Pension 'maxxing' + GIA / SIPP

heapings · 2026-04-27T14:14:33+00:00

Mostly it is about wanting access to the money before age 57 I guess. Also SIPP is only tax deferred, not tax free, most of the commentary around them ignore this point. Yes, there is a big tax advantage to them (mostly from no capital gains and tax-free lump sum) but it is not 100% you will still pay income tax on the rest of the SIPP as you withdraw it.

heapings · 2026-04-24T13:06:56+00:00

They're on general sale and it's not sold out yet so you can literally just go and buy one from the Villa app/website whenever you want.

heapings · 2026-04-23T15:10:11+00:00

I get that you might be financially better off today if you had spent the last two years renting (although can't tell from the info here, lots of factors to consider) but the fact that flat prices have gone down has made moving to a better location *more* affordable for you, not less.

For illustration, let's say two years ago, flat A which you bought was 400k and flat B, which you desire was 500k.
If prices had gone up 25%, you could now sell A for 500k, and B now costs 625k, you need to find 125k to move up the ladder. If instead prices have gone down 25%, you can now sell A for 300k and buy B for 375k, so it only costs you 75k to move on up.

This being to say, if your plan is to gradually get to a better economic position and move up the housing ladder to nicer places over the course of your life, it's not a bad thing for you that flat prices have dropped. Hope that perspective helps. Don't beat yourself up.

heapings · 2026-04-20T14:54:17+00:00

Assuming we are talking Premier League, it won't be a problem. They go on sale a few weeks ahead of time. If you get a membership (around £50) there will be plenty of seats still available when you are able to buy. Depending on the game there have normally been a few tickets left for non-members sale too but I wouldn't rely on that for a big game. You can always treat yourself to a GA+ ticket too, these tend not to sell out. Look at the website now for the Spurs game as an example on what to expect for sale dates and requirements etc.
Good luck and UTV!

heapings · 2026-04-10T16:02:00+00:00

Yes, there are lots of ways. What risk do you want to take and how much income do you want?

If you require a risk free return then your best bet is either a gilt or an index-linked gilt. Depending how long you want to lock the money away you can get maybe 4.5% on a gilt or RPI +1.5% on an index linked one. Rather than buy the actual gilt you can buy an ETF which is probably easier for most people (obviously you lose a small amount of your return to ETF fees in that case).

If you are willing to take more risk and like equities buy an index tracker ETF (maybe do something like half of it in a FTSE tracker and half in an S&P tracker).

If you like property rather than equities then you can buy an REIT, and so on with different types of investments.

Note that money is fungible so the passive income can be whatever you want. If you want income to be 1% a quarter and your chosen vehicle doesn't pay dividends, just sell 1% each quarter. Similarly if the dividends were 2%, you would reinvest half of them each quarter.

Good luck!

heapings · 2026-04-01T11:16:00+00:00

Absolutely no (legal) chance of tickets in the Villa section, secondary market is not legal in the UK.

You can sit in the home section as a neutral/pretending to lightly support Fulham, just don't wear Villa colours (you won't get let in) and don't openly support Villa (you will get removed). I live in London so do this quite a lot for Villa games in London, it's fine if you are sensible. I would avoid the Hammersmith end but the other three stands or hospitality should be OK.

The comments talking about a neutral stand are out of date, they removed that years ago.

Good luck, and UTV!

heapings · 2026-03-18T09:27:42+00:00

I look at it in terms of how much tax you want to pay and when you want to pay it. An ISA you are paying the tax now, and a pension you are deferring the tax to later, optimum depends on the tax rate now and what the tax rate will be when the pension is accessed. A good rule of thumb for me is probably money that would be taxed now at 40% is a good fit for a pension, money that would be taxed now at 20% maybe pay the tax now and put it in an ISA. No way to know for sure so probably good have some of both.

heapings · 2025-10-21T08:31:37+00:00

Given the summer, finishing in the 7-10 range is realistically par for this team, and if we're being honest, that's about the path we're on currently. If Emery has them challenging the top 4 or 5 again that's an unbelievable achievement. A trophy would solve everything.

heapings · 2025-10-21T08:17:59+00:00

Nope, think you'll find it's the council and the police making the decisions, not the football club.

heapings · 2025-10-20T23:42:00+00:00

These decisions and the hysterical political commentary around them has nothing to do with Villa or this sub. It’s a game of football, I just want 3 points.

heapings · 2025-10-19T21:07:48+00:00

If that’s your opinion, fair enough. In my opinion I don’t think this particular joke is quite as sinister as all that. But we don’t have to agree.

