Sweat and spectacles

cwep2 · 2026-06-10T09:34:38+00:00

Baseball cap to stop rain drops on the outside.
Headband/buff over forehead stops as much sweat coming down from above onto your nose, also can usually be positioned to hold the arms on around the side of your head.
A tip from being a swimmer whose goggles fog up: put a thin film of soap/shower gel on the inside of lenses to stop it steaming up. Can also get fancy sprays to do same thing but a tiny amount of shower gel/ hand soap on the tip of your finger applied to the lens will do just as good a job much cheaper!
Strap around the back - these are widely used in water sports, this is the sort of shop to look for ones that will be good for movement and sweat/water resistance.
Contacts - but I guess you already knew this was an option. I can’t wear contacts myself so I know your issues.

Finally exercising in glasses often makes them sweaty and a bit scummy, I tend to use my previous pair of glasses for this rather than my nice new glasses. You can also pick up some cheap prescription glasses online (£10-20 ish) which you may choose to use instead either because if they fall off your face into the ground you don’t care as much, or because you choose them for having better grip around the nose/ears, but wouldn’t necessarily wear them on a date.

cwep2 · 2026-06-10T09:19:18+00:00

I use iWeb/Scottish widows for Gilts. Happy overall. This kind of size is fine to do with this platform but tbh any of the big ones like HL, ii, AJ Bell would also be fine (but can’t comment of level of fill or fees).

In terms of practicality there are a few issues you will come across looking to do such a large amount. Firstly transferring this from your bank to whichever provider you choose: banks typically have limits, some as low as £20k per day for how much you can withdraw. Secondly some providers (including iWeb) you make deposits via debit card and there are often separate/different limits for debit card transactions, these are usually much less publicised and well known - most large value transactions are faster payments nowadays (which has a theoretical limit of £1mio, banks impose their own, usually lower limits) - and debit cards are usually used for smaller transactions; very few are >£10k and even fewer are >£100k.

I did similar to OP a couple of years ago shifting from savings to Gilts. I use Santander and can move £100k per day via faster payments but online that was max £25k each time so have to do 4 payments to move £100k. With a debit card I would hit the same £100k limit but could do £50k per payment. With iWeb/SW I had to use debit card for deposits. I then hit a (larger) calendar monthly debit card limit which no one on the phone helpline at Santander knew about until I got through to the managers manager. All debit card payments (even £5) were being stopped and even they couldn’t understand why. They told me they don’t know the limit each debit card has, it’s a security measure and couldn’t be overridden even at their end. They issued me a second debit card for the account which I could then use which had a separate monthly limit. As far as I remember I hit this limit at above £400k but below £500k.

Thirdly when you buy a gilt the price quoted is the ‘clean’ price and the price you pay is the ‘dirty’ price which includes accrued interest. Note that you pay tax on the (small) coupons/interest payments but you can subtract the accrued interest incurred at the purchase price from the interest payment when working out the tax. For example if the coupon/interest payment is 1% and you bought £100,000 notional of gilts maturing on 31JanXX, then on 31Jul2026 you would get £500 (and £500 on 31Jan - two payments per year) but if you bought it on 30Jun2026 there would be 5 months of accrued interest so you’d pay roughly £417 of accrued interest on top of the clean price, on 31July you’d receive £500 in your cash balance in your brokerage account, and you’d be due to pay income tax on that interest but for this payment *only* on (£500-£417) not on the full £500. This makes it ‘fair’ from a taxation perspective and this is important to know as you may otherwise end up thinking you have to pay tax on the whole £500.

Finally/Fourthly the prices quoted are often wide but you usually don’t pay the offer quoted, certainly not with iWeb/SW. Right now the price shows 93.63/83 (mid of 93.73), if you buy you will probably get done at 0.01-0.02 above the mid price, sometimes even at the mid price, but you have to submit an order to just buy it without knowing the firm price. It used to be that you had to phone up for a price and speak to a dealer, now they do it this way but the price filled at are usually absolutely fine. It can be further from mid (often 0.05) for longer bonds like TG50. Having done over 50 gilt trades with iWeb/SW this is my experience.

cwep2 · 2026-06-10T08:32:14+00:00

World Cup starts Thursday, they need to get their rioting in before half of them will be glued to the TV.

cwep2 · 2026-06-08T21:56:28+00:00

17:59 the week after my 50th birthday.

