I use one of those long handled gas lighters for cookers, because I don’t like getting my hand too close to the gas flame! But then I car camp not hike so don’t need to worry about space or weight.

I don’t really like it.

I got the worldwide offline maps for £30 when that offer was on so use it for that functionality as my OS map subscription isn;t 100% reliable when zero internet so feel its safer to download to root for offline use on komoot.

I don’t like the way it shows random numbers (points of interest?) rather then mile/km markers on the route.

I don’t like the way it covers the route in a different colour if you ‘start navigation’.

I do like how easy it is to find some nice hikes if you are in an area you don’t know about.

OD Talamanca is pretty lush and easy to get around from

Scud, I think the supermarket packets of cauli rice are absolutely gross, but if you pulse up a cauli in a food processor and lightly toast off in the oven at a high temp for a few mins – I find that very delicious.

Pair of goretex hiking/tail running shoes + warm socks does ok

My top picks would be as follows. The arcteryx if you will be gentle and weight is a big concern. The Rab is not. I am on my second Rab microlight after the first one did about 6 years. Zips and fabric still great but I struggled to get the down re-lofted after its last wash so got a new one. It is however, heavier and less warm than the arcterex.

Super warm, light, expensive. Not very durable:
https://arcteryx.com/gb/en/shop/womens/cerium-lt-hoody-(nam)

Warm, light-ish, more reasonably priced, relatively durable:
https://rab.equipment/uk/women-s-microlight-alpine-jacket-aw20

I went 70. Totally the right call. Looks MASSIVE for about 3 days and then you get used to it.

90% of time spent in the sitting room is watching TV, so a TV dominating the room really isn’t a big deal for me.

Not quite that far but I did 60 miles each way / 120 miles round trip quite often many years ago.

It was tiring and the time taken was sooooo variable based on conditions and traffic. I got home late and ended up eating way too much fast food in the car for dinner (and eating breakfast in the car too to save time).

Plus side I did listen to lots of audiobooks and was very well informed on current affairs via R4.

Work were paying for my petrol money as it was a client site.

I would not choose to do this now. I would try to stay over in a cheap hotel for some quality of life so I could at least work later, exercise and sleep – then leave early/have days at home if poss.

WorldClassAccident I am going to send you a PM

Can you get to the lakes? Stay in Keswick.

Do the slate via ferata at Honister

Via Ferrata Xtreme

Take ’em up Scarfell.

Do something on the water

Day out at Whinlatter

Would you be paying someone to do laundry if you were that rich?

(Genuine question – I’m not sure at what level of wealth you start having ‘staff’. I did also wonder whether there was a nanny’s quarters somewhere we didn’t see. I’d probably have gone with one with three kids!)

YEs – in which case having double machines makes even MORE sense as the cleaner/housekeeper can rattle thru e.g. all the bedding in half the time (and the person time is expensive compared to the machine cost)

Another shout out for Puzzle Wood – surprisingly good.

Walking around Symonds Yat Rock is really lovey.

The chain ferry and small walks either side of the river + pub visits.

Goodrich castle worth a visit.

You could do a canoe day/half day. Especially if you got a double and you did most of the padding. We have done a couple of kayak trips (paid and hired) and a couple in our cheapo inflatable intex double. We parked and put in at Kerne bridge, pootle down to the swimming beach near Sterrett’s Caravan Park (near where we were camping) and tbh hardly have to do much padding. Very chilled half day on the water and that swimming beach and rock jumping location is a cool place to finish. Then it is a very easy bike back to pick the car up.

I would 100% pay the mortgage off and then immediately shift the money you were spending on mortgage payments into pension contributions.

Use 1/2 the remaining inheritance to ‘fun’ and half in a savings account as a buffer.

I don’t think that is enough to support a comfortable level of retirement from 55 – I would wan to be able to travel, eat out as well as boring things like maintain the house and keep running a car.

With no dependents you can equity release or sell the house to fund a comfortable level of care – do ensue you have someone who can step in when needed if you become incapacitated mentally.

Can you look at reducing your time at work? 3 days a week? Buy more holiday?

I’m working to a mortgage paid of by 55 and retire at 60 plan but would love to be able to drop days from 50/55 down from 5. In fact, I would love to go down to 4 now but seems crazy when I am in my working and earning prime.

