I looked for some official guidance on this and couldn’t find anything. As far as I could tell, there’s no rule of thumb as it depends massively on a lot of different factors, so providing any official rule of thumb would be stupid as some people would go out, drink what that rule of thumb says and then go and kill someone.

Personally I don’t drink a drop if I’m driving, the impact of killing someone would be too great and for the sake of a couple of drinks, what’s the point

Rates are still very low.

True, and the impact will depend on your personal circumstances.

If you’ve a massive interest-only mortgage and BoE follows the pattern expected of the Fed (4x 0.25% moves in a year) then your cost of borrowing is going to be a hell of a lot higher.

Which, for the OP is a very important consideration… with wages expected to be static he may find he can’t charge higher rent to cover these higher costs

Certainly not a good time to borrow tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds on an interest-only mortgage…

From Bloomberg – repeated increases throughout the year too… uncharted territory

The Federal Open Market Committee unanimously voted to set the new target range for the federal funds rate at 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent, up from zero to 0.25 percent. Policy makers separately forecast an appropriate rate of 1.375 percent at the end of 2016, the same as September, implying four quarter-point increases in the target range next year, based on the median number from 17 officials.

Whether you agree or not with the sentiments of these two posts OP and whether you think it’s fair, or not, remember this is the dominant sentiment amongst your future tenants and the sentiment which Osborne has realised he needs to respond to if he wants to get their votes…

IMO the growth in this sentiment over the last couple of years is one of the key driving forces behind the two big changes he made this year to the viability of BTL… and it won’t go away until there’s been a pretty sizeable drop in house prices – maybe 30% in London/SE and 20% nationwide – because with wages static current prices will remain unaffordable to the younger (<35) demographic who are the future Tory voters. The current older Tory base will be dead in 20 years time…

OP – be very careful taking advice from people who already have BTL. The rules have changed very significantly and very unexpectedly twice this year – and BoE asking for more powers to regulate it hasn’t even happened yet, so what BTL would mean for you as a new entrant and what it has meant so far or will mean for people already in, are two entirely different scenarios.

Do your reading, pick your sources carefully ie. avoid vested interests. The overall sentiment about BTL now is that for the retail investors (ie. the man on the street) it’s dead.

At this moment in time we have no idea what further regulation will be applied in the future and we do not yet know the path and pace of interest rates… but remember that BTL is resented by a large proportion of the younger generation that Osborne needs the votes of, and he badly needs more taxes – landlords are an acceptable target if you’re a populist politician

We need to be really careful that well-established national news outlets like ITV are allowed to publish what is at this point only an accusation in a way which looks like they’re reporting facts… it very much positions that guy as someone who’s committed an unprovoked assault and suggests his form of transport has something to do with his alleged behaviour. When all we actually know is that a woman has made an accusation to the Police…

I guess this kind of propaganda is centuries old though – maybe it’s only with social media that we’re realising how much things get twisted in the hands of media outlets…

I make that to mean that he brought a message of peace and goodwill throughout the Middle East.

:-)

There was a profile on TB last Xmas in The Economist which suggested that he’d had an affair with Wendy Deng. Wendy Deng was the woman who thumped the guy who shoved a pie in the face of Rupert Murdoch when he was being interviewed by the MPs re the hacking scandal. At the time she was married to Rupert Murdoch but she no longer is…

IMHO only someone with a supreme sense of self-belief would be daft enough to have an affair with the wife of someone as ruthless as Rupert Murdoch :-)

There was also a quote attributed to Mo Mowlem I believe, which said something like ‘the problem with Tony, is he thinks he’s Jesus’. Make of that what you will…

Don’t ask us OP, or your bank, or a financial adviser. Do your own online research. Get yourself a subscription to Moneyweek or the FT and read every article you can find on what they say about BTL and get a feel for what the mood is a) re BTL and b) UK house prices in general.

You’re talking about putting a serious amount of money into single asset class which is widely considered to be in bubble territory (in London and SE at least) and a history of boom and bust both in the UK and worldwide. Worst case you could end up bankrupt if you make the wrong calculations or events go against you, it’s very far from a low-risk punt.