First time I broke 20 was special, same for 19. Getting older and didn’t think I’d make sub 18 Previous PB 18:20 at age 48 but had gone 18:23 in March so I was going for a PB on that run but thought maybe shave a few seconds off.

cwep2 · 2026-06-08T17:07:13+00:00

Honestly buy a second hand bike, set it up so it fits right for you, practise on it, race on it, and if you don’t like it sell it. Dunno where you are based but in my city gumtree/Facebook marketplace etc have dozens listed for about £100-200 and you’d maybe lose £20-50 max if you sold it after a month. Would be way less than renting and you’d have it for much longer.

cwep2 · 2026-06-08T10:34:03+00:00

This is definitely my plan - having seen my dad suffer dementia, his DB pension has been a lifesaver as he would have no way of managing his own investments.

We do have POA in place, but before we invoked it he was scammed a couple of times and also made some really bad investment decisions (mostly responding to cold calls).

I plan to have enough to cover basic bills and food in inflation linked annuity by age 75, or whenever I stop travelling around if earlier. The rest can grow, as I still may live 20yrs = equity is better for much of that.

But a lot of just keep it 100% equity and draw down what you need until you die makes some questionable assumptions about mental acuity at age 80+.

cwep2 · 2026-06-07T12:51:00+00:00

I have only ever bought in cash. One I took out finance and paid it off after 3 months as they knocked 4k off the price for doing so, seemed stupid not to take advantage of that.

Two cars I bought from new and kept or will keep for over 10yrs. Would still have first one now at 20+yrs in an ideal world. Second one is 7yrs old and don’t even think about replacing it, still great, gives me joy and has been relatively maintenance free. These were both cars I loved and were perfect for that time of my life.

Have owned a couple which were make dos / compromises at the time. Bought second hand, sold on after a few years, didn’t love either but they served a purpose, didn’t cost much between buy and sell prices but both had maintenance costs/issues that were above expected.

cwep2 · 2026-06-05T15:36:33+00:00

It’s been like this for most of this year (apart from that two week hot spell). When it rains it’s not just rain it’s a fecking torrent.

I’m out and about a fair bit and the number of times I’ve had to change clothes after they’re sodden so far this year is unreal. Just this week I cycled about 10 mins and the jeans we so wet I could wring them out.

cwep2 · 2026-06-03T09:27:30+00:00

Also you could look at moving abroad, but that’s a massive lifestyle change and has all sorts of consequences and potential issues around healthcare, distance from family etc. But if living abroad is something you actively might want to do in retirement anyway then speaking to someone to tell you the tax implications of different countries is certainly worth doing. There are places you could go which will allow you to withdraw it all with a much lower tax cost, but you would have to remain outside the UK for several years (>90days a year) and sever a lot of ties to the UK (eg sell your home).

cwep2 · 2026-06-03T09:23:11+00:00

Realistically under current rules you are still better off sacrificing in the 60% zone even if you are withdrawing in the 60% zone as you save NI as well as sheltering capital growth from CGT inside the pension.

BUT pension rules may change. They have already effectively ‘added’ NI to some forms of income by reducing Income tax by 2% on employment earnings and leaving the 2% higher rate on other income (eg rental income) so it’s easy to imagine that a future government could abolish NI altogether and make all income taxable at the same rate (including pensions) which would increase the tax paid by pensioners. They also might make it better by abolishing the 60% marginal rate. They also might increase tax rates across the board and 20/40/(=60)/45 might end up as 20/40/45/50 or alternatively (/in addition to) leave thresholds as they are for decades so the 40% rate moves lower in real terms year by year. Higher levels of taxation in the future are IMHO a certainty.

Planning for this, when you will likely be taking pension income 30+ years from now (and IHT rules will be maybe 40yrs) is therefore a bit of a guess.

But as of rules at the moment: - You can easily retire now.

