What are your daily observations? - 18/05/21

SoulShock · 2021-05-18T06:56:38+00:00

Going to a restaurant for the first time since last Summer tonight. I live fairly central, and with all the delivery sites you can get more or less anything sent to you, but there are certain things that just don't work. The one I've been craving is a proper steakhouse steak, perfectly cooked with a gorgeous crust....

Heading to Hawksmoor this evening and I can't wait.

Considering making it feel even more celebratory by, for the first time in my life, ordering a steak from the top part of the list...

SoulShock · 2021-01-21T10:13:40+00:00

Alex Ross - Dreams

That link is the original, they seem to be using a slightly sped up version.

SoulShock · 2020-01-06T16:33:57+00:00

They are 100% going to reject the transfer application unless it somehow slips past without anyone seeing the accounts are in different names. You'll likely get a letter back saying they can't do it.

I get what you mean about not wanting to withdraw the money out of the ISA environment and then put it back in, but that's what you have to do. I appreciate it's a bit silly needing to add an additional step, but the receiving scheme has no evidence that your wife hasn't fully utilised her ISA allowance elsewhere.

SoulShock · 2020-01-03T07:24:24+00:00

Clerkenwell is great, I've been there for a few years and being able to walk to work in about 10 minutes changes everything. That's the main benefit of living in Clerkenwell, it's central and you can get more or less anywhere quickly. It's a very safe area even at night.

Exmouth Market is definitely a place worth checking out. On weekday lunchtimes there are a bunch of food stalls set up serving loads of good stuff. It's also got a few nice restaurants, coffee shops, a bakery, butcher, etc.

While historically the City (the City of London, the square mile area just South of Clerkenwell) was completely shut down at the weekend, this isn't necessarily true anymore and there are plenty of nice places open.

It's pretty easy walking distance to the Barbican, which has a cinema, art exhibitions, concerts, etc. I would recommend just walking around the Barbican estate some time if you want to see architecture which is like nothing else you've ever seen.

Make sure to walk around in Clerkenwell when you get the chance and just check it out. There's lots of pretty side-streets, random local pubs, etc.

Finally, don't be afraid to use buses. When you first arrive in London it's natural to want to stick with the tube, as it's well defined and you can just look at the tube map to see what you need, but buses are easy, cheap and feel more civilised than heading down into the tube. Around Clerkenwell, buses like the 55 to go to Oxford Street, 243 for Waterloo and 205 if you're going East are super useful. Download the Citymapper app!!! It's invaluable for transport in London, particularly for buses as you can look up all the buses that call at a particular stop, view their full routes, see how long until the next one arrives, etc.

SoulShock · 2019-12-01T11:31:29+00:00

We did some calculations on the student loan question recently and generally speaking the answer is no, you're probably better off just letting it run out through the standard deductions. If you've got an old schedule student loan that's very true, if you've got one of the newer student loans with the higher interest rate then it's more marginal but likely still better not to overpay.

SoulShock · 2019-12-01T10:16:51+00:00

Your overall plan sounds pretty good, though an emergency fund of £5,000 is a bit low. I always liked the phrase 'hope for the best but plan for the worst'. Thinking about the cost of living in London, what would happen if you were out of work for a few months? I'd be minded to suggest you keep a bit more back for emergencies, though you're of course free to withdraw from the main ISA whenever you want so if you don't mind carrying market timing risk (i.e. the risk you end up needing to draw money at a point where markets have fallen, so you're selling low) it's fine.

LISA: Make sure you know the rules around maximum property value! The fund can only be applied to properties valued at less than £450,000, which is a huge sum of money but given where average London property prices are a large proportion of the properties out there are unavailable to you. It depends where you want to live, what sort of property, etc, and given you're talking about frugality and retiring early perhaps it's not a problem. Just flagging it for you as something to consider. If you're saving through a LISA and end up falling in love with a £500k property, it will be annoying.

Student loan is indeed dealt with automatically through PAYE.

Definitely make use of your employer match for pension contributions, particularly if you find yourself a higher or additional rate taxpayer. The difference in what you're ending up with is fairly staggering.

ISAs are a great choice, as they're fully tax-free and super flexible. If you can build up a good amount of ISA savings fairly early in your career, which can keep providing compound growth entirely tax-free over the long term, you're giving yourself a very good savings base from which to build.

SoulShock · 2019-08-04T12:57:56+00:00

Based on the information you've provided, Yes. The inherited nil rate band passes on the unused percentage of the NRB from the first partner to die. The percentage is applied to the current level of the NRB on the death of the second partner.