Bear in mind 3 very significant events that have happened already this year re BTL.
1. July budget changes reducing tax relief will take many leveraged BTL landlords from profit to loss and an increase in their personal tax bill leaving them worse off each month and totally dependent on increase house prices to make any money
2. November budget changes making it even more expensive to buy the place in the first place
3. BoE have asked for greater control over BTL lending, calling it a risk to UK financial stability, which will either reduce what you can borrow or increase the cost.

Lenders are already tightening up lending criteria as a result. There’s a widely held belief a lot of BTLers will have to sell up as it simply won’t stack up as a way to make money any longer.

Also, wages are highly unlikely to go up much for the next few years so your tenants’ willingness or ability to increase their rent payments to you if your costs go up is very low indeed.

Worth bearing in mind that BTL was essentially invented by the banks as a way to make more money from their customers by finding a way to get them to borrow even more money than they are already, charging them interest on these massive loans, knowing that if the housing market then crashes, it’s their customers who’re on the hook for the debt, not them…

I’ll let someone else mention the morals of it and general public opinion. Or you could just go and read the comments section of any online news story on BTL.

You hadn’t reached an agreement.

There was an agreement to negotiate…

I know I’m over-thinking it but it’s lousy behaviour saying you’re prepared to negotiate and then refusing to when you don’t like the reality of it…

‘too nice’ I was told once. My response (which I kept to myself) was wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone was a little bit nicer?

I’ve worked with 3 people at different times of my life who had very strong psychopathic traits – highly narcissistic, could tell a bare-faced lie with no hint of it being a problem for them, highly manipulative. two of them had had repeated complaints against them from co-workers for their lies and manipulation. One even confessed to me he liked the idea of destroying someone… funny thing was, none of them seemed to think there was anything wrong with their behaviour, they just thought everyone else was naive for being honest – I doubt a real psychopath would come out as such on that test as they’d just be scoring themselves as nice…

great idea about implementing a bike lane up dunmail raise, very fast road in parts.

Quite fun if you could hold on. I managed my fastest on-road speed of 49mph down there. My mate went through the 30mph limit sign c50mph!

But, yes, good idea from KMB

Well, they’re less good at hiding it. Probably because it’s systemic and in a non-democratic/autocratic country, harder for the people to actually do anything about it, so no real need to bother hiding it – those in power feel invincible. Also see Saudi Arabia, China, Russia…

But if you think the super high cost of housing in UK is from a natural ‘supply and demand’ imbalance rather than deliberately rigged supply shortage (multiple guilty parties here) and deliberately excessive amount of credit being supplied (banks, egged on by government) then you/we are being rather naive.

Might be best to get professional advice.
IANAL and all that but I’ve moved jobs a fair bit and never once been asked. I would consider your current contract to be confidential between you and existing employer and of no business to the new employer.
Maybe they’re hoping to find out what your old salary was and hoping to bid you back down?

I’ve got some old-school Helly (the plastic rather than wool ones) from 10+ years ago which have seen very regular use (and washing). They don’t smell, they still fit fine. Cost me about £22 from Bicester outlet village. Style may be a little out but they’re base layers…

apart from that group of long-headed aliens

They’re not long-headed aliens, it’s Stewie from Family Guy and his wife and kid out for a stroll

OP – you do know that a lot of people have no idea what they’re talking about on any given subject – especially on road positioning for cycling :D

To be honest, there’s hardly anyone knows how to ride a bike properly (as per Bikeability and Cyclecraft) so I tend to ignore any abuse or other commentary as chances are they’re just someone with an opinion, rather than an informed opinion… and essentially are just making a noise rather than actually saying anything useful or even accurate…

As a London resident with quite a few friends in the Lakes and someone who plans on retiring there, if not earlier, given the extent of the damage to homes and businesses and the longer term impact on the local economy, this should be considered a national-scale crisis. But I suspect it’ll drop out of the headlines soon enough and out of political consciousness…

Partly, the Lakes in my experience is full of friendly, resourceful and community-minded people and they’ll pull together and deal with it without expecting massive amounts of outside help in a way which we probably wouldn’t in London where we’re massively dependent on government-provided infrastructure and commercial supply chains, I suspect people’s response would be a lot less stoic!

As usual, the kind of people you want to be role models, don’t want the role cos they’re too lacking in ego. So you get Clarkson types as your public role models instead!