I reckon that is the right call Mush. Lead time for good builders is huge, the stress with be humongous and you mention dryrot… IMO you wouldn’t get change from £150-200k for mid-range finish. London reno’s are not for the cash poor. Nor are renos for the time poor – they work better if you are a) super minted and can pay for a really trustworthy and reputable full time on-site manager or b) you have enough trade knowledge plus project and site management skills and can dedicate 6 (to 12) months full time to being on site!

The days when you could get a crew of Polish guys in to do a full reno for £60k are about 15 years long gone.

Although saying that, two friends got a house boat last year. They do the continuous river cruising thing in London. To me, it looks like a huge pain in the backside – but they seem to like it. No child though!!!

They took out a personal loan from the bank on a 24 month term. Only after paying that back will they be able to save any money, and also obvs they used savings to buy the boat. They seem to think it makes financial sense, I can’t see it. The boat is a depreciating asset.

It does sadden me that my lad (and girlfriend/baby) are having to look into such odd options as a conventional property is unviable at the moment in the SE.

With a pg girlfriend, they would be better off looking into a share ownership flat. Essentially long term secure rental with some exposure to the housing market. There are obvious downsides – you own [30%] but pay 100% of the service charge and any improvements like new kitchen. When you sell have to sell thru the HA approved buyers first so the process is harder. Have to pay for valuations if you want to stair case up etc

Benefits are long term secure home where you aren’t at the mercy of a commercial landlord. The rental and service charge portions are fixed by how much they can go up.

Huge negative at the moment – the cladding nightmare – you need a block that is low enough or old enough not to be caught by this.

God no that’s a terrible idea. They probably won’t sue him for breach of contract or whatever, but they might.

Its typical to tell the new employer what your notice period is at the contract offered stage and accept a start date in line with that.

Does he have any holiday he can take to essentially end his employment earlier?

Best bet is to go back to new employer and discuss a revised start date.

100% pet plan lifetime – you might never need it, but if you do you’ll be very glad of it like all insurance. If you’re of the mindset that you wouldn’t bother treating a long term illness and would have them PTS then prob not worth it, but not many pet owners actually think like that when it comes to it!

There are very few insurers that the vet clinics are willing to do direct payments with – petplan is one of the very few. Very handy when you have a £3.5k bill and they don’t accept credit cards…

Do you already own your own home? What is the value of that versus your other investments?

I suspect, like most people, you are already significantly exposed to UK resi to housing stock via your own home, which is an amazing tax free ‘investment’ given the capital gains free status of your primary residence.

Holiday homes… almost never ‘worth it’ financially. It is hard to get the balance between what you want/need in a rental and what you want/need for it to be your own holiday home. You loose most of the intangible benefits of your own holiday home if you try to do a hybrid rental-occupy model as you can’t have it ‘just so’ and always available.

You need good a very good property manager, which takes a huge chunk out of your earnings.

BTL property – so many of the benefits have gone and the burden is high. Honestly it’s not the same game it was even 5 years ago. I was a LL about 10 years ago and even then the scales were starting to tip with regards to the regulatory burden. Ongoing hassle even with good agents and good tenants, this is not passive investing.

IF you have a property close by, are handy and actually like fixing things that is much better than being remote and hands off.

Yields are relatively low when you exclude capital growth, and I wouldn’t bet on capital growth over the short to medium term.

Investing into a property fund gets you property exposure whilst being passive, not sure I’d make a bet on commercial or resi property prices at the moment.

If I were you I would sit down with a good IFA and run through what is important to you (yields, risk, effort, lifestyle) and come up with some investment options that suit.

– I find 20mph very difficult as it is between 2nd and 3rd gears

I’m pretty in favour of 20mph limits in busy cities and resi roads – but I do agree with that statement! My car is not happy at 20, its too fast for 2nd and too slow for 3rd!

The biggest things neither of us like about London are it’s busy, hectic, impersonal, transient and expensive, even on a pretty decent salary it feels expensive.

The only thing that is cheaper in Leeds than London is housing. I didn’t see any tangible increase in other living costs when I did the Leeds>London move. Transport, food, going out – none of that is more expensive in London.

I’m not really sure if Leeds is less transient and impersonal – don’t your children root you into the area in London and you have local friends through their school mates and an entry into a nice local community that way? And with primary catchments being so small you see everyone out and about at the local park etc?

I did a decent stint in Leeds – great city IMO.

The restaurant scene is banging, good bars, amazing clubs, each area has its own character. Much easier to meet up with friends because everyone lives within a 10 min drive of each other…. not like London where you can be an hour on public transport to get anywhere.
Live in Chapel A, Oakwood or Roundhay and you’ve got a really easy bike commute into town.
North Leeds v South Leeds… I’m firmly alleged to N Leeds :-)
I love the size – big enough to be fun, small enough to be easy.
Shopping is decent as well.

