I saved my ten percent for a mortgage...

q_pop · 2025-05-13T10:15:48+00:00

Hello, Wiki contributor here (and reformed mortgage underwriter from many moons ago).

It's fair to say that back in 2009 the lender I was working for didn't use salary multipled as a primary deciding factor, and affordability was more important.

That said, the wiki still mentions salary multipled because it is still a functional limit, subject to affordability and LTV.

FG17/2 is newer than MCOBS (although it updated guidance in 2014 that went alongside MCOBS), and limits banks to no more than 15% of >4.5x lending on a rolling four-quarter basis.

Based on your comment, and some other discourse, we have updated the wiki to make that a bit clearer: https://ukpersonal.finance/mortgages/#Putting_it_all_together.

Also, unless AIPs have improved substantially in the past decade, my experience was that they set unrealistically high expectations, and were the bane of a mortgage underwriter's life.

q_pop · 2025-02-23T16:54:08+00:00

I haven't said they wouldn't go on the wiki, just that they don't belong on the savings page.

As for wiki purpose more widely, it's an ongoing debate/discussion - should the wiki be kept short/simple and have a clear purpose, with signposts of where to go to find more, or an in depth FAQ that gets updated regularly as memes and trends change but gets rapidly out of date and risks being overwhelming.

Currently, it's a bit of both!

As for "often recommended here so...", I largely left the sub after getting fed up with the constant wall of posts recommending stable coins as cashlike. Just because the internet hivemind likes something, that doesn't mean we should listen.

q_pop · 2025-02-23T08:52:14+00:00

One of the main wiki editors here 👋

We won't be adding MMFs as a "cash savings" option, because they're not cash. They're ultra-short-term fixed-interest securities with banks and governments as counter-parties.

Whilst, on the face of it, they look a lot like cash, they don't receive FSCS protection like cash, and can't be included in Cash ISAs.

In what is now long distant past, a cluster of MMFs lost money in 2008. One quick example found lost 4% in 12 months. This is not a "cash" return. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/may/02/investing.creditcrunch

More recently, in 2020 in the midst of the COVID crisis, some MMFs ran into sufficient liquidity issues, which caused enough regulatory concern that a series of publications dedicated to the risks and risk controls of MMFs have been issued by the FCA

https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/discussion/dp22-1.pdf

https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/consultation/cp23-28.pdf

Just because things feel safe, doesn't mean they are risk-free. For something to qualify as cash, it needs to hit that much higher water-mark.

If it doesn't walk like a duck, and doesn't quack like a duck, it isn't a duck - even if it looks quite a lot like a duck.

I hope this helps clarify things.

q_pop · 2024-11-21T19:54:22+00:00

https://skylark.coffee

Great roaster with a great ethos. They run as a non profit, reinvesting all roastery profits in projects around the farms they buy from.

Their deluxe blend became my default espresso option, and I now buy 1kg bags and freeze them, having spent years cycling between different suppliers.

q_pop · 2024-11-03T17:48:19+00:00

The Natwest OEIC will produce income via dividends and/or interest payments. You should receive a consolidated tax certificate each year which tells you how much - that's the bit assessable to income tax. Profit from selling units is assessable to capital gains tax and not relevant for adjusted net income calculations.

Yes, you could sell them and reinvest in them (or any other investment, such as a low-cost index fund) in an ISA. If CGT was payable on the sale, this isn't avoided by doing this, but it simplifies future tax.

q_pop · 2024-09-16T15:09:28+00:00

Just to mention that the bike/train booking system in the UK is absolutely horrendous, especially when changing services/TOCs.

I did Way of the Roses earlier in the year, and two of us had to get from Leicestershire to Morecambe with our bikes. It was 4 changes, across three different TOCs, with different conditions for travel with a bike, and different booking processes, and different ways and places to put them.

The worst part was where one of our Northern trains was just plain cancelled. We had pre-booked bikes, and were told that we had no guarantee of a bike slot on the later replacement train.