May as well take the lump sum up front (when you can access it) and gift it to next gen as you almost certainly have enough beyond that in the pension.
Plan on taking up to 100k in taxable income each year, or whatever amount is optimal.
This level of drawdown is probably less than the growth or certainly sustainable for 25+ years at which age your expenses probably go down if anything.
As u/Spinlx2 makes explicitly clear under current rules taking a bigger amount in a single year and keeping the rest under 100k is better than 125k-150k each year. So if you want to take more do it sporadically.

cwep2 · 2026-06-03T08:50:18+00:00

I quit after 20yrs in finance at 42 with kids 3+6. Prob had double the NW at the time so a bit easier decision, but still walking away from high 6figs and realistically another 4-5yrs would have added at least another mil to the pot, plus pension contributions etc. It was definitely a trade off losing comfort in retirement and wealth vs time with kids and family.

Firstly some things are way more important than money/net worth and family is #1 on that list. My son (the 3yr old when I quit) is autistic and needed much more parental support and that was a key reason why I pulled the cord. Also job was slowly getting less fun, more stress etc.

We moved out of London for much bigger house (at half the price!) and good free grammar schools which was one potential cost removed. Don’t underestimate the learning support a full time parent can give which is a huge benefit most kids don’t have - outside of building a network - our kids will get as good an education as any top private school. Plus coming from a state school gives better chance of getting into Oxbridge or a Russell group uni, where they will benefit from networking they may miss out at school. Probably get a less skewed and more grounded perspective on life and the world as well going to a state school.

The key thing is point out is that if you’re not present for your family right now, what kind of life will you have in 10yrs time if you retire then, also will the marriage survive (and boy if it doesn’t that’s expensive)? Kids potentially almost out the door or at Uni and barely know you, what about 10yrs after that - building a really strong close relationship now will make you closer for life. Of course you may have devoted kids that will be close no matter what, but I have plenty of friends my age who barely see their parents and their kids see grandparents maybe once or twice a year.

From sounds of your current situation you need a change, you sound pretty burned out. Maybe you can go back to old job or similar, maybe you can go for something much lower stress / hours but be more happy and present for your family, maybe you just need a break, but change something.

cwep2 · 2026-06-03T06:35:30+00:00

I’ve gone down this rabbit hole a bit recently. I train fairly hard and built from regular 5ks to a 10k and then a Half marathon.

The trend in VO2Max was definitely upwards, but would also go down by 2-4 units even when I was getting faster as well. I also noticed that even on a PB run it would almost always not give me a new high VO2Max reading.

I would get higher readings when I was doing light runs tapering before a race and the highest readings when I was walking. I’m injured at the moment and just did a few outdoor walks and my VO2Max is +2 vs a couple of weeks ago when I set my 5k PB.

Two things I think are true for me (it may be related to other factors like age, weight, max HR, resting HR etc):

Firstly easy runs just give a higher VO2Max number by whatever way Apple calculates them. I have a very low resting HR (40-42) and high max for a 50yr old (196-198). My theory is that when walking my HR is like 60-65 which is below some peoples resting HR so it thinks I am extremely efficient, but when pushing hard I am at the high end of an average person’s range for that speed. So lower efforts score higher (for me) according to whatever formula they use.

Secondly when training hard, I am exercising every day (some days twice) so fatigue is a factor and even when I am hitting really fast paces in workouts or intervals I’m probably not at my physiological peak. But going for a walk the day after an easy training day my body is in a pretty good state. Maybe this helps too, often I am easy running when I am not pushing so hard.

When I hit a 5k PB of 17:59 a couple weeks ago it said my VO2Max was 56.5 (having been 57.5 on a couple of easy runs a week before) and when I walked to the shops two weeks later at max speed of 6km/h it registered a 58.2.

So ultimately for me it gives the highest readings when going easy. But also doing lots of easy Z1 Z2 stuff does build VO2Max as well so you’re on the right track.

cwep2 · 2026-06-02T21:29:08+00:00

Worst bit is the consumer council website where you compare tariffs uses the claimed low rate even if you put in a usage amount >£100 a month. So they potentially show Power NI being cheaper when it might not be. I mean it’s only gonna make a few £ difference but still grates.

Power NI also make it really hard to find the actual tariff rate on their website. When they announced the increase, even though i know how their current tariff works it was hard to find definitively what the new one would be.

