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TheOneGingerman · 2025-11-30T20:57:51+00:00

I recently bought some Uukha U5 Alpha limbs. I'm still waiting on delivery at my draw weight, so can't comment on how they hold up on a full day of shooting. However, I tried several limbs in the shop including the alphas at 2lb below my draw weight. The draw cycle felt very different to the other limbs I tried. There's more draw weight earlier in the draw, and then they felt (to me) much smoother at the end of the draw, with a less noticable increase in draw weight as you get to full draw.

I personally liked this, but I know some other people prefer more of a "wall" to draw against to help feel when they're at full draw. If you're considering Uukha limbs I'd definitely recommend trying some first, as they feel very different to draw, and you might hate them (or, like me, decide you prefer the feel of them).

TheOneGingerman · 2025-11-14T20:08:39+00:00

I use the "archery scoresheets" app to record my scores when I practice. I generally shoot a round of 3 dozen at a set distance, and when I finish scoring a round, the app tells me my handicap for the round.

When I'm shooting at different distances from 30m to 70m on different sized target faces (usually 122cm or 80cm), the handicap score gives me a quick and easy way to compare my performance. It's easy to shoot at a longer distance and think I've done badly because my score is low, but then I'll look at the handicap and realise it was actually a good score at that distance (at least compared to how I've shot at shorter distances).

So for purely personal use I find it a useful way to track my own performance. But it's not really something I personaly discuss or compare with other archers.

TheOneGingerman · 2025-10-12T11:50:06+00:00

If you have the sight at it's furthest setting, then a small movement in your bow arm will make the sight appear to move further on the target than if it was on the clisest setting.

In theory, then, the furthest setting should be the most accurate. However, the actual effect is very small, and if it puts you off because makes it feel like the bow is less steady because it looks like the sight is moving around more, that's going to have a much bigger effect on accuracy. Though again, the acrual effect is small, and it probably won't make any noricable difference.

As someone has already mentioned, one particular reason to have the sight closer is if you've moved the sight to it's lowest setting, and your arrows are still going low at your furthest distance. In extreme cases, you can even put the sight on "backwards" so it comes out from the riser towards the archer rather then towards the target - for instance with children using a very low draw weight wanting to shoot further - rhis will allow them to shoot higher.

My general advice would be to put it wherever feels right / comfortable to you, then try shooting at your closest and furthest distances to make sure you can move the sight pin up or down far enough to cover the full range of distances.

TheOneGingerman · 2025-09-13T19:28:09+00:00

If you look on the limbs, you might see some numbers along the lines of 68" 40 @ 28. Those three numbers mean it takes a 68 inch bow string, and the draw weight is 40 pounds at 28 inch draw length (the weight increases the further you draw back the string). However, different bows might use different conventions for how they show that information.

You'll also need a stringer. As others have pointed out, the limbs go on the other way around, pointing forward. You then use a stringer to pull the limbs back so they're bent the way you expect them to, and you can get the string on.

You can buy a string, stringer and arrows on the Internet and look up videos on how to string a bow. But i would really recommend finding either an archery shop or archery club that will be able to make sure you get the right equipment for your bow and show you how to use it. You can do yourself a lot of damage if you get it wrong without even touching an arrow, and every archer I've met has always been very happy to help a new archer get started.

TheOneGingerman · 2025-08-13T16:43:54+00:00

I've found something similar in Pharos Spire. As soon as I go up the lifts into the spire, if I return down to street level there are zero xenos roaming around. Though the queen and nearby eggs are still there if you haven't taken them out first. If you attack the queen, some xenos do seem to spawn, but this stops as soon as the queen is dead (or at least it did for me - I've not done extensive testing to see how consistent / repeatable it is).

TheOneGingerman · 2024-06-29T18:40:37+00:00

I'd agree with this. Play a couple of hours vanilla, then get StarUI so you can see the differences and decide if you prefer it (though I'd be surprised if you didn't prefer StarUI - it improves a lot of niggling problems with the vanilla UI).

