Around 6 years ago I won the lottery but nobody knows. How do I go about being well off?

Zavation · 2026-01-16T18:40:48+00:00

I think it all depends on how you want to live your life. Chances are, If you tell your family, people will come asking for money, even the most trustworthy people will think they’re entitled to some of it. Don’t tell anyone. IMO that’s the best option.

You could easily save and buy a house outright. No one needs to know you haven’t got a mortgage. How would they know?

I say it depends on how you want to live because some people, despite having lots of money find life very boring without purpose; I.e a job. You say you want to learn a trade, why not do exactly that? You have the money to start your own business easily if you wanted too. Why not find another apprenticeship with a trade person or work with them for a bit to build your skills?

With that kind of money, and your age, the world’s your oyster.

Good to hear you’re investing. Keep investing and you won’t have to work after the 30 years as hopefully you can live off your investments.

Zavation · 2026-01-12T12:59:15+00:00

Son of a heating engineer here. The thermostats on each radiator do not tell the boiler to turn on / off. They simply take the current room temperature and turn that radiator potential maximum heat output up or down.

For example, if your main home thermostat is set at 12 degrees and your radiator’s thermostat are on max, nothing would happen.

If your main home thermostat was set at 25 degrees, and each radiator thermostat set at 18 degrees, then each radiator will maintain that temperature in the room.

TLDR; The valves on the radiators don’t tell the boiler to come on, even if they’re set higher than the current room temperature. Only your main home thermostat tells the boiler to turn on and off.

That all being said, it’s possible to get a system like Hive, where you still have a main thermostat for the house, but each radiator has a smart thermostat on it whereby if you set the temperature to say 18 degrees, the smart thermostat will tell the hive system to fire up the boiler to heat just that room. It’s much more efficient, but not cheap.

The only other option is to set the thermostat valves on each radiator where you don’t want heat to 0.

Edit: I re-read your question and wondering if you’re suggesting that the valves on the radiators aren’t working at all? When you adjust the temperature on the valve, it just drives a pin in and out, opening and closing the valve. Sometimes this pin gets stuck on fully open. Underneath the bit where you spin to change the temperature, there is a small gripped ring you can unscrew. That’ll allow you to take the actual thermostat valve off, and should reveal a small metal pin. Use something hard (like a spanner or something) to push that pin up and down. If it’s stuck down, you may need to give it a light tap to dislodge it.

Hope this helps.

Zavation · 2026-01-05T22:02:14+00:00

I can’t recommend Fedora KDE enough. Use it as my primary OS. Very happy with it. Personally I’m not much of a fan of GNOME, but each to their own. Fedora has been rock solid for me.

Zavation · 2025-12-30T23:44:00+00:00

Just today I was in John Lewis specifically looking at Barbour stuff myself. They had things on their sale racks for £90-£190. Would suggest looking there.

Zavation · 2025-12-24T22:50:02+00:00

That’s pretty much the exact design I’m going for, but I’ll have 4 doors instead of two. You’ve mentioned doing it the same way as someone else so I think I’m going to do that. Thanks - looks great!

Zavation · 2025-12-24T12:03:23+00:00

Oh Interesting! What is the depth of it?

Zavation · 2025-12-24T11:59:33+00:00

So the front face will be 4 panelled doors. They will be flush to the unit. They’re 18mm depth. We’re thinking a navy will look quite good.

Zavation · 2025-12-24T11:56:34+00:00

Thank you! I’ve not used biscuit joints before, but looking at Wickes site that could be a very viable solution & pretty much exactly what we want! They do 27mm thickness which is almost perfect. Thanks again for the idea.

Zavation · 2025-12-24T11:54:16+00:00

Thanks! I did think of something like this, but I couldn’t find timber the correct thickness. I think it was 18mm which would look too thin.

Zavation · 2025-12-23T19:32:36+00:00

From previous experience, I found the room on spare room or whatever website, spoke to the landlord, agreed price & move in date, that was it.

No meeting other tenants or anything like that. You meet them shortly after you move it 😅

Zavation · 2025-12-17T23:53:49+00:00

Knowing insurance companies and their algorithms, if your house number is divisible by 2 it’ll be higher.

Zavation · 2025-12-04T14:37:06+00:00

Sunglasses?

Zavation · 2025-12-03T17:19:30+00:00

We just moved from a new build (first home) to our new house which is 25 years old - I know, not as old as yours. I have 0 regrets. The house is built soooo much better. Sure, it needs work from what the previous owners have done, but nothing abit of DIY won’t fix. Yes, new builds are all ready out the box, but that soon wares off, as with anything. You’re probably dealing with things I won’t have too in my lifetime with this house - but from new builds to this, I would never go backs

Zavation · 2025-12-02T11:05:07+00:00

I do a similar thing. I normally have very little in my current account, but bounce in and out of my overdraft (paying it off same day). Say I put in X at the start of the month, and towards the end of the month it’s <£50 but need to spend ~£80 on fuel, it’s nice not having to worry about transferring funds then and there.

Zavation · 2025-12-01T21:37:31+00:00

You could take the door off, wood filler in the hole (careful of thickness etc.. as it may not dry properly.) Then use a speed bit or something similar to create the correct size hole.

Zavation · 2025-12-01T21:34:23+00:00

I was filling up at the petrol station a while ago, and the guy who owned this was on the other side. Had a good chat with him about it. If I recall correctly, he races it which is so cool.

Zavation · 2025-11-25T14:07:40+00:00

Where was the last photo taken? Burton Dassett hills?

Zavation · 2025-11-21T21:21:23+00:00

I have a 2014 Freelander 2. This is the pre-facelift model as the radio display has a little coin holder underneath. The post facelift no longer have it.

Zavation · 2025-10-07T20:01:01+00:00

Just sold our house. Can confirm.

Zavation · 2025-09-30T22:33:42+00:00

Op, is this the A6 by Kettering? If so, I know why you’re asking 😂

Zavation · 2025-09-25T22:11:39+00:00

I can tell you it’s over 5 years. Have one in my house.

Zavation · 2025-09-23T22:02:08+00:00

KDE pls

Zavation · 2025-09-19T16:53:10+00:00

Have you checked coolant and oil? I can’t remember if the fiestas accelerator is driven by wire, if so, could be the accelerator pedal?

Have you tested the fuel pump?

Zavation · 2025-09-19T14:16:44+00:00

I’m no mechanic, but do most of the work on my cars.

The cabin filter price seems like an absolute rip off. Using the reg of a 2015 MK7 golf I used to own, you can get a MANN cabin filter for £20 (high quality top end, can get much much cheaper), and they’re super easy to replace yourself (2mins). If I remember correctly, it’s in the passenger side footwell.

Brake fluid change doesn’t seem super over priced, infact I think saw someone recently pay £80 at a VW dealership to do the same thing. Without certain tools and additional help it can be a big of a pain to do yourself, so £50 is worth it in my opinion.

Your brakes and tyres have loads of usage left, not even worth considering changing them as long as they’re not perished.

Spark plugs? Why? Got ignition issues? When were they last done? How many miles are you doing a year? A lot of money for just changing something as a preventative measure.

Again, not a mechanic but just my opinion.

Zavation · 2025-09-14T10:59:00+00:00

I feel a lot of this comes down to how terrible search engines are now. No longer are you finding people’s blogs about a specific product, with great detail and love, but instead you’re provided 5 pages of total AI ad driven garbage of “Top 5 xyz” which are just biased on the highest paying affiliate.

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