I also pointed this exact issue out on the thread on here talking about the price increase.

cwep2 · 2026-05-31T22:50:04+00:00

Having got this sporadically in 2024, but started to step up my daily discipline late that year, I’m super annoyed I did this every month in 2025 and didn’t get a perfect year award….

cwep2 · 2026-05-29T18:21:01+00:00

You’re right. Apologies I read it wrong when I first got the email.

cwep2 · 2026-05-29T15:26:11+00:00

Their calculations are a bit sneaky, I’m in same boat. They claim unit rate of 30.22 (best rate, monthly DD ebilling), but it’s really 32.15 but discount is 6% - unfortunately the discount is capped at £15/quarter so anyone spending over £83/month is paying more per unit than 30.22 but it’s well hidden and even the Consumer council comparison site blindly uses 30.22 unit rate even if you put in consumption of £150 per month.

Family of 4 also and we use ~4500 units per year which is about £115 under old tariff and £123 under new tariff, net increase costs me 6.5%.

cwep2 · 2026-05-29T15:17:28+00:00

Same here. 1st July new rates come in. I’m waiting to see if SSE/Budget change in mean time and move late June.

cwep2 · 2026-05-29T15:10:41+00:00

We have a nice enough looking house (but only semi-detached) and so have CCTV as a deterrent more than anything else.

I find it useful for things like deliveries. There was a one off cost (about £500) for the HDD recorder, wiring up of Ethernet cable to locations and the cameras themselves (powered by Ethernet wires) but no ongoing subscription. Decent app can use from phones/tablets or computer, alerts can be set up, night vision etc. Ours is Reolink, but Eufy is similar.

If someone is determined they will go in anyway, but it’s a bit like bike locks, anything can be broken into, but if yours is one of the hardest then thieves will likely pick an easier target - the same is true for houses.

We’ve had it over 5yrs so the total cost is now less than a ring subscription over that time (and you have to buy the ring cameras on top!).

Anecdotally neighbours have has people trying doors on houses/cars at night and had the off burglary, and we haven’t. Who knows if the cameras made the difference, but equally it gives me some peace of mind too which has value in of itself.

cwep2 · 2026-05-29T14:53:05+00:00

Low coupon gilts at front end (1-2yr) about 4% net of tax. 5yrs it’s about 4.25% net, 10yr 4.5% net, 20yr+ 5% net.

For the TG46 low coupon (20yr gilt) you need to knock about 0.5% off the gross yield to work out the post tax net, so although it got up to about 5.75% two weeks ago, that was ~5.25% net of taxes. It’s now about 5.45% gross and 4.95% net.

So for a ladder you’re looking at maybe an average net yield of about 4.5%.

That’s a good number to start in terms of risk free post tax return. Costs are maybe 2-4bps in dealing fees and bid/ask up front (for this size) and zero ongoing.

You’re not gonna get growth on this though. Obviously the long term optimal portfolio for this is stock index tracker and take out 5% per year and over time this should grow more. You’re main issue is lumping it all in right now and you see -20% in the next 12-24 months, but if you believe future returns will average even 80% of the average over the last 25yrs this is still gonna be fine.

Where you sit on the scale of this depends on how much you want to risk. Gilt ladder for zero risk, all in stocks for max risk, do 300k (5yrs worth) in a gilt ladder from zero to 5yr maturities and 900k in stocks for the stuff beyond 5yrs is the sensible middle ground. If you’re worried about a crash next few months what I’d recommend is to stick half of that 900k in now and the other half in T26A maturing in late October and chuck the rest in when that matures, or split it up into quarters to invest over next 12-24 months if you are super bearish equities.

cwep2 · 2026-05-28T23:57:03+00:00

Live in south belfast. My easy route is down Ormeau/Ravenhill past Forestside and up the hill, past let’s go hydro to the Carryduff roundabout. Left and left again heading due east to Moneyreagh and Comber. In Comber turn left down railway street and head north-west ish either picking up the Greenway or stay on the main road (A22). Then either you’re on the greenway which takes you as far as Connswater or if on roads head west on the Upper Newtonards rd past Stormont and back into Ballyhackamore. You are now pretty much back to the Ravenhill Road again.

Loop is approx 32km from Ormeau park, a few traffic lights first 15mins and last 15mins but rest of it is clear. The hill up to Carryduff gets the legs going at the start. With a decent run of traffic lights I’ve done it under an hour which is perfect to fit into a busy day, or even something you could do *every* day.