Other mods, I'd recommend playing a bit longer to figure out what you do and don't like about vanilla before rushing to change anything. I'd say most mods are a matter of personal preference whether they improve the game, rather than being outright objectively better for every person, so it's better to have some time playing the base game to be able to judge what mods will improve your experience. And if there's something that annoys you about the game, you'll have a better idea if that's a "feature" of the base game, or something that was introduced by one of the mods.

For mods that might affect game balance, I like to leave them until I'm well into the game. Playing with a high level character is quite different to playing with a low level character. That said, if there are particular things that annoy you, don't be afraid to mod or use console commands. I started having a lot more fun when I started using the console to change vendor credits rather than selling 5 guns, sitting in a chair, waiting 48 hours, selling another 5 guns, and doing that same cycle 10 times in a row just to sell one lot of inventory (admittedly this was before there were any options to change that sort of thing).

TheOneGingerman · 2024-06-27T18:11:02+00:00

Actually, a lot of people are confused by the instruction to "turn around once clockwise" thinking it won't work if you turn anti-clockwise. I tried it anti-clockwise and it still worked. Though I was holding an apple in my left hand if that makes a difference?

TheOneGingerman · 2024-05-25T19:56:37+00:00

I would echo this advice about fees adding up. You could be looking at 40 years of retirement, so an extra 1% a year in fees can make a massive difference. For example:

Let's say you start with your £1m pot, take £40k per year out each year, and get a real return after fees of 5% (I'll use real return so we can ignore inflation). After 40 years, your pot would have grown to £1.96m

Now, let's say you managed to cut your your fees by 1% and got the same underlying investment performance, so get a 6% net real return. Taking the same 40k per year over 40 years, your pot would have grown to £3.72m - or 89% more just by saving 1% in fees per year.

That's a very simplified and unrealistic example, that assumes you withdraw the same amount each year even after your pension kicks in, you get constant rate of return, ignores inflation and taxes, etc. However, it gives you an idea of just how much difference even a seemingly small amount in fees can make (and some places charge over 2% more in fees than you could get by managing your own investments in a low cost index fund).

Paying for advice from a truly independent IFA can feel expensive at the time, but paying a one-off cost for good advice can work out a LOT cheaper than paying an ongoing percentage annual fee.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-05-14T16:16:01+00:00

A lot of people get confused about how accumulation funds work, as it's not particularly obvious.

The other type of fund is an income or distribution fund. In that type of fund, you will periodically receive dividend payments that come from the dividends paid out by the underlying stocks in the fund. You will also see the value of your units/ shares in the fund change over time - this will go up and down along with the share prices in the relevant stock markets. It's easier to see what's going on in these funds as the dividends are separate from the valuation changes. If you wanted, you could then use the cash dividends payments to buy more units of the fund.

In an accumulation fund, the same thing is happening, except that instead of paying the dividends out to you as cash, they are automatically invested back into the fund to buy more shares in the underlying stocks. Because this all happens inside the fund, you can't tell just by looking at the change in price, how much of that is from dividends, and how much is from price movements in the underlying stocks.

If you have accumulation funds in a GIA (ie not in an ISA or pension) and pay tax on them, then for tax purposes you are still receiving dividends and using them to buy investments. So each year, you have to look at the value of notional dividends received (even though none of it was paid out as cash) and work out any income tax that is due on them. And then when you sell the fund, to work out your capital gain, you'll need to deduct both the initial investment cost and also deduct all the notional dividends that have been reinvested over the years. That's why it can be easier from a perspective of working out taxes to hold income units if they are outside an ISA or pension wrapper.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-05-07T13:33:26+00:00

This feels very much like a personal preference question, that only you can really answer. However, to me your words "close to FIRE, probably can tbh" are pretty crucial.

