I’ve got this on in the background whilst I work today, cheers OP. Takes me back to sitting on the bus to college listening to this on full blast on my Walkman to drown out all the school kids on the same bus.

I reckon I must have listened to it in full at least 200 times in the space of a few years!

It’s so ingrained in my head that 30 years later, if somebody says FFS I mutter to myself “I’m trying to write this f’ing tune man”. So many great tracks on the first 3 albums especially that bring back vivid memories of my youth every time I hear them. Liam was a genius I reckon.

Freeagent is pretty good, I have it for my Ltd co. as part of my accountant’s package but I believe it’s less than a tenner a month for sole traders or free via some banks (e.g. Natwest, RBS etc)

Another vote for AMJ watches. I was looking for a replacement for my old Samsung watch that died last week and found them via Google. The price for a Fenix 7 Pro Sapphire Solar seemed too good to be true, so I did some research and they are a proper bricks and mortar shop that happen to have a big sale on Garmin watches at the moment. Ordered Friday afternoon, in my hand Saturday morning via DPD. Very happy!

My best mate loves a toy with a squeaker, but he normally kills them in a short space of time. My wife saw an advert for an “indestructible” toy where they give you a free replacement if it doesn’t last….

We gave it to him at 8:30 last night. The stuffing was removed within 20 minutes and the squeaker was out before 9pm!

Image upload didn’t work :-(

I inherited a similar shed when we moved here 10 years ago. It had 2 doors at the front though and no windows. I just removed the doors and screwed them together in the middle with a couple of slat shelves to give me 4 compartments. It’s a bit worse for wear now, but this is it:

I put some slats down at the bottom to keep the wood off the floor and also wedged some bits of wood under the roof to get some airflow

I’d check that whatever bank you choose has an API feed into the Accounts system your Accountant uses (e.g. Freeagent, Xero) as otherwise you’ll spend lots of time manually adding transactions which gets boring really quickly. Also check transaction fees if you’re processing lots of small payments. If you’re just raising 1 or 2 invoices a month then that’s less of a concern.

I’m with HSBC but I’ve been meaning to move to Starling or similar for a while as I get charged a monthly fee for no real benefit at the moment.

P.S. If you don’t have an Accountant yet, get one. It seems like a bit cost to start with but if they are any good they will save you more in lost time and tax savings than what they cost you. If you’re just starting out there will be a lot you don’t know about that they can advise you on, such as what you can and can’t purchase through the Ltd Co and the most tax efficient way of setting things up.

Good luck!

I used to use my Tesco credit card for day to day spending/clearing the balance at the end of the month but the rewards aren’t what they used to be.

I switched to using a Chase debit card instead as I get 1% cashback on purchases, 3.8% interest on savings accounts and 5% on “round-up” where they round up to the nearest £ and whack the difference in a round-up account. It’s surprising how much it adds up over time.

They are also ranked the best for use abroad and I saved a fortune last year compared to taking cash or using my credit card on holiday.

I hardly ever use my Tesco card since using Chase. The app is great to use as well, so I’d definitely recommend having a look at them. Sadly they’ve stopped the refer a friend scheme now, but worth checking them out

I had some WF-1000XM3 until the dog chewed one of them :-(

I found all of the tips that came with them were uncomfortable and they would fall out of my ears or not fit in at all. I was a bit underwhelmed with the sound quality as well until I bought some “Comply Premium Tips” which made them fill my ear properly and then they were awesome! Comfortable to wear for a 10 hour flight and I thought the noise cancelling was good, but I didn’t have anything else to compare to.

Breaking the rules as I didn’t have my bike with me, but I think this place has the biggest concentration of Bluebells I’ve ever seen. Taken on Monday in between the rain storms we had.

I’ve just had the same problem with a Mastercard debit card. Tried a credit card and it worked successfully

Glad its not just me :-)

If I had the money, something like this would be a good compromise (MAN/Crafter MWB 3.5 Tonne chassis):

It’s got an electric bed in the back that can be raised and lowered to suit, and you can have an extra bed in the back on trips where you don’t take the bikes. It also has the wide flares on the back to increase the length of the bed.

I also went to the NEC the other week and a lot of vans this size are £££ so I’ll have to stick with what I’ve got for now.

Also look at multi car insuranxe policies. My lad had a corsa for his first car and the premium was nearly 50% cheaper on a multi car policy. We went with Admiral as each driver gets their own NCB. From memory me and his mum’s premiums went up slightly, but that was easily offset by the saving on the corsa.

Lower insurance may increase the scope of the car search

There has been schoolboy like excitement on my mates group chat this week. Unfortunately they all have a Switch and I don’t so no Donkey Kong mode for me :-(

Just back from a week in Greece flying from Bristol with Easyjet.