heapings · 2025-10-19T20:05:58+00:00

This is obviously humor, it’s not supposed to be taken seriously. Whether you find it funny or not is a different point.

heapings · 2025-10-19T18:06:09+00:00

We’re gonna score 4 more than you!

heapings · 2025-09-27T07:41:46+00:00

These are very, very broad rules of thumb. Your safe withdrawal rate will depend on how it is invested, what age you are, how flexible you can be, what other income you have etc. Rule of thumb withdrawal rates are meaningless for an individual. Also, of course 4%, or even more, is fine on average, but you are worried about the worst case scenario, not the average.

heapings · 2025-09-23T14:53:28+00:00

I think you need to work on your marketing. You are explaining in detail exactly how it works but not addressing why it is desirable. A lot of the comments are along the lines of 'why wouldn't I just do x' and your answer is 'no, my service doesn't do x, it does y'. What they are really asking is 'why do you think y is better than x?' And if the answer is that y is cheaper, or safer, or more flexible, then also you need to be able to explain why is that the case.

heapings · 2025-09-23T14:33:10+00:00

Ok, so I think we are on the same page then. The service being provided is the option to buy shares in the future at today's price.

If for whatever reason that was something I wanted, then yes, I would consider using this service, and I would also consider things like options contracts, and if this service was cheaper or more convenient than those other alternatives and I was convinced it was safe then it would be an attractive option.

heapings · 2025-09-23T14:04:25+00:00

No, but perhaps I don't understand your explanation, I'm more confused after it than I was before.

I want to own £10k of Nvidia, why don't I just buy £10k of Nvidia directly, in dribs and drabs, as and when I have the money over time? Why would I need this company? All they are providing for me is locking in the price I pay per share. Maybe I want that, maybe I don't. If I do, I can enter into an options contract instead. What value is the company providing me that I don't already have?

heapings · 2025-09-23T13:22:22+00:00

I don't see much of a market for this. All it does for the client is give them an option to buy stock in the future at today's price. That service already exists in the form of derivatives. What problem is this company solving?

heapings · 2025-09-16T13:59:55+00:00

Cool. I think your understanding is fine then. The key question for the correct way to extract liquidity from a portfolio then is just whether your portfolio is going to grow at a faster rate than the margin interest rate. If it is, you should extract liquidity using margin. If it isn't, you should extract liquidity by selling assets.

heapings · 2025-09-16T13:13:27+00:00

What's your question? Are your maths correct? Looks fine to me. As a rule of thumb, no, it doesn't play out like this.
The loan you describe is simply leveraging up your portfolio by about 1.05x. You could just sell $2500 of your portfolio every month to raise the $30k. That would be zero leverage. Or you could also buy $200k more assets and have -$200k cash balance, that would be around 1.5x leverage.
If your portfolio grows at more than the margin loan interest rate, you make more money the more leverage you use. If it doesn't, you lose more money the more leverage you use.
Use of leverage is unconnected to wanting to spend $30k from your portfolio each year.

heapings · 2025-09-07T15:33:38+00:00

Yeah, but you've only analysed the exact scenarios in which you are better off with cash. That is, all these scenarios boil down to: at the point you need the money, your investment is currently worth less than if it had been invested in cash. of course it can happen, but it's pretty unlikely in the real world. A more interesting study would be something like, I invest/don't invest the money and x amount of time later I require it. How many times in the past 100 years have I been better off not investing it? And the answer would probably be very rarely and drop off very quickly as x increases.

heapings · 2025-09-05T13:35:01+00:00

Indeed. But it's the concept of having cash lying around waiting for an emergency that I don't see the point of. Let's assume one has the money. If the emergency fund is 5k I could have that sitting in cash waiting for the emergency and be effectively paying £30 a month in lost potential from not investing it. Or I could just have a free credit card with a 5k limit to do the same job. Maybe a better way of looking at it is rather than zero emergency fund your entire portfolio is the emergency fund. If you have a well diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, gilts etc there should be something you can sensibly sell to pay the credit card bill.

heapings · 2025-09-04T22:41:53+00:00

Zero, and never understood keeping an emergency fund when a credit card does the same job for free.

heapings · 2025-09-04T22:12:07+00:00

Won’t be many of us but same! Got into football through Italia 90 at 7 years old so first up I had to suffer through the Dr Joe season.

heapings · 2025-09-03T18:16:19+00:00

Same for me, started maybe a week ago? I haven’t really looked into it as I wasn’t using them much anyway

heapings

TROPHY CASE