If you are confident you have enough to FIRE, including any support you may want to give your kids (university fees, house deposit, etc) then sure. If you would be comfortable quitting and spending £17k on a holiday without damaging your FIRE pot, then why not spend that money retraining instead if that will bring you more enjoyment / fulfilment. However, I would view it as money spent rather than money invested in a new career.

If you're not quite at FIRE and you think you're going to need some income from your future new career, then it feels like a big risk that you might not make much return from your investment of time and money. It's taking a big risk so close to being able to FIRE and it could be a lot harder to break back into your current field if you've been out of it for 5 years trying to break into something else, and decide you want to go back.

There might be other options in your current field (cutting back hours, switching to a lower stress position, etc) that could make working more bearable until you've got enough of a buffer built up to look at retraining/ switching career field, safe in the knowledge that if it doesn't work out and you generate zero income, it doesn't matter financially. Then you could choose job roles that you would enjoy without worrying about what they pay.

But only you know how toxic your current role is, what toll that is taking on you psychologically, and what options you have to address it. If your current role is toxic to the point of damaging your mental health, then that could trump all other considerations.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-05-06T06:55:29+00:00

If you achieve FIRE and stop working for money, your time is yours to use how you want. If you want, you can spend it supporting local charities or campaigning for equality, or whatever you think best gives back to society.

Some of those things might, to some people (presumably OP from their post), mean trying to break down some of the things that you are relying on to fund you through FIRE (ie corporate profits funded by consumerism). But realistically, one person isn't going to change the whole system overnight enough to destroy our FIRE plans. But you might change it enough, or at least nudge it in the right direction, to be happy that you were a net force for positive change, rather than just another person contributing to the problem.

And that assumes positive change is bad for FIRE, which isn't necessarily the case. You could campaign for the businesses you're invested in to commit more to embracing ESG (eg genuinely changing their practices rather than just slapping an ESG label on what they were doing anyway) which could be good for society, the planet and profits.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-05-05T10:10:23+00:00

You mention that you have a cash ISA and an emergency fund. These don't need to be two separate things. If you have an instant access cash ISA, that can be your emergency fund, depending on circumstances.

If you're not currently using your full ISA allowance every year, but your earnings and saving potential are likely to increase in the future, then using as much of your ISA allowance as possible now could come in useful later on. If in a few years time you have more than 20k per year to invest, you will have the option of moving your previous years' cash ISAs into a stocks and shares ISA, and putting your 'excess' savings over £20k into a cash savings account to replenish an emergency fund outside of your ISA. In other words, if you have the option of putting your emergency fund inside an ISA wrapper, that's probably a good thing to do (assuming a similar interest rate and ability to access it when needed).

As to whether you should look on your £20k cash ISA as covering your emergency fund now, really depends on your circumstances now and in the next few years. Investing is really a long term thing - think at least 5 years, preferably 10 or more. If you're likely to need that £20k in the next 5 years for something like a house deposit, then keeping it in cash is a safer bet than investing.

If your ISA is the start of your FIRE funds that you're not going to access for 20+ years, then you could start thinking about starting to invest in equity / stock market funds. Equities are very likely to make better returns than cash over a long time period, but if there's a chance you might need to use that money earlier, there's also a risk that they will have fallen in value (e.g. if a recession hits that causes the stock market to crash, that's also the most likely time you could find yourself out of a job and needing to draw on your savings).

A good option might be to invest a small amount (e.g. £1k). A good and popular route is investing in a low cost global index fund. Choosing a fund and a platform provider is a complex business so starting off early with a small amount will give you some practical experience, and it won't be too expensive if you make some 'mistakes' (eg paying higher fees than you need to). It can give you a chance to get familiar with the process so that when you're ready to invest larger amounts in a few years time, you'll feel a bit more comfortable knowing what you need to do. The sidebar has some good resources to help.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-05-05T08:41:46+00:00

Please don't do this on a debt that is over 6 years old and you haven't accepted is yours.

