Deepverge are doing well at the moment.

I’ve had an Acer 11″ CB5 132T for about 4 years and it’s flawless, keeps running despite heavy use and rough handling. I thought about getting something with a bigger screen recently but as others have said they are thin on the ground.

If your laptop is still in reasonable shape a cheap option could be a conversion:

Convert a laptop to a Chromebook

Yep a note 9 pro and the missus has a note 9. Both superb handsets, coming from a history of Motorola G series. Quick, lovely displays and cases, had zero issues with them and it’s pretty easy to free them of the Xaiomi bloatware.

Go on superstu, enlighten us

Whilst the annual allowance limit is £40k and you can carry forward unused allowance from 3 previous tax years, a key point is that your tax relievable contributions are limited to 100% of your earnings in the tax year. So for example if you earned £60k in the current tax year, that’s your maximum total employer/employee contributions including any carry forward.

If it is a DC pension, you don’t need an IFA to transfer, you could feasibly do this yourself but financial advice would be a better route if you aren’t sure what you are doing and some products will not be accessible on a non advised basis.

My Bike 24 order (pair of wheels) turned up out the blue yesterday. They very kindly upgraded the postage at their cost to get them to me in 2 days and before the cutoff, awesome service as ever!

I don’t find the suspension hard on my Mk8 and that’s despite driving some of the crappiest roads in Scotland and running 18s. Used to commute a 70 mile round trip in it too and I never considered comfort an issue.

Same with all the German bike retailers. Ordered a set of wheels on Bike 24 on Sunday hoping to get them through, they’ve taken the cash but tracking shows no action so waiting for the cancellation mail

Not Germany, but my order from Mantel was cancelled on 8th December, just logged in today to see why it was so slow. Big order placed on Bike 24, hopefully this one gets through!

Always wanted one but being tall, I couldn’t fit in the previous incarnation. However, the latest version has a low seat position so I didn’t even start the engine before being sold. Moving from a Golf R DSG, it’s obviously slower but a way more engaging drive. It genuinely puts a smile on a 47 year old face every time I drive it, unlike any of the string of hot hatches I’ve owned in the past.

Thats not strictly true brads, if you die within 2 years of transfer HMRC can treat the transferred sum as part of your estate for IHT purposes.

@juanking, the first part of the transfer process is ‘triage’, this is basically an impartial education on the potential benefits, drawbacks and risks of pension transfer. Most firms offer this service free of charge and it is intended to help you decide whether transfer may meet your objectives before engaging in the expensive advice process.

Pop Larkin, sounds like all your pensions are defined contribution or DC pots. The level of research and time to advise on this type of pension is vastly less than defined benefit pensions (DB). Unlike DB pensions over £30k, there is no statutory requirement to seek advice and if you are financially savvy, you could consolidate these yourself for no charge. However, you indicated you are not so advice would be recommended.

£5k sounds rich for this type of advice,I would suggest half that would be more reasonable.

In relation to ongoing charges, you have no obligation to take this service and you’ve got to challenge the IFA what you are getting for your 1% a year to make this value for money; roughly £250 a month is a lot for potentially a short report saying your funds are doing well 😉

The regulator views compromised health as a valid reason to consider transfer but you also need to have the tolerance and capacity to take on those risks.

Remember that £28k income escalates every year, even at a modest 2.5% p/a that would be £59k at age 75. If you were to draw down from an uninvested cash pot of £1m that would take you less than 26 years to exhaust matching scheme income escalating at 2.5%

Juanking, if you’re risk averse transfer is unlikely to be in your best interests. Why not just draw the scheme pension?

You could essentially leave the fund uninvested but as pointed out, your fund would still be subject to inflationary risks. You are also unlikely to get a positive transfer recommendation in this scenario.

Going back to deferred pension, this is the accrued benefit you had at the date of leaving the scheme. In our £800 per year Vs £40k example, I was making the point that for example if you left the scheme in 2010 and the normal retirement date was 2025, your £800 of deferred pension will revalue so by 2025 could be £2000 per year. This is guaranteed and generally inflation proofed income. To purchase the same benefits via an annuity on the open market is very expensive in comparison.

Yep, based in Scotland.

Basically, whilst a member of a DB scheme you don’t need to worry about bond yields or in fact any investment risks as these are all bourn by the scheme. As soon as you transfer, you take on all those risks, something to consider with current market volatility.

A big mistake people make is looking at the deferred pension verses the transfer value and think the latter represents excellent value for money, it doesn’t. The deferred pension revalues from the date of leaving till the date of retirement, so the real value of this income can be significantly higher. GMP benefits can revalue at fixed rates of up to 8.5% per annum, that mounts up quickly!

I write DB transfer reports for a living and can tell you between adviser and paraplanner time, it’s way more than 30 hours work. This is the most heavily regulated and complex area of financial advice so you are paying for expertise as well as time; not many IFAs have the permissions required to carry out this work.

As of 1st October there was a massive regulatory overhaul of DB transfer advice and you must be charged a flat fee whether the advice is to transfer or stay. Previously charges were mainly taken on a contingent basis from the fund if transfer was recommended. Where it was to stay, you may previously have been charged less.

Fees now are in the region of £6-10k between firms although I believe there are a couple of big firms offering this for around £3.5 k.

Replaced 3 calipers on 2 bikes due to this now. If you manage to get purchase on the screw, the head shears off so either way you end up stuffed. Retainer screws now get coppaslip and finger tightened at the most.

Sorry to hijack, but can I ask what the most common type of file is used for the printing process and is there free software available to create these?

Craft Gin club introduced me to Blue Bottle, no other gin has impressed me this much, its the pinnacle of ginawesomeness!