Google Chromecast Audio

depending on your setup this may save you spending a load of cash

To help Brixton Cycles move premises after they got turfed out to make way for more luxury flats. I get a free cycling cap for my £50 though :-)

And then run spotify through your hifi with Google Chromecast…

:oops:

[Senility]I called Paypal and they reminded me I’d made a charity pledge a few weeks ago.[/senility]

What amuses me about this olde chestnut is that there is a finite amount of money available,

ah but… since we began seeing credit as money, rather than debt (c early 1990s) people have forgotten this entirely – and are under the illusion that there is not a finite amount of money, so long as you ‘can afford the repayments’. How many times have you heard people say this about house prices ‘they’re high but so long as the monthly payments are affordable, that’s ok’. Well it is if you’re happy paying tens of thousands of pounds more in interest over 25 years!

Which is why we’re in a debt crisis. The debt has to be paid off eventually, from future earnings.

Is it appearing in your account summary when you log in to PayPal?

No, just £50 taken from my current account by direct debit to Paypal

No pants underneath running kit, it’s the rule.

I got chafed when using standard running shorts with a liner so wore a pair of the longer lycra running shorts which kept my thighs apart 8O and then standard running shorts on top. No problems after that

Getting texts from a mate who lives down near Haweswater, he’s stuck in a pub in Shap. Not sure where he’ll be spending the night but the pub’s floor is already wet…

I was there last Xmas when the fells were so waterlogged they could only get out via the water company service road, so this time it looks even worse…

Sympathy to anyone affected by this. Down here in London we haven’t got a clue what proper weather’s like…

I also think we’re losing a lot as we focus on consumption and what we can get rather than what we can give – so much seems to be focussed around shopping these days rather than actually spending in time in proper social contact or doing interesting things.

Re consumerism…I remember in the late 80s when people were moaning about how shopping was becoming a leisure pursuit and 30 years later we’re in a debt crisis, effectively bust (not that government’s admitting this) because we’ve just shopped and shopped and shopped, mainly on debt, without thinking for a second of the consequences.
I think the future is much grimmer than people realise, as a direct result of the weight of the debt we’re in…

Moan over…

Ventnor? Used to go there every year when I was a kid. Don’t know what it’s like these days though

Gore Bike Wear Xenon 2.0 Active Shell Jacket is superb but c £100. It’s offically a windproof but it keeps out light rain too.

I have a Gore gilet I bought in 2005 and you could probably get away with hanging it in a shop and no-one would notice it’s not brand new so even though Gore costs when you buy it, it’s buy Gore, buy once. All their kit is excellent IMO

If you’re skinny, take a look at Northwave stuff – you can find it quite cheap on Ribble, Merlin and various other online stores. I reckon it’s underrated in terms of quality. My fully waterproof jacket from them is excellent – not at all sweaty which is quite an achievement for me!
It does come up skinny though, so buy from someone you can send back via Collect+ for free…

shout if you want to switch cos if you get recommended you get £100 and so does the recommender. hi

their marketing works then :-)

He nearly got taken out in his (Optimus) prime

It’d be interesting to study the long term health of say roadies and MTBers of comparable fitness, and perhaps runners who stay in urban environments vs off-road runners.

Indeed. Also the from a mechanical point of view. Every keen runner I know has knee/hip/shin-related injuries from impact on concrete and running off road is generally reckoned to be far healthier in that respect.
In terms of cycling – I’ve broken 3 bones falling off my MTB and nothing from road biking – so it’d be interesting to see the overall measure, comparing mental/emotional benefits vs physiological vs mechanical

That Bristol one’s even more shocking, it’s still a bog!

How long before this all goes pop? Prime London’s already falling and everyone I know who’s lived in London for years but not bought is leaving because they can’t afford to live there anymore. Including me.

They’ve converted public toilets to a ‘house’? 8O

Yes I did.
Lots of research about soil and spores from fungus being great for mental and physical well-being.

Matt – got any links to this research? It links in with what I’ve read elsewhere and own experience but it’d be good to read some primary sources.

What about Spotify Premium? According to What Hifi you can stream it at 320kbps, which is supposed to be as good as CD. Saves me days of reripping all my CDs…