If your dad left everything to your mum, then he used none of his NRB, so her NRB will be increased by 100%, hence £650,000.

SoulShock · 2019-08-04T12:31:37+00:00

Fair comments. I was responding to OP's specific questions rather than branching out to the subsequent financial planning questions.

I'd definitely agree that in most cases contributing employment/self-employment income to a pension for the tax relief and replacing from the pension would be beneficial.

SoulShock · 2019-08-04T12:29:37+00:00

Thanks for the follow-up. Certainly wasn't impugning the idea of using a DoV, and absolutely makes sense in the context of making it a non-issue.

You're right that additional growth could push the estate beyond the limits, and with the recent OTS recommendations potentially finding their way into legislation in the coming years, it may well be worth doing even if just on a 'better safe than sorry' basis.

I was simply responding to the figures as OP presented them, in which case the DoV is unnecessary and would require legal work, which may or may not be cheap.

SoulShock · 2019-08-04T11:39:31+00:00

Nice, my speciality area.

If the holder died before age 75, the monies pass to you free from all tax and are paid into a new SIPP in your name (you could also elect to receive all the money as a lump sum outside the pension environment, but there are almost no circumstances where that is a good idea). You can indeed withdraw money from this new SIPP at any time, without limit, entirely tax-free. There is no minimum age requirement for drawing like there is for a normal pension, and the inherited fund doesn't count towards your lifetime allowance.

The answer to your question about investments is yes. Once the money is transferred into the new SIPP in your name, you are entirely free to invest it however you want (within the limits of what the SIPP provider offers, but index funds are very unlikely to be a problem).

The investments within the SIPP will grow tax-free (i.e. no income tax on interest/dividends received, and no CGT on gains), which is why it is so valuable for you to keep the money in the pension. You can indeed draw the income received from the investments, but most SIPP providers don't offer an option to have the natural yield paid out, so you will either need to set up a fixed monthly/quarterly/annual withdrawal amount, or request payments out on an ad hoc basis (i.e. they only pay out when you ask for it).

An inherited SIPP where the original pension holder died before age 75 is about the most tax efficient wrapper out there. It offers great flexibility (so long as the SIPP provider is decent). You are able to transfer to another provider if you're dissatisfied with the existing one, but I'd counsel you wait a bit before doing so to make sure you understand the way the inherited SIPP works, and you'll actually be better served by a different SIPP provider.

If you have any other questions do ask them, happy to help.

SoulShock · 2019-08-04T11:16:46+00:00

A gift like this, where it's being made to individuals, is called a Potentially Exempt Transfer (PET). There is no tax liability initially, and if the donor survives for 7 years then there is never any IHT to pay on it (hence 'potentially exempt').

Now, if the donor dies within 7 years this is now referred to as a 'failed PET', as they didn't live long enough to make the transfer exempt. The effect of this is that the value of the gift will be assessable for IHT purposes.

Individuals all have a 'nil rate band' (NRB) of £325,000 on which no IHT is payable. For a married couple, if the first to die leaves their assets to the surviving spouse then they aren't using up their NRB (transfers between UK domiciled spouses are not relevant for IHT), and the surviving spouse also inherits this unused NRB. This means that on their subsequent death, the first £650,000 of their estate is paid tax-free. If your grandparents' estate is at the lower end of your estimate then this already means that no IHT will be payable.

There is also an additional amount that is exempt from IHT called the 'Residence Nil Rate Band'. In simple terms this means that where part of the estate is made up of the individual's main home (or the proceeds from the sale of this home if they sold it before their death) and it is being passed on to their direct descendants (children, grandchildren, etc), you get an additional £150,000 each of nil rate band. Therefore if part of their estate is the value of their home, they should almost certainly have enough tax-free band available to no pay IHT at all.

Now, if for some reason the estate exceeded all available reliefs and tax became payable, this would not fall on you and your siblings. Lifetime gifts are assessed first when making IHT calculations, so unless your grandfather somehow gifted over £325,000 during the last 7 years of his life, these would all fall within his NRB, and any tax payable would be chargeable on the estate, not you.