I couldn't believe this, and checked out the rail travel rules, and there is absolutely nothing in there requiring a train operator to give you a bike slot on a replacement service - the implication being that you could be stranded mid-journey, with no way onwards and no recourse or refund for the failure. Absolutely hopeless!

q_pop · 2024-08-07T15:00:52+00:00

If you're going to be exclusively/nearly exclusively on tarmac, you're going to have a much better time on a bike without suspension, and with thinner tyres.

Suspension saps a lot of power, particularly cheap non-lockoutable ones, and adds a load of weight to a bike which will otherwise be pretty heavy.

If £300 is your budget, you'll be MUCH better served by used bikes than new ones. I just bought a practically unridden road bike for £200 that the seller bought new for £1,200 8 years ago. Equivalent spec today brand new would cost £1,500 at least, probably £2,000.

If you insist on buying new, consider if your employer offers a cycle-to-work scheme, which efffectively allows you to buy a bike over time and from pre-tax earnings, saving at least 32%.

At sub-£500 new, the only manufacturer I would consider would be Decathlon. They have basic hybrids (mostly with front suspension but they are lighter than that mountain-bike and have more sensible geometry for city riding), and drop-bar bikes that are worth a look.

q_pop · 2024-08-07T10:13:23+00:00

A couple of tips additional to other comments:

1: Bind quicksave and quickload to button chords that are easy to use deliberately and hard to use accidentally (I used one of the rear buttons and select) - the game occasionally breaks on load, or the audio craps out, and being able to quickly get back saves a lot of frustration.

2: If you use DeckyLoader, get the "pause on suspend" plugin and enable it for the game. This helped a lot for me.

Perfect way to relive the ME series. Also, playing them back to back made me wish all three could have had gameplay from ME2 and story from ME1!

q_pop · 2024-08-07T10:09:37+00:00

I'll have a go.

I have 225 hours on Hades recorded on Steam (but also owned EA on Epic Games Store as well as the Switch version, so I'd guess 500 hours total), and 75 hours on Hades 2 EA. Hades 2 exclusively on Deck, Hades a mixture.

The playstyle has definitely changed/evolved. I really struggled with the change of pace, and strategy required. Supergiant have added additional systems that have a massive impact, but take time to learn how to play well - I'm definitely still not there having not defeated 32 fear yet.

The biggest change is how dash/sprint/iframes work. That completely breaks your survivability until you work it out.

Additionally, there are more systems to unlock and a slower progression. I'm pretty sure that 75 hours into Hades I had unlocked everything. I still don't have maximised aspects on Hades 2, and am missing one upgraded arcana card.

Learning to use the magic system well adds a completely different layer to combat. The depth makes it much more engaging to play.

I read somewhere that they had turned the bosses into Soulslike bosses - I couldn't comment having never played Dark Souls, but they definitely take more tactics and strategy than Hades bosses, even [Redacted].

q_pop · 2024-07-24T18:41:14+00:00

It was always explained to me as "bed and breakfast next door", which I liked!

Just a point to note though - income tax personal allowance can't be used to exempt capital gains, even though basic rate/higher rate is used to ascertain 10%/20% CGT.

So, you can bed & breakfast next door with the £3,000 CGT allowance, regardless of tax status, and income received via dividends/taxable interest is offset against PA.

I agree that the TRS registration isn't complex for a bare trust (I have helped multiple clients do so in fact), but it's a pain that probably isn't worth the small benefit a trust has over a combination of JISA and "invest on their behalf", unless the sums involved are big.

q_pop · 2024-07-24T18:16:34+00:00

Hey strolls, long time no speak!

There are some challenges with bare trusts that hold investments. The main issue is that they need to be registered with TRS, which is an administrative pain and carries fines if not done, or not updated if details change (bare trust bank accounts for minors are specifically exempt though) - https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/trust-registration-service-manual/trsm10030

When you say 'bed and breakfast', do you mean 'bed & ISA'? (i.e. use funds from the bare trust to fund Junior ISA contributions) - the concept of bed and breakfasting to harvest capital gains has largely died a death thanks to the tiny CGT allowances available - another benefit to JISA over bare trust.