Bag drop took all of 5 minutes. I paid extra to “fast track” security to minimize any hanging around and I reckon it took longer to find a space in the car park than it did to get air side. Even without the fast track I think it would have been plain sailing as the queue didn’t look massive. Probably the quickest I’ve ever experienced at any airport. The return leg was equally event free – a minor queue getting through the electronic passport control when we landed in Bristol but that was mainly due to passengers struggling with the digital readers than anything else.

At both ends, our bags were waiting for us when we got to the baggage hall. It sounds like most of the issues are at the major airports, but the few people I’ve spoken to that have flown via one of the smaller airports have had no issues.

When you say you run a small company, how many people are we talking? Do you mean it’s just you like a Ltd co. contractor? If so, one option you might want to look at is purchasing a company bike. As long as it’s available for everybody to use and the majority of usage is business related, it’s fine. All maintenance costs can then also be paid from the Ltd co as the company owns the asset.

IANAA, so you’ll need to run it past your accountant, but it’s a lot less faff that setting up a scheme if it’s only a few of you.

Edit*
I should clarify, I’m not suggesting you should buy a fancy mountain bike for personal use under the guise of using it for work. In my case, I already had bikes for fun but needed something for on-road commuting to my primary client (bike->train->bike) and for other local customers. I do use it occasionally for personal use, but I can happily justify that to the tax-man. YMMV!

I bought a couple of powerbanks recently for the campervan so the teenagers can charge their devices without me getting battery anxiety when “off grid”.

I was looking at Anker, but someone recommended Veger as an alternative. I bought a couple of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B097P345BC. They are the 30000mAh version so they are quite heavy, but I’m impressed so far and they were a lot cheaper than the equivalent Anker model.

If it’s a new build, I’d imagine you’ll hear the vibrations from the rooms below very clearly!

My house is 20 odd years old and the walls are still paper thin. I’ve had to replace my shower pump in the airing cupboard above the lounge so I put it on some rubber matting to dampen the vibrations. The old one sounded like a plane was going to come through the ceiling in the lounge so I’d imagine a washing machine on a spin cycle would be unbearable without some sort of isolation from the floorboards.

Absolutely loads today at Cam Peak in Glos. Always seem to be like a carpet up there compared to anywhere else locally. Hard to capture just how many there are in a photo, but I tried…

In a previous gig, I helped roll out new laptops across the company including the latest “docks”/port replicators. Absolute pain in the arse!

Depending on the Dock (is yours the Thunderbolt model?) You may need to update the firmware for the actual dock itself + the dock drivers and make sure you get the very latest video/usb/sound drivers for your laptop as well as it can do all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff. We also had to install the MaxxAudio stuff as we had weird issues when plugging headsets in via the dock.

Carabiner. Cara-bee-ner or Cara-buy-ner?

I’ll 2nd the Wiser system. Replacing the controller is easier than replacing the thermostat if it’s got a standard backplate. Just slot the new one in. On the whole it’s been great, although I did have to buy a wiser smart plug which acts as a range extender as the TRVs furthest from the controller kept dropping off. We’ve got the wireless thermostat but I just use the app on my phone if I ever need to boost for an hour etc.

A little bit further away (20 mins on the tube from Victoria), but my lad went here with some mates last week and said it was awesome:

14 Hills Restaurant

On the 14th floor for good views, and lovely food by all accounts.

I’ve been looking this week as I’m having a sort out in the garage. Looked at big dug and the rest, but went for a couple of racks from screwfix as they are on offer. 2 for £70 seemed reasonable. Linky: Screwfix 5-tier-steel-heavy-duty-shelving-900-x-450-x-1800mm

Also toying with the idea of a big tool chest or bench with tool drawers so I can actually find what I’m looking for instead of rummaging through my tool box!

Energy you say? Prodigy live has to be up there!

Youtube – The Prodigy Live Phoenix Festival 1996 Complete Set

Watching Leeroy dancing makes me wanna jump around like a loon 25 years later…

@stumpyjon, yes that’s true. After many years of having the most frugal diesel co. cars to save on BIK, my man maths led me to get a 3l v6 as at the time it was a scratch I wanted to itch and with the company paying the monthlies I convinced myself it was a good idea! If I was in the same position now I would make a sensible choice and get the cheapest and most economical car I could and pocket the difference. In fact as soon as I could chop in the PCP Audi, I handed it back and bought a 1.5 skoda…

Something else to bear in mind, if you have to take out finance or a pcp/lease to get a car with the allowance, you’ll still have a large debt if you decide to leave or get made redundant etc.

