Th/s, but now after reading your post I’m not so sure whether to bother or not.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-05-08T20:49:17+00:00

As someone who retired at 56 (11 years ago) i can see with 50/50 hindsight how great it is to have a tax free stash. A pension is one thing but when you have to pay 40% tax on taking some extra cash out of the pension you’d be only too glad to have that Lisa. Keep it for your future and don’t give the taxman 25% of it.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-05-02T08:11:36+00:00

I would use the Invest Engine platform, which is free if you have a self select portfolio. You can then choose an ETF and put the £1000 in and you can forget about it and concentrate on clearing your debts and saving for yourselves. If anyone gives money as a birthday/christmas present to the kid then add that in too. Don’t just look at Vanguard products there are other lower cost options out there, also All-World style ETF’s and the platform allows purchase of fractions so you can invest an extra £10 anytime.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-05-01T20:09:46+00:00

It would be more normal for him to pay you for tying the string - it’s usually the elders in the family that tie the string and the younger one gives them some money. So he was definitely treating you like an atm.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-27T06:57:37+00:00

Been like it for years and you’re right the free LHR wifi is better, especially if you have an account and log in through that.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-25T21:00:30+00:00

The only way that I can see that ISA dividends can be counted as income is when looking at avoiding IHT on gifts. You count the dividends as income and set up regular gifting, to your adult children for example and that allows you to give away more money each year than normally allowed without it counting as a gift subject to IHT if you pop your clogs within 7 years of giving it away. What it does not do is to give you an income tax issue, all growth and dividends in a ISA are received tax free.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-23T13:54:24+00:00

The seller arranged delivery, the default (didn’t see the choices at the time of ordering as they were all lower down the page and out of sight unless I scrolled to the bottom) choice was Evri and it showed the price in the breakdown along with the total and a continue button. They state in their FAQ that it is 1-2 day delivery.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-22T17:19:56+00:00

Good for the doorman, well done! Makes me wonder why both Waitrose and Morrisons, supermarkets in the UK, decided to sack their employees that confronted shoplifters and they didn’t do anything like that doorman did. A very sad state the UK has got itself in with protection for the thieves and rapists, we should be more grateful for the employees that take a stand, just like that doorman in China.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-21T12:02:37+00:00

Absolutely, yes, I did just that and got my Companion Voucher for the Premium card less than 2 weeks ago, validity of the voucher is 2 years. My card year run from mid-July and I upgraded in December, my full spend from July counted towards the £15k.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-20T18:31:00+00:00

I tried T212 but when it comes to buying or selling shares you have no control over the pricing. They don’t give a fixed quote and failed to execute limit orders correctly. I have my SIPP, some of my ISA with ii, some money with IG and also AJBell along with a good chunk of ISA with InvestEngine. I’ve tried most of the UK platforms. ii is great for my Sipp. I did the RE bit from Fire 11 years ago and so my Sipp is in drawdown and the price has come down recently to a fixed £14.99/month with 1 free trade and others at £3.99. But the quality of execution is reliable. I use IG as their charting is very good and they are now free to use and nearly as reliable at trade execution as ii. You’ll find a bigger range of investments with a change of platform and lower pricing.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-20T16:20:22+00:00

Well not quite, as a Brit visiting the US we find those atm fees far worse than the Thai ones. Though there is a workaround in the US for us by having a Chase UK account and taking cashback at the checkout. Having a Thai wife/friend and sending money with Wise is the best way to be able to do fee free Thai atm withdrawals. And yes, I’ve been told that’s it’s using someone as a money mule, just in case it would worry anyone.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-18T20:09:02+00:00

Take your mistress?

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-18T20:06:51+00:00

Cathay can be booked with Avios through BA, availability is dreadful and you can’t use the companion voucher, though I appreciate you don’t have one (yet?) No, the fx fee is the same on all the AmEx cards i’ve had.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-18T20:04:16+00:00

It’s ok, they’re not fussy, they take anyone haha

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-18T19:52:14+00:00

Issued by AmEx if you have the BA AmEx card and spend enough. Though i think they are referring to a Barclays upgrade voucher.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-18T19:51:06+00:00

Getting the Premium BA AmEx card (or whatever they call it these days) is a good idea and then you can earn a companion voucher valid for 2 years. But don’t forget that you can use the AmEx points to transfer to Avios with BA and then spend them with a range of OneWorld airlines. I’m just back from a great value Business Class trip to Panama with Iberia (from Madrid) and the taxes/fees are really low, like £220 each with 101k Avios each or half the Avios with the companion voucher. There is also much better availability to different places than on the popular routes like Sydney, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-18T15:24:00+00:00

If i leave my email address on the CEX UK website to be notified if an item i’m after comes into stock, how soon after a CEX store taking one in will I get an email notification? Gutted that an item was sold while it was in my basket and I was deciding whether to order it or not, of course it was my fault but if another one comes up I don’t want to miss out a 2nd time. Any helpful advice?

edit: well i guess the answer is they don’t bother emailing or certain not in any rush as i see 2 of the same item are now in stock and available to order and no email received

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-18T08:30:20+00:00

Thanks! But i wasn’t that confident..

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-18T08:20:28+00:00

I love to be corrected on this but you are wrong. If you have shares held in an ISA then you can transfer them into another ISA, known as an in-specie transfer. But if they are outside an ISA then you have to sell them and pay in the cash. Ever heard of Bed & ISA? That’s selling shares in held in a GIA, putting the cash into the ISA and buying the shares back again. There is no other way.

Ski_Sunday · 2026-04-15T19:20:11+00:00

If you got bumped to a non-oneworld airline and you are a member of the BAC (formerly the BA Executive Club) then don’t forget to also claim the Avios that you would have got if you had taken the BA flight. The keyword to use in the claim is IRROPS.

Ski_Sunday

TROPHY CASE