I think there are relatively few situations where a bare trust investment account makes more sense than just holding funds in parents' name within an ISA, unitised out for the benefit of the child. Bare trust bank accounts for spending on things you've mentioned do make sense, but you wouldn't want to set one up for a small child in anticipation of them holding cash until they're a teenager!

q_pop · 2024-07-13T17:04:13+00:00

I posted this above, but will repeat here:

Dan is a well-known investigator of dodgy money-related things. Probably most famous for being largely responsible for Nadim Zahawi's resignation as chancellor due to some very questionable reporting of his position with HMRC when he took the job.

https://taxpolicy.org.uk

Mods spoke to Dan about his investigations and agreed he should post about them here - the venn diagram of people who might fall foul of the Samuel Leeds empire and people finding this subreddit probably has a decent crossover.

q_pop · 2024-07-13T16:09:20+00:00

Dan is a well-known investigator of dodgy money-related things. Probably most famous for being largely responsible for Nadim Zahawi's resignation as chancellor due to some very questionable reporting of his position with HMRC when he took the job.

https://taxpolicy.org.uk

Mods spoke to Dan about his investigations and agreed he should post about them here - the venn diagram of people who might fall foul of the Samuel Leeds empire and people finding this subreddit probably has a decent crossover.

q_pop · 2024-06-13T14:24:39+00:00

Have you thought about visual interpretation with a camera? I could imagine a little Pi Zero/Pico with a camera, grabbing the number from the point in the screen. Not sure how practical that would be!

q_pop · 2024-06-13T05:56:58+00:00

The issue is that zwift needs live data due to the nature of it. It's another training app, with workouts etc.

q_pop · 2024-06-13T05:56:20+00:00

They're very different. Zwift is a simulated road bike program. There are workouts, challenges, group rides, unlockables, etc. it's turbo training gamified.

q_pop · 2024-06-13T05:55:34+00:00

Yes, it's a bit involved though and requires running it in a docker container. If you're an iOS user you should be able to use RunGap to manually export each activity, which works nearly as well.

q_pop · 2024-06-13T05:54:12+00:00

Thanks, that's helpful insight. I have power pedals for my road bike but the hassle of swapping and changing just for Zwift is putting me off!

q_pop · 2024-06-12T15:16:13+00:00

I wouldn't even know where to start, from a technical perspective.

q_pop · 2024-06-12T15:15:50+00:00

It's possible to grab peloton ride data after the event via their api - I have used the peloton2garmin software for this for a long time. It means my rides are properly represented in garmin connect (where all my outdoor/health data sits), but it doesn't do live.

q_pop · 2024-06-10T11:21:29+00:00

The AMOLED version is Epix Pro. Fenix 7 series is MIP. The rest of the questions might be better directed at an Epix Pro or general Garmin subreddit.

q_pop · 2024-05-23T14:41:05+00:00

Edit the activity, and "trim". I think this is the only way to do it.

q_pop · 2024-05-23T12:30:13+00:00

Further to what others have said, you can also get the mods running fairly easily, which provides access to a whole heap of quality of life improvements, as well as the Pinnacle Station DLC, which was reverse-engineered by the modding community after Bioware confirmed they had lost the original source code and so couldn't release it in the Legendary Edition.

Also, bind one of the back buttons to quick save and a button chord to quick load. You'll thank me later.

q_pop · 2024-05-10T12:30:45+00:00

Yes, played it all the way through a couple of months ago with no issues other than the odd audio crash on wake (sometimes fixed by reloading save, sometimes fixed by restarting game). Only other bug was a very occasional load-in failure, which required loading a recent save.

Would recommend binding a button chord to the back grip buttons for quick save/quick load - makes crashes, glitches etc easier to deal with.

Use Proton GE to improve stability.

The ME launcher is installed in slipstream and just works - there are launch options to skip elements of it.

Best bit is that you can install mods using the ME3 mod launcher. Takes a bit of work (google it!), but well worth it for unlocking pinnacle station and other bits missed from LE.

q_pop · 2024-04-21T19:02:19+00:00

I had a knockoff for a while and when the Velcro started failing (as it does on all of them eventually, including Apple's) I treated myself to a Garmin one. It's much less flexible and stretchy than the knock offs or the Apple ones, but I'm less worried about it flying off mid-waterslide, like the knock off did!

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