Negatives:
– North Leeds isn’t actually especially cheap and schools are over subscribed
– The weather is worse than London
– Culture and arts are much poorer than London
– There are not nearly so many things to ‘do’ as in London. In london there is always something free to go and do or see which esp with kids you might miss
– Car is king – forget walking and getting public transport

Do have a hard think about long term opportunities – will your children really thank you for moving them from London ‘burbs to Leeds ‘burbs? There are a hell of a lot more opportunities in London for teenagers and young adults which you could be overlooking because you’re in the early years grind and TBH life is going to be pretty darn similar for you anywhere for the next 5 years….

Also think about your job opportunities – will they be limited if you leave London? Leeds is probably in the top 5 cities outside London in England for employment but it does not have the same quantity of employers as London.

Our policy:
– 27 days annual leave
– can buy up to an additional 10 days, straight salary sacrifice. Can only do this in a 2 week benefits period in November for the next cal year ahead.
– carry forward 5 days with approval generally
– if you have a special event like wedding, or there was a business reason why you couldn’t take holiday you can carry forward 10 days

This year – no roll forward. They don’t want the holiday balance liability IMO. F kin nightmare, everyone is taking random days off at the moment to use up time off.

I’ve got a smart trainer and zwift but it’s a pain in the backside to take the bike on and off (even tho it’s a direct drive one) and have to make sure the bike is super squeaky clean after every outside ride. Basically if it’s on the trainer, it’s a disincentive for getting out for a short unplanned ride if there is a good weather window, and if its off the trainer in readiness for a weekend ride, it’s a disincentive to jump in on and having a quick zwift.

Is your wife a cyclist or would she be keener on a more spin studio experience?

If the latter I would recommend a Kaiser M3 bike (second hand c£800) plus a Digme At Home / Digme On Demand subscription for c£30.

Easy to adjust the bike to each person.

Great spin classes (the perform classes are more training focussed) and also access to the HIT and Yoga.

Why not north Manchester

Dunno actually!

Although Manchester is the wrong side of the Pennines, honestly don’t know if I could deal with all the rain. It was bad enough on the other side :-)

How hypotnetical is this? Like, do I have to stay in work? Are there any visa issues abroad?

UK – south Manchester. Peaks, Wales, Lakes all within easy striking distance. Good city. Good train connections to London. Shit weather.

Non-UK fantasy – dunno, somewhere which has hot summers and cold winters. Somewhere with skiing, climbing, cycling, via ferata, hiking, all the shizzle.

Three good options and maybe a combination of all of them!

Hearing aid.

Wireless headphones.

Decent sound bar with an ‘optimize speech’ mode (also probably a ‘night time’ mode which turns down the bass so he doesn’t TOTALLY piss of neighbors as I guess he will still have it at a loud volume).

Oh gosh I wouldn’t sell up and eat through the equity.

I would take a bit of a combo of ideas.

1. Work for 12 more months, rent out all your spare bedrooms to lodgers (super tax efficient as up to 7400 ish tax free) and save save save.

2. Get permission to let on your curent mortgage, and rent your house out for a year which covers your costs.

3. use the savings from 1 to spend a year traveling.

4. Reassess – am I loving it? If so can I switch to a BTL mortgage and keep renting the house out? Can I sell and buy something cheaper to rent out, thus gaining some equity release but keeping an asset in the UK?

A year away might be enough for you to feel like you’ve had a good break.

Or, can you structure you life so that you have periods every year where you can travel? Can you structure your work so that you take on short term contracts or seasonal work, spending a few months a year traveling / living somewhere cheap?

I’ve got the T&G crush grind. Amazing. Going strong for over 10+ years and no sign of any lessening in performance.

So easy to fill! So good at grinding! 😆

Think I paid £25-30 for each one back then.

Love venison. Had it on Saturday in a pub actually. Often choose it if I am somewhere nice.

Not something I pick up and cook myself much though but then I don’t do a whole heap of meat cooking at home.

IF you pay with paypal – you can do a certain number of free returns via paypal and print off a shipping label. If I buy anything heavy with a ‘you pay’ exchange I use paypal for this reason.

If this is forever though, eventually there will be new colleagues, who we wont know from Adam. they wont be able to join the banter, and they’ll be second class citizens.

I also think this is an important point.