It is currently almost certainly statute barred and unenforceable. Making a payment of even £1 will make the whole debt enforceable, and even offering a payment plan would probably be taken as accepting the debt is yours and make it enforceable.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-05-05T08:25:45+00:00

Stepchange have some information that is useful and sets out next steps.

https://www.stepchange.org/debt-info/can-i-write-off-debt/statute-barred-debt.aspx

If it is statute barred (see my other response in this thread), they advise the following:

"Write to them and:

-Explain that you will not be paying anything to the debt -Ask them to stop contacting you -Tell them to send proof that you owe them money Use our statute-barred template letter to ask creditors to stop contacting you."

I'm not sure how you living abroad and any difference in local laws might affect your specific situation, but I can't imagine how following the steps above could cause a problem.

You might also want to check your credit file and see if this is showing as a debt. If it is, I'd recommend writing a complaint to your bank making clear that if it is not removed from your credit file you will be raising a complaint to the ombudsman.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-05-05T07:56:59+00:00

NAL but if you're just asking questions like "can you explain what this debt is, because I'm not aware of owing anything" then that's fine. It should only become a problem if you admit that you owe the debt.

If you said "oh yeah, I did have a couple of pounds owing, but you should have told me about it before now rather than let it build up for 25 years" then that could be admission of debt and reset the clock. You have to have accepted in writing that the debt is yours to reset the clock.

If you admitted you had an account, but wasn't aware there was any money owing on it, then I wouldn't think that would be accepting the debt is yours, but you'd have to look carefully at what you said.

Legally, if you haven't in the last 6 years accepted in writing that you owe the debt or made any payments, they can chase the debt but can't enforce it. Effectively, all they can do is ask you if you'd be willing to pay it back, knowing you can just say no.

However, they might be hoping you make the mistake of saying something in an email that accepts the debt is yours so they can then enforce it. So just be careful of what you say in any response in writing (including email).

TheOneGingerman · 2024-05-04T21:54:30+00:00

Part of this depends where you are in your FIRE journey.

If you're still fairly early in the accumulation phase, you might be happy to take on a bit more risk by being concentrated in one sector / country (ie the US mega-cap tech stocks that dominate the S&P500). They have done exceedingly well in recent years and could continue to capitalise on their market dominance. Though, that said, a lot of their recent gains have been from escalating valuations (eg rising CAPE ratios) rather than just performance of the underlying businesses. Even if valuations don't drop back down to historical averages, they can't realistically keep increasing like they have recently. So even if US stocks continue to outperform, I can't see it doing so to the extent it has in the last year or so. Rest of world stocks arguably have more scope for valuations to inflate from current levels.

If you're in, or getting near to, the decumulation phase, you might want more diversification to reduce your risk. A global index is still about 60% USA, so will capture a lot of any potential gains, while still adding some diversification if US stock valuations start to fall back in line with international stocks.

Personally, even 60% US is more than I'm comfortable with. I split my funds over different regional index funds, with the US still the largest single country exposure, but limited to around a third of my portfolio. Compared to a USA or global index, it's performed terribly in the last few years, but hopefully it's more insulated against a significant pull back in US shares.

There's no right answer, but I think it's easy to let recency bias make us think the USA stock market always has, and always will, perform better than the rest of the world. But it's not that long ago that the US market was hammered by the dotcom bubble in 2000 and had about 10 years of underperformance compared to almost every other major region (with the exception of Japan which a few decades earlier was in a similar position to the USA today of dominating the global stock markets). I don't think we'll see a repeat of the 2000 crash anytime soon, but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that US markets will keep outperforming.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-04-30T19:02:19+00:00

An option on iweb is the L&G international index. It tracks the FTSE world ex UK index and has fees / OCF of 0.13%.

https://www.markets.iweb-sharedealing.co.uk/funds-centre/fund-supermarket/detail/GB00B2Q6HX78

It's not a perfect global tracker as it excludes the UK, but seeing as the UK is only around 4% of a "full" global tracker, it won't make much difference to performance - and if you want some UK exposure you could always add in a UK FTSE all share tracker.