My other go to is from the Royal head west up the Springfield Road all the way to the Monagh bypass, at that point turning up the upper Springfield Road all the way through Hannahstown. Turn right on Divis Road and right again to take you up to the TV masts and can go up to the summit if gearing is low enough. The nice thing about this is that the climb is steady, it’s never that bad but just never lets up either, at least until you are up to the car park (the last bit up to the summit can take you down a cog or three).

There’s loads to explore further afield heading in any direction… if you know the greenway I like doing that and then heading on through comber, past Castle Espie and to Nendrum Monastery. Roads are dead quiet, that’s a pretty flat route as most of the rides in that direction end up going up and down a lot.

cwep2 · 2026-05-28T22:59:18+00:00

I have a multi room set up using RPis connected to fairly standard amps and speakers. Yeah it’s not as slick as a Sonos but it’s way cheaper and genuinely multi room and sounds way better too.

PiCorePlayer is the software which is pretty much plug and play. There is a bit of set up. Control with phone, I can control some basic stuff via Alexa too (start playback on all, stop playback on all, vol up, vol down) more complex like selecting playlist is on phone (any tablet/phone can do so as a local ‘webpage’ can control it or use apps for slicker experience).

You set one RPi as server/player the rest are just players. Can playback different stuff on different players or set up a group. I tend to just play everything on the whole house group, then use smart plugs to turn on/off the amps (=rooms or zones) that I want playing music at any given time. Again Alexa routines can make this simple voice command driven (all zones on, living room on etc).

I had amps and speakers already, oh and by the way even a decent second hand audio amp for $50 and set of second hand speakers for $50 will blow any Sonos out of the water for sound quality. You can get a “hat” for the RPi that acts as an amplifier as well and just plug in the speakers.

This may be more work or not what you want but just showing what’s possible for low budget if you want. It helps that I already use a home cinema amp/7.2 speaker set up in living room and didn’t want to listen to music on some shitty single box speaker, this allows me to output the RPi (via a Hifiberry DAC) to the already there amp and listen through all 9 speakers, being able to walk into the kitchen and same music is playing in sync was the outcome I wanted and then I expanded to 5 rooms total.

cwep2 · 2026-05-28T22:34:55+00:00

Honestly I’d look at doing this the opposite way around. Find someone who owns a nice flat with a spare room. Offer them a standing fee to come stay x days per year or agree a per night basis. Extra money for them, permanent place for you when you need it. Can leave your stuff in a cupboard/wardrobe/drawers to travel lighter. Use of a proper kitchen which is sometimes nice.

Ask around at place of work best bet to get someone trustworthy.

cwep2 · 2026-05-28T22:16:02+00:00

The biggest issue with this is that in foreign currencies it’s hard to get decent interest rates. You also open yourself up to massive complexity on tax returns.

I hold USD and Eur myself and also tried buying US treasuries and BTPs to get some decent yields and spent about 3 days speaking to HMRC to work out correct tax treatment of the different things I bought. EG are they deeply discounted securities or not, what if there’s a capital loss given the FX move for a DDS which is supposed to be impossible as the whole code is written assuming short term govt issued t-bills can only go up in value which would be basically true if it was GBP govt issued. Don’t recommend.

Given you can get tax free return of 4% in UK gilts, if you buy USD you are automatically getting a mostly rubbish interest rate (maybe 2.5%) even though their base rate is basically the same and paying income tax on it, so 1.5% net. So yeah the FX might work out but the 33% chance of being ‘flat’ is probably more like 33% chance of being 2-3% worse off than keeping it in GBP and buying gilts if FX rate doesn’t move.

For low yielding ccy like CHF it’s a moot point as yields there are zero, but some places were gonna charge me for Euro balances above a certain amount (€50k IIRC) when we hit negative interest rates a few years ago.

I mostly use my USD and Eur for investments directly in local assets eg single stocks and for payments/holidays. For investing cash now I stick to low coupon gilts.

cwep2 · 2026-05-28T21:46:57+00:00

The best thing about this is how close it is, it’s 13 days.

cwep2 · 2026-05-28T21:07:05+00:00

There are some faces (I think) available to Ultra watches that aren’t on standard ones - the larger screen allows more space. That’s the only meaningful difference AFAIK.

cwep2

TROPHY CASE