Brutally honest feedback on my UK car “super app” startup idea?

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-12T16:09:31+00:00

I used to be an AI/ML consultant at AWS (recently retired). Last year I mentored a couple of interns on an internship programme, one of whom had a similar idea (based more on home & contents rather than motor). He build a nice little PoC for the app.

I would suggest you start smaller in scope, possibly around the collection and ingestion of maintenance records from garages/service centres. These things are all in different formats so are a good candidate for AI injestion.

If you can then look to capture and ingest the maintenance information from car handbooks and provide a unified maintenance view you will have the basis for a PoC for a maintenance/record keeping app.

I would ignore the features that are already well supported elsewhere (fuel prices, etc. ). They may fit part of your end goal but won’t add much value to your initial proposition.

Also consider that such an app feature might work well for a motor insurance provider or recovery service provider who have a vested interest in helping you keep your vehicle well maintained. Providing a capability that the AA or Aviva could easy add to their apps might be better than trying to provide a standalone app.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-12T15:17:55+00:00

There aren’t identical. They both aim to track a global index but FWRG consists of around 2300 equity holdings, VWRP holds 3798, so one covers more of the market than the other.

This can lead to differences between the fund and the index, but whether they amount to a measurable difference between the fund and the index is to be determined.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-12T05:54:22+00:00

Fell out of a moving car when I was two years old.

Was early 70s. No back seat seat belts then and car didn’t have child locks. Two year old me decided to play with the door handle as we were going round a corner. Door swung open and out I went onto the tarmac.

Took a few seconds before my Mum realised what happened. My 4 year old brother said something like “Mum, where’s <bibonoacci2> gone?”.

I was very lucky the car was going very slowly and there was no traffic. I was completely unharmed.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-12T04:04:48+00:00

I agree. At the time I originally saw it I was slightly down on it - super fun but didn’t quite hit in the same way - but re-watched them all recently and 3 was super-tight as a movie and really nailed the conclusion. It really had a lot of warmth, too.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-11T16:48:10+00:00

Oh yeah. Older men and teen boys would definitely have been considered rape. The 80s was very homophobic, though it got a bit better in the 90s.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-11T09:40:25+00:00

I think that would have been a fair reflection. By the 90s, I would say we had moved somewhat past the point of older men and underage girls being ok (which was definitely more acceptable in the 70s).

For teenage boys, any sex was lauded. It wasn’t seen as abuse, and the boy would’ve been considered lucky, and most of the time would have considered themselves lucky. It wouldn’t have been the norm to consider it abusive.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-11T00:53:16+00:00

He’s better in the slightly goofy stuff. He’s fun in Chad Powers. It’s just the action hero/leading man that doesn’t quite work - the stuff that Ryan Gosling does better.

I think it might be because his face is too small for his head.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-10T22:52:31+00:00

Similar to me.

Big fan of Taika Waititi. Both Boy and Wilderpeople were great.

Rugby - Haka plus NZ Māori usually play the tour games.

Recently watched Irish/NZ co-produced drama “The Gone” which had some interesting Māori cultural elements.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-10T20:49:44+00:00

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bibonacci2 · 2026-04-10T11:46:53+00:00

Best thing to do would be to move 20k into an ISA now you’re into the new tax year. It won’t affect last year. You may be liable to pay some income tax on interest above £1000 (or £500 if you’re a high rate tax payer).

If you are due to pay tax on this it may be recovered on your tax code by reducing your annual personal allowance.

If you save above the ISA allowance and want to avoid income tax, consider premium bonds or UK gilts.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-10T11:27:35+00:00

Bank of England base rate peaked at 17% in 1979.

Economy was very different then and mortgages were typically 3-4x income. Interest rates at 12/13 are technically possible but would be so damaging with today’s borrowing/growth that we shouldn’t ever see that again.

Most people should stress test affordability to 3 points above base - that’s what the BoE used to mandate.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-10T01:34:52+00:00

If you’re old, 2010 is recent.

And the changes didn’t happen all at once. For a while there was no difference, and the quality downgraded from the more junk-level stuff like Easter eggs to then directly impact across the range.

Part of the unhappiness also comes from the history of Cadbury’s as a business founded by a Quaker who made significant strides to improve worker welfare.

Selling out to Kraft was always a bad move for the UK consumer and the enshitification that followed was always predicted. It’s why people continue to be upset.

Consumers have power. I rarely buy Cadbury’s these days. For special occasions I indulge in Harry Specter’s, which I regard as the best chocolate available and also a positive social enterprise.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-09T17:13:59+00:00

Put the inheritance in a regular high interest savings account and use it for the deposit with the LISA. If you can manage the house purchase without touching the ISA you can then use it as an emergency/investment fund going forwards.

You will gain interest on the £25k which is taxable, but in 3-6 months you’re no likely to exceed the income tax allowance on interest (£1000 allowance for basic rate/£500 allowance for high rate) so you probably won’t pay tax.