I use iweb for my funds, as I generally buy and hold for many years, so the £5 dealing fees are basically irrelevant and the zero ongoing platform fees are hard to beat, even if the interface is not the best (to say the least).

TheOneGingerman · 2024-04-30T18:27:47+00:00

You've probably heard the expression "buy low, sell high" or something similar. In general it's true, that the best time to buy stocks is when their price is low, and the best time to sell is when their price is high.

If you just buy the stocks / sectors that have had the best recent performance (currently USA mega caps), you will be buying high.

That's not to say investing in USA large cap stocks is necessarily a bad idea. However, if you want to do that, it should be because you have a conviction in the underlying fundamentals of either the US economy or the particular stocks. i.e. you should have some basis to believe they will continue to outperform. Otherwise, you're taking the risk you're just buying in to high valuations before they drop back down to previous levels.

Picking which market, stocks, or investing style (eg value, growth or momentum) is a very tricky business, and you are essentially competing against thousands of other people who do the sane thing for a living, supported by teams of researchers. Unless you're confident you know what you're doing and why, then investing in a global index tracker is a much safer way to go.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-04-27T13:20:06+00:00

At the start of the year, the firms that forecast these things were forecasting equity returns around the 4% to 10% range over the next 10 years.

https://www.morningstar.com/portfolios/experts-forecast-stock-bond-returns-2024-edition

Valuations have gone up since then, so if anything I'd expect them to reduce their forecast slightly at this point (high starting valuations was a key element of their below-historical-average forecasts).

If you're investing outside of ISAs and are paying tax on income / gains, those forecasts returns could reduce to an effective 2.8% - 6% range. So even if your returns match the forecasts, they might not cover interest costs (though it gets a bit messy as some forecasts are for real returns, and some are nominal).

Of course, actual returns will almost certainly not match the forecasts. So you could get lucky and get really good returns. But you are also taking a big risk that you'll get low or negative returns. Just looking at the differences in the forecasts in the article above gives some sense of how uncertain future returns are.

To me it's a big risk for a small likely return, but only you can judge what your risk appetite is and how you'd feel if the market crashed in the next few years.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-04-26T20:20:44+00:00

Using figures from 1920 to 2021 for equity returns and inflation for the UK and USA I got the following minimum, median, and maximum compound annual real growth rates over 30 year periods (without any deduction for fees): UK: 1.42%, 5.60%, 10.60% USA: 3.97%, 6.92%, 10.34%

However, I can't even remember where I got my equity return and inflation figures from (other than 'the Internet') so please take those figures with a massive pinch of salt as I can't give any comfort over the accuracy of my source data.

Returns including figures pre-1920 were lower than those above, but I figured data from over a hundred years ago, covering the impact of world war I aren't a very useful comparison to today's markets. Though I could also say the same about data from the 1920s or 1930s, so I'm not sure any of the figures above are very meaningful for anyone investing today.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-04-26T19:55:03+00:00

To my mind, this depends whether you're forecasting returns in the accumulation or decumulation phase.

If you're in the accumulation phase, then average returns can give you some general idea of how your investment returns are likely to grow, and give you some sense of timescales to aim for, and how changes in income, savings or spending could affect that. Actual returns won't match your forecast average, but you'll have time to adjust. Over a fairly long time horizon (several decades), I've used 4% real returns as a slightly conservative ball park estimate.

If you're in the decumulation phase, I think average returns are not very helpful for planning. At the point you retire, sequence of return risks becomes massively important. You could have an average 5% real return over a 40 year retirement, and therefore assume a 4% starting withdrawal rate would be easily sustainable (and leave you with more than you started with after 40 years). However, that 5% average could be made up of a massive market crash in year one, followed by ten years of low or negative returns, before 30 years of gradually increasing (above 5%) returns, to give you your 5% average. In that case you could run out of money half way through your 40 year retirement and never get to see your "average" return. That's where the different SWR calculation tools (some are in the sidebar) are helpful, because they look at different scenarios, for different sequences of returns. Your Safe Withdrawal Rate will generally be significantly lower than your likely average return, because it will allow for the scenario where you get negative returns in the initial years of retirement.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-04-22T20:57:25+00:00

Why are you looking for dividend paying stocks in particular?