Blue Bottle

I use my Caddy as a daily and initially used Direct Line then switched to Admiral £320 p/a on a private s/d/p policy with a few mods.

Age 47 and pretty bike fit. Max is early 190s which I regularly hit on
bunch rides or races. Last year my average was 175/180 in a 10 TT.

To those who are wearing masks and taking extra care to avoid contamination, are you going to continue these measures post lockdown in the hope that you’ll avoid infection completely?

BBC reporting that South Korean patients thought cured test positive again

South Korean health authorities say 91 people thought recovered after contracting coronavirus have tested positive for the disease again.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said on Friday it was not clear why the patients had tested positive for a second time.

KCDC director Jeong Eun-kyeong told a news conference it was possible that the virus had “reactivated” in the patients, as opposed to them being re-infected.

Other health experts suggested the patients may have “relapsed” or been misdiagnosed by faulty tests.

Brilliant Ho hum, cheers!!

Anyone know why other countries are throwing resources at disinfecting roads? There was even a video on the the Beeb of street signs being scrubbed down in Italy! Surely there is very little chance of picking up the virus in this way?

Ocado another 10% in a day and the supermarkets are doing well. Oil companies looking grat value at the moment too.

Just back from 2 weeks in Spain at the weekend, no fever but cough for last 7 days, tight chest and pretty tired.

Its impossible to tell without testing, the symptoms have such a broad range dependent on host.

is it With Profits?

If its a with-profit endowment bonuses cant be taken away once added.If its invested inunit linked funds things are a bit different.

Flew out to Costa Blanca today for 2 weeks from Glasgow. Not a single mask in sight and quite a few folk couging their guts up on the flight yet no one seemed bothered. May be a different story on the return flight. Dont cancel, the sun and getting away from little Britain is worth it :)

Hong Kong fluey?

Mortality rates will likely rise when healthcare becomes overwhelmed.

What’s the demographic of those that don’t recover, I’m assuming the elderly and those with underlying health issues?

Team America, **** yeah!

I believe Macron was also considering vetoing the extention.

Aero is everything and position is king so clip on likely to save time. Even on hilly tts I go full aero and use the disc.

On hilly courses hit the hills hard and use the downsides to recover an maintaining power downhill is difficult.

As said warm up properly, go out easy and build up effort and most important of all, know the course.

Season 2 of the Punisher just released and shaping up to be every bit as good as the first.

Glitch is also a decent series and new Archer episodes added recently.

@greybeard

Unless in poor health, the scheme pension will generally always be higher than the annuity income that you could purchase on the open market.

I’m unsure whether reasons for the legal requirement to get IFA advice for a transfer is to protect pensioners or support the IFA ‘industry’.

They are there to protect the consumer, as I said this is usually someones largest and most life changing financial decision

Somebody makes a nice living out of other people’s pensions. The management fees on my SIPP are fixed not %, but work out at .125% per year.

Management fees are unrepresentative of total cost of a SIPP as the underlying investments in the SIPP will mostly have further annual charges. 1.5% p/a is more realistic total.

Plop pants sounds better but I assume there is a considerable reduction in place to draw benefits early? If you could live on your other investments now, deferring drawing benefits till the normal retiremnet age of the scheme could considerably increase the pension offered.

Remember the income from the scheme is guaranteed for life and is very likely inflation proofed with no risk to you. As an example for an increase of 2.5% per annum a £10k pension becomes £12.8k after 10 years and £16.5k after 20 and £21.5 at 30 years. If you are in good health with a history of longevity in your family, inflation proofing is an even more valuable benefit.

If you plan to draw heavily on the fund, there may be little to nothing left to pass on to your son when you die, a lot of people dont appreciate just how much they will take over their lifetime, just seeing the headline figure as a legacy. Conversely, if you were single or in poor health, transferring for death benefits makes more sense.

Im a qualified pension transfer specialist dealing in this type of transfer on a daily basis.

There are many reasons that people want to transfer including flexibility of income and death benefits but you need to weigh up exactly what you are giving up as the guarantees offered by your DB scheme are very valuable and expensive to replace. For a lot of people this is the biggest financial decision that they will make in their life.

CETVs usually are in the region of 25-30 timed the pension given up, 38 seems really high, are you sure that this isnt the deferred pension at the date of leaving scheme?

Charges will impact on the value of the fund in the future and you also need to factor in the ongoing advice charge (usually 0.5%-1% per annum) as the FCA recommend that annual reviews are carried for the lifetime of the contract.

Other factors to consider are the spouse’s pension you would be giving up, your capacity and tolerance to loss i.e. how much could you afford to lose before your standard of living was affected? and how much loss cold you actually handle?, the fact that death benefit flexibility could be potentially fulfilled with a life assurance contract and whether the scheme offered partial transfers so you could gain some flexibility whilst retaining a core guaranteed income.

As I’m assuming the CETV is over £30k, you will need to seek financial advice and the fee quoted is ballpark what we would charge for a £100k transfer so you can determine whether yours repsesents good vfm or not.

There are many reasons people choose to move from DB to DC and as said earlier its not for everyone, but if you are willing to accept the risks it can be very beneficial:

If you are single or divorced the spouse’s pension is of no use and the fund effectively dies with you rather than potentially being passed on to your children or other beneficiaries.

DC schemes can potentially offer a higher proportion of TFC, up to 25% of the fund value in comparison to the PCLS DB schemes normally offer.

You have the flexibility to take benefits from age 55 without the onerous reductions that most DB schemes apply on early retirement.

You may wish to access TFC without drawing income benefits or a small income to allow you reduce working hours, flexibilities that DB schemes can’t generally facilitate.

DC schemes are also a very effective way to pass on wealth without being subject to inheritance tax.

On the other hand, you could go mental and spunk your entire fund before you die……