I had a very stable job with Co. Car, but changed to a very generous car allowance. Great at the time, but things went south and I ended up leaving a couple of years later but still had £400+ a month PCP payments to make. Couldn’t wait to get rid of it after that! If I’d kept the co. car I could’ve just handed the keys back and walked away…

@joshvegas you sir are a genius. I’ve had gmail for years and didn’t know you could do that! I use a burner Hotmail account for stuff I’m wary of, but never check it and miss stuff, so that is a perfect solution. Cheers!

Are you out of contract with PlusNet?

The reason I ask is I’ve been with them for years and I’ve always had to threaten to leave before getting a good price (but I stay because my connection is solid and the service has been good).

This year they seem to have upped their game as I had a reminder to say my contract was due to expire, so I logged on and got a new 18 month deal for less than I’m paying now :-)

Took less than 5 minutes and I didn’t have to do the ‘I’m leaving’ charade so I’m a happy punter. Very slick compared to previous years!

I recently spent a lot of time looking at campers and the difference in quality between conversions is massive, so I would try to find one that has been converted by a reputable company.

Wellhouse are really good. They started off converting Jap imports and now convert Ford, Vauxhall, Toyota etc. Due to the worldwide parts supply shortage, the owner has bought a batch of Jap imports to convert to keep production going so they have some available at the moment. E.g. this:

Wellhouse Toyota Alphard

I don’t have any link with this company other than being a happy owner and the customer service is exceptional. For me that swung it over some cheaper alternatives that had been converted by Dave in his garage.

@sam1988 sorry only just saw your reply. Nice one cheers, I’ll have a look and get ordering!

@sam1988 where did you get them from? I’m keen to try this combo as my magic mary/big betty combo are a bit overkill for the dry local trails round here but I’m also struggling to find any in stock. Cheers!

@Rich_s to be honest the measurements are a result of what I had lying around ‘just in case’ in the garage. I probably would have gone wider on the wings and used a bit of 6×2 for the base and the upright but we made it up as we went along.

I did watch some videos on YouTube for inspiration and a lot of them have a long base. The one that caught my eye was this one from Kyle Warner as his was more compact and still seemed to work OK.

Made a rough and ready manual machine with my daughter today.

I was going to buy the timber I needed but decided to make it out of offcuts I had in the garage including some skirting board, a bit of MDF and some rough sawn 4×2.

Is it perfect? No. Is it twice as good because my daughter made most of the cuts with a handsaw drilled most of the pilot holes, countersunk the screws and screwed the screws in. YES!

It will give me that warm fuzzy feeling each time I use it. I’m sure I still won’t be able to manual but it was a fun afternoon 🙂

Someone on here mentioned dried liver previously but I can’t find the original thread.

I bought some lamb’s liver this week for our new pup and gave him a bit in his puzzle last night to test it out.

He went mental once he’d tried a bit and wouldn’t stop licking it long after it had gone!

I used this recipe: https://www.bdws.co.uk/homemade-liver-treat-recipe/

Ebay rules are odd.

About 10 years ago I got some free ‘Dr Dre’ headphones with a phone so I sold them on Ebay.

Dodgy buyer claimed they were fake and got a refund and I got a marker on my account which prevents me selling *anything* related to electricals.

I forgot this the other week and tried listing an audio cable for a subwoofer. It came up with a generic error so I spent half an hour on to Ebay CS trying to establish the problem. Eventually they worked out why and reminded me about the marker on my account. FFS!

I just stick stuff on Facebook nowadays. Less hassle, local buyers so no postage to worry about and no fees.

IMHO I think Ebay has had its day and will be left behind by the likes of Amazon and Facebook.

What a beast! I’d be happy doing the first step once :-)

Just redecorated my lounge which used to be the coldest room in the house. 3 outside walls and we used to sit with blankets on in the winter. Replaced the old radiators with a pair of these:

https://www.bestheating.com/milano-skye-anthracite-aluminium-vertical-designer-radiator-various-sizes-92489

It’s now the warmest room in the house :-)

As others have said, check the BTU rating as the size doesn’t necessarily correlate with the output. I got aluminium ones which heat up quick and are lightweight so hang on a dot and dab wall with no issues.

The only problem I had was finding paint to match. I used the RAL code to get the same colour paint and it was way off. In the end I took a punt on a similar dulux trade colour and its bang on.

I love this – how does one buy shares in gamestop? what’s the simple method if you just want to chuck a hundred quid in, to avoid comission etc.? I’ve never bought shares before.

I use the Trading212 ISA account which was easy to set up and its zero commission.

Not sure if this is allowed but if you create an account using this link we both get a free share worth up to £100:

http://www.trading212.com/invite/FzBDIB9t.

It’s covered by FCA etc and I’m up 13% overall since I started last year, which is a mix of long term investments and a few trades which I class as cheeky bets. Better than 0.00001% in my bank account!