It is easy enough now to have a friday social on Teanms, or to catch up with a coffee with a colleague virtually now – because we have pre-existing relationships forged though natural social interaction.

I am unsure how it would work with new people if most were to habitually WFH.

Obviously some people don’t give a shiny fig about social interaction with their team – but actually quite a lot of people seem to really care about team interaction and feeling like part of a community.

LOL. Why would you want to talk about work?

Why would I talk to some other random home workers full stop? I have actual real friends to talk about non-work stuff with :-) Speaking with colleagues over lunch/coffee is a key thing that is missing form the WFH environment for me. And of course we talk about work with colleagues, there is generally something interesting going on (obvs we like our work or we wouldn’t do it!).

So, go for a run or ride wherever else takes your fancy. Why be constrained?

Maybe it’s just a personality-type thing that some folk can’t imagine a different level of freedom and perhaps need a more defined lifestyle?

I am getting actual exercise sessions in every day, but in normal life I’ve fast-walked for a minimum of 40 mins a day as part of my commute to/from the tube station, or biked for 40-50 mins a day to/from the office – before I’ve even done my ‘real’ exercise sessions. Plus all the walking around the office, to/from meetings and up and down the stairs in a 14 floor block – it all adds up you don’t have to think about it or plan for it, and you’re being obtuse to not recognise that. I’ve really noticed how rubbish it is being so sedentary in a small house and only going out once a day for exercise.

I guess this sedentary WFH lifestyle is maybe more similar to many office workers ‘norm’, especially if people drive to work then just plonk at their desk every day?

Also its not like I’ve gained any extra time WFH – any savings in commute time has been more than eaten up by additional workload – see my earlier post about more projects, process taking longer, and missmatch in colleagues working hours sapping my own free time.

They might meet up with other homeworkers for a chat.

Can’t really talk about work with random other home workers! Most people have confidentiality issues.

Can’t wait to get back into the office.

Missing out on so much helpful interactions /learning/sharing that comes from sharing an office space and overhearing conversations etc. You learn so much from other people just by being around them.

Also useful connections are formed with team members e.g. through going for lunch together.

I miss the gentle chat – like you can chat and do some easy work at the same time – I can’ type on teams text chat and work at the same time. So now you either work or chat not both at the same time.

Everything takes longer – even with my super fast virgin cable connection – uploading is slow and connecting to the office systems is bad. Sharing screens and going thru excel models is deathly bad for connections as well.

It is harder to ask juniors to pick up some small tasks as you can’t see them and see who is busy or not!

I miss the exercise of the commute.

I miss the social interaction.

I miss eating lunch that I haven’t had to make!

I work in a team of about 60 people, then we have smaller teams of 2-10 on multiple projects at any time. Our work is highly interdependent on each other.

Yes yes sharing screens and video conferencing works OK, but it is absolutely not as good as sitting next to someone and going through things.

And the ‘flexibility’ that can f right off – I don’t WANT you spending the afternoon riding you bike, only to email me at 11pm for something I’ve been waiting for all day… that needs to go to a client ASAP. Likewise I don’t want you sending me emails from 5.30am and wanting an immediate response from me because you need to get all your work done in the AM because you look after the kids in the PM. We ave core business hours for a practical reason.

I already had an OK home working set up – but to work full time at home I’d want a larger and more professional office set up. So where is that space going to come from? Who is going to pay for the screens and the chair etc? Not work that’s for sure they have made clear…

For some personality types, and for some jobs, WFH 100% is great. Not for me.

noticed someone I follow had done a 142km ride yesterday. In Wales.

What is the problem? Do they live in London or something?

A 30 min jog around busy London streets is a massive risk multiplier of those risks compared to a 2+ hr 40m solo ride around country roads or bridal paths all within 10 miles of the house. The difference between a 10 mile and 40 mile country ride is pretty insignificant in terms of risk and contagion multiplication. The difference between 3 laps walk around busy suburbia and being out for 3 hours in that location could be massive.

Quite. Saw way way way fewer people on my 100km ride yesterday than I did on my 7km jog round the local park on Saturday…

Oh god she sounds a right PITA – you’re going to have to stop seeing them as couple friends and just see him 1-on-1.

I can’t see European travel this summer.

I do a fair but of work with airports and most of our clients have a base case assumption of no flying for between 4 and 6 months i.e. April to July/September.

UK travel – yup – but you’ll find it super hard to get any spots in hotels or campsites, most bookings have just been moved and who knows what restaurants/cafes will be able to open. Hospitality runs on SUPER tight margins and most won’t be able to open with social distancing.