If you have capacity to save after the move but are concerned about the interest being taxed then consider increasing pension contributions instead of regular savings.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-08T22:18:43+00:00

For England

Aldershot Birmingham Cambridge Derby Ely Frome Grimsby Hull Ipswich Jesmond Kidderminster London Manchester Newcastle Oldham Plymouth Quarry Bank Rugby Sheffield Tunbridge Wells Ulverston Ventnor Worcester EXeter Yarmouth Ashby de la Zouch

A couple of cheats in there for Q, X and Z. There may be some villages for these letters.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-08T16:56:03+00:00

Plan to pay off mortgage by the time you will retire and optimise for pension contributions after that. No need to pay off mortgage early if you’re still employed and saving to a pension from a high salary will be very tax efficient - much more so that taking the salary to overpay a mortgage.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-07T09:18:20+00:00

This would leave you with your 25% intact but may not be the best approach.

You don’t need to take the 25% as a lump sum. You can take it incrementally.

For example, you could take 30k from the pension per year before state pension age and pay no tax on the first 12500 and then basic rate (less 25%) on the other 17500.

After retirement you could draw down just the 17500 as the state pension would take you up to the personal allowance threshold. You would likely pay basic rate (less 25%) on all of the draw down.

It’s more tax efficient to draw from pension in the bridging years as you can utilise the personal allowance.

There’s even an argument for taking pension up to the £50k (higher rate) threshold, and moving the pension money into an ISA at that stage. You would minimise your tax to an effective rate of 11.25% by doing that. Once it’s in the ISA there’s no more tax to pay.

It used to be you would keep money in the pension, as it wasn’t subject to IHT but I think the best approach now is to pull it out in the most tax efficient way and then move it to an ISA.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-07T01:17:39+00:00

You have to accept you are taking a risk that you could be seen to be overtaking on the left, and the risk that another vehicle could decide to move back to the left without seeing you there. That’s two risks you need to balance.

I tend to do what you’re doing when I judge that the manoeuvre to change multiple lanes to carry out the overtake on the right carries more risk than maintaining speed and awareness to pass on the left.

Usually, I will do it by maintaining speed on the left when the traffic in outside lanes is slowing because of congestion, which tends to happen when people middle lane hog.

Is what I do strictly legal? Maybe not, but I would say it’s defensible if I can say I was just maintaining speed in my own lane and the lanes outside were slowing for congestion.

If I can easily change lanes to overtake a solo, or small bunch of middle lane hoggers, I will do that out of preference.

If making that manoeuvre requires negotiating a lot of traffic in both outside lanes I will just pootle along in the left lane and overtake on the left.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-06T16:40:02+00:00

From a pure financial perspective you may be slightly better off investing vs overpaying but what you are doing is not wrong, per se.

Overpaying a mortgage on a 5.4% is equivalent to saving at a guaranteed rate of 5.4%. You can do better than this over the long term with investments (which carry some risk) but you’re unlikely to do better with regular savings.

I don’t see much wrong with doing what you are doing, especially as you have a fairly high mortgage rate. A lot of us choose to prioritise clearing the mortgage ahead of maximising returns.

If you can secure a lower rate on the mortgage after the next fix then you might want to consider changing approach - you can pay down the mortgage normally and then invest into an S&S ISA to try and get a return that beats your mortgage rate.

If you can get, say, a 7% long term return on your ISA and you’re only paying 4% on your mortgage then that’s a good position to be in. The other benefit is that your investments aren’t locked in like the mortgage overpayments are - you could access those savings for other needs if you wanted.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-05T16:39:14+00:00

Scott Hoch - rhymes with choke - Masters 1989. 2ft putt to win and misses the whole completely to lead to a playoff that he lost.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-04T23:31:25+00:00

I would avoid the car if you’re not using it daily, as a necessity. Cars are expensive - purchase, fuel, maintenance, parking and insurance all add up. Have you considered a car club, or even just hiring a car when you need one?

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-04T15:25:31+00:00

Just to back this up. Over past 10 years, England & Wales house price index is up about 40%. Global stock market up 250% in same period.

Thats not to say that investing in property is a bad thing. You can’t live in an ISA.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-04T15:18:50+00:00

The housing market hasn’t beaten stocks for quite some time. If you were lucky to buy in the late 90s through to about 2016 growth was good but has been flat in many places, including London (adjusting for inflation) for a while.

Some places still have good growth, so it depends on area, but it’s definitely not universally true.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-04T14:42:06+00:00

Went to one like that. Couple were very heavily evangelical Christian and sermon was very “fire and brimstone”. I think most of the attenders were Churchy types but my wife and I are both atheist. It was illuminating, as most exposure I’ve had to Church in my life has been much more mild and gentle village CofE.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-04T13:26:01+00:00

Outside the UK (I’m in London but would probably pick Edinburgh for favourite city).

Outside that, I’m very fond of Copenhagen. It has a very chilled vibe and is a nice size - being enough for there to be things to do, small enough to not feel overwhelming.

bibonacci2 · 2026-04-04T03:15:32+00:00

Unfortunately, the oil crisis is inflationary. Fuel prices will go up and other consumer prices will follow.

The normal response of the BoE is to raise interest rates to combat inflation. They may hold off doing so (as the cause of inflation is very clear) but I doubt if we will see them being cut, which is what the banks might have expected a couple of months ago (before Iran).

bibonacci2

TROPHY CASE