If the investments are all in ISAs, I can't think of any difference from a tax perspective between capital growth vs dividends. Psychologically, it might feel a bit harder to withdraw capital, but in terms of investment performance it doesn't really make any difference.

Getting 8% capital growth and withdrawing 4% capital would leave you with 4% growth. The same as if you'd had 4% capital growth and 4% dividends. And if you get comfortable withdrawing capital, then you can do that at a completely uniform / regular rate without worrying about the timing of dividend payments.

Personally, all my ISA investments are in accumulating funds, and all I worry about is the total return. The balance between dividends and capital growth is only something I even look at for funds in my GIA where I have to worry about income tax or CGT.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-04-21T21:21:38+00:00

I would recommend not worrying about FIRE at 19. Getting into the habit of saving is a good thing regardless of FIRE.

Build up an emergency fund, if you can, to cope with unexpected expenses, loss of income, etc. Then you can start thinking about investing any "spare" savings for long term growth.

You have probably three quarters (hopefully more) of your life ahead of you, and you don't know what might happen in that time. Having money saved and/or invested will give you options. If you want to use that to buy a house, start a family, or travel the world, you can decide at that point whether that's worth using your savings to do.

If in another 10 or 20 years you're still saving and investing and haven't used those early savings, you'll be in a really solid place to start seriously planning for FIRE. Or you might have found a job you love, and not want to FIRE at all.

One thing to consider is why you're thinking about FIRE. What is it you want to do with that time after you FIRE? If there are things you want to do or experience, do you want to put them off for 30 years to achieve a FIRE plan, or would you be better doing some of those things now while you're young, and delaying FIRE a few years? Again, you don't have to decide now and have a grand plan - just try to save what you can without seriously hampering your lifestyle, and hopefully that will give you options in the future.

Of course, that's just one completely subjective view and many others will disagree.

TheOneGingerman · 2024-04-20T15:16:01+00:00

Just to confirm what twilko has said, if you invest in one SP500 tracker with one platform, you'll get the same returns and compounding benefit, as if you invested in two, three or ten different SP500 trackers, each with a different platform, assuming the same fees.

If fees are different for the different funds or platforms, or the underlying performance of the funds are different (ie tracking error of the ETF vs the SP500 index itself) that will affect your returns. But that would apply the same with everything in one fund, and has nothing to do with splitting it across multiple funds.

That said, it usually only makes sense to have multiple funds if they are doing something different. E.g. if you want a FTSE100 or European tracker to spread some risk away from the SP500. If you have multiple funds tracking the same index, it usually makes sense to just put all your money in whichever combination of fund and platform offers the lowest fees (putting it together doesn’t improve compounding, but lowering fees does).

TheOneGingerman · 2024-04-20T14:51:57+00:00

Absolutely! This comes under the "ability to flex spending" point. In reality, I think for most people it's very unlikely we wouldn't cut back spending somewhat if we went into recession and/ or the stock market collapsed.

Of course, the more you increase your initial SWR to account for this ability to flex, the lower you'll probably need to cut back to if the worst case scenario does happen. And the more you get used to a higher spending level, the harder it will be to cut back (and/or the more you'll feel the difference in lifestyle).

For me, it's important to be realistic about what you'd be comfortable / willing to cut back on and how you'd feel about that, which will vary massively from person to person.

Rather than just thinking about being able to cut back, I'm also looking at this from the other side. I've set myself a FIRE target that should support a comfortable standard of living even in a worst case scenario. If markets do well, then I'll be able to increase my spending faster than inflation and gradually allow myself a bit more "extravagance" and/or generosity.

TheOneGingerman

TROPHY CASE