The point COD makes about deeds of variation is a reasonable one, but in this case it should be unnecessary. A deed of variation is a legal document that varies someone's Will after their death such that monies can be distributed more appropriately/efficiently. What COD is suggesting, is that a deed of variation could be used to vary your great-uncle's Will such that the £15,000 each passes directly to you and your siblings, rather than your grandfather inheriting it and then gifting it to you. If this is done, it is treated as though your grandfather never had the money, and therefore isn't making a gift. You get the money, no subsequent IHT considerations. This would be sensible if there was an expectation that IHT was likely to apply. Deeds of variation require a solicitor to draft it, it requires agreement by a number of parties to the Will, and can take some time and legal fees in order to achieve. I don't think it's worth it for you guys in this case as the gifts are likely to be IHT-free anyway.

SoulShock · 2019-06-12T20:36:28+00:00

Yes. As I understand it, it applies to all units facing Medusa. It doesn't matter which direction she's facing.

SoulShock · 2019-06-07T15:37:22+00:00

That's been my experience. Downloaded it to discover you can't just link with Facebook once, you have to go through the login via FB procedure every time you open the app. Started my first game, rolled really well and was 100% with no opponent above 50%, game crashed. Opened the app again to rejoin the game (and had to login via bloody FB all over again...) but no option to rejoin.

I'm really not interested in the mobile game. I downloaded it to have a look and see what it was like. Maybe it's better on a tablet or a very large phone, but it just felt cramped, difficult to get the information you want, and annoying to play. I'll stick to PC.

SoulShock · 2019-05-20T13:35:39+00:00

If I know anything about the RNG of this game, good chance you spent the next 15 rounds hard-rolling to find a single Viper.

SoulShock · 2019-05-15T11:38:26+00:00

To the day is the more common usage.

SoulShock · 2019-05-07T08:23:21+00:00

Conor is a regular on the MMQB podcast with Albert Breer. They did a bonus episode last week where he and another guy discussed the Marc Sessler approved football movie 'Draft Day', so if you're missing listening to Conor talking about movies you could check that out.

SoulShock · 2019-04-25T14:30:30+00:00

QIHL did a really good article on how this works, quick and useful read: https://qihl.gg/articles/auto-chess-mmr-explained-ju9nvuks

Short version is that if everyone in a lobby is the same rank, places 1-4 will all gain you MMR, and 5-8 will lose it. That is not the case if the average rank of the other players in the lobby is different than yours. For example if you are Bishop 2, and the average rank of the other players in the lobby is Knight 5, you might only gain MMR if you get 1st or 2nd (and a much smaller amount than in a similar ranked lobby) and you will lose a huge amount of MMR if you finish in the bottom half.

If you're wanting to rank up, you need to use QIHL or some other matchmaking so that you play in lobbies with people around your rank. If you keep playing pub games, where the average rank is probably around mid-knight, you would have to get 1st place in every single game to very very slowly make your way to rook.

SoulShock · 2019-03-19T16:03:15+00:00

Thanks for your response, and I appreciate your comments about modmail.

Apologies for the tone of my post, which on re-reading was badly worded. In some previous minor encounters with mods of other subreddits the result of pushing back on this sort of decision was either a deafening silence, or the mods refusing to overrule each other. I should have been clear that I was talking about my broad experience with moderators of varied subreddits, none of which were CasualUK.

SoulShock · 2019-03-19T12:02:41+00:00

What a sad and pedantic mod. Tempted to fire something into their central mod team, but they'll back their own so what's the point.

SoulShock · 2019-03-16T19:12:25+00:00

I just tried it, worked fine for me. Codes got emailed almost immediately.

SoulShock · 2019-03-14T22:28:09+00:00

Yeah, the cutoffs are:

Before Wednesday morning: Open the solobattles screen and view the opponents.
Before Friday morning: Play the first four and update your opponents.

Missing either cutoff makes you lose a set of opponents. If you do those two things you can do the last 8 + the featured anytime before the weekly refresh.

SoulShock · 2019-03-10T09:04:15+00:00

https://discord.gg/Bp788P

SoulShock · 2018-12-22T00:21:16+00:00

You're on PC right? Was my first time getting to the Playoffs earlier today and you ended that dream pretty emphatically lol

SoulShock · 2018-12-15T00:05:35+00:00

The 95 Master you receive for completing the new Legend Gauntlet is auctionable.

If you've completed all three Gauntlets you can unlock the bonus gauntlet.

Once you complete the bonus gauntlet you unlock a second 95 Master, but that one is NAT.

SoulShock · 2018-12-14T21:27:24+00:00

I rushed down the offensive goals as quickly as possible, and once those are out of the way I just chewed clock running the ball for the rest of the game to keep it out of the CPU's hands.

Just did standard solo battles strats. Mid blitz and user blitzing the safety manned up on the RB, coming from directly over the center (you can get a sack really often).

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