Not too difficult to get a return better then mortgage rate over the long-term – that’s what I do – but depends on attitude to risk as to how much to commit. I wouldn’t involve someone else as they’ll want their cut but building up sensible unit trusts in an ISA isn’t the most difficult thing.

North East ones cheaper?

I used one I know in North West when moving from London to Surrey as trust him and location no issue.

Depends on my relationship with my mgr and others in company I’m at. I don’t want to cause too much of a shock when resigning from people I like so have in the past mentioned I was considering what to do – does give a chance for them to help improve things if that’s feasible. In my early days I did use it to up my salary once I had a job offer but I was underpaid, wouldn’t do that now.

I have been approached by a company to join them recently so I mentioned that to my boss when we were chatting recently, I played it down but if I get a job offer I may take it and at least it won’t be a complete surprise.

Underpants

Compare the rebuild/insurance value of the property Vs what it’s market value is. Crazy.

So it’s the land that’s expensive then?!

It does rather seem like it’s going to be seen as OK now to punch anyone in a clown suit so watch out if you’re that way inclined.

There’s no limit baby

Probably confused with pension lifetime limits.

Are you sure about that?

Not sure I’ll be doing much travelling abroad next year – or bike buying.

Yeah brown

Now the tv is rubbish. No HD channels. Not many interesting channels. No movies or sports but that’s fine as I know its quite a bit more for those.

Really? I have a lesser TV option (M+) and get a few HD channels, inc Film 4, and Eurosport.

That Party Wall Act makes me angry…I had to serve notice on both neighbours, one wanted their own surveyor just to be annoying, cost me thousands!

I never train when feeling really bad but it’s how soon to get going again when recovering I struggle with. Once I did manage to get bronchitis, which took me 3 weeks to get over, when doing a ride when a cold seemed to be going so am cautious.

IME references are taken up after deciding they want you. They have to be from someone you’ve worked for and not just a company HR dept – they don’t want any legal concerns hence just saying the basics. References are box ticking – they don’t make a decision based on how good they are they just want to make sure you’re roughly who/what you say you are.

So she’ll go back when he starts school? We manage with mix of breakfast and after school clubs, gets to do loads of extra activities which is a bonus.

The problem with stock market investments is that they require more knowledge for many people to be comfortable with what they are doing and mostly people don’t want to commit the money for appropriate lengths of time. To be comfortable investing you need to be happy with seeing significant paper losses at times and not panic. There was some panic selling after the Brexit vote and those that got out of the market lost out on the later gains.

Anyway, if you don’t have £100 in savings this is all irrelevant!

How did you guys decide it’s best for you if Mum stopped work? My wife wanted to stay in work and it’s working out OK – just one kid though.

DIY can sometimes end up costing you money in the end – the 1st house I bought had all it’s sockets at a wide variety of interesting angles.

Well also it depends on how much you spend relative to the value of the house as well as how much they appeal to potential buyers. Some people have strong ideas on what they want and will want to redo everything anyway – better off people mostly?!

I guess non-essential upgrades means nice bathrooms and kitchens – doubt they had much to value.

This is another interesting article – not a surprise I think though

Wealth of people in their 30s has ‘halved in a decade’

This is an interesting part of the article – some poorer people manage things ok:

However, the research also showed that some people on low incomes do save money.

Roughly a quarter of adults with household incomes below £13,500 have more than £1,000 in savings.

And 40% of people in that income bracket manage to save something every month.

Of course not. What’s the point in savings when interest rates are virtually zero. I’m throwing every ‘spare’ penny I’m left with at the end of the month (usually sweet FA) at my mortgage.

Could you get at that mortgage money if needed? What about investments? The concept of savings is not clear really as depends on debt levels as to how much savings mean really. But so many people not having as little as £100 in cash or instant access a/c surprises me.

CountZero – Member

But surely that’s how it should work! If you’re on the approach ramp, and accelerating up to motorway speed in order to match the flow of traffic, then it should be accepted practice for traffic approaching any access point in the inside lane to indicate and move over one lane to allow joining traffic to do so safely.

I think the point is do you assume they’ll move over and carry on regardless? I join a dual carriageway on my way home and sometimes have to wait a while to get onto it, some don’t move over as there’s a care already in the right lane, some don’t move over because they don’t seem to want to. I once saw a lady drive straight on without stopping causing a Merc driver to slam on her brakes. Not great.

The records thing is stupid – should be has bought some in the last year as many of us have some hiding in the attic somewhere.

I do score low though but I think it’s really a nouveau riche thing more than middle class – but then my Dad’s ex upper class who are known for not caring about what others think – scruffy jumpers, bashed cars are pretty normal. My Gran’s always had an aga though – I hate it as a pain to cook things with.

£45? HL charge 0.45% on first £250k. I moved to II for a flat rate.

The baby boomers are the ones that have had it best – benefiting from the biggest house price increases and enjoying pensions that we’ll never see. They did have to put up with a difficult post-war period with rationing and bomb sites though.

Some of us middle-aged lot are doing well enough as got into housing in the mid-90s, so benefited from more recent house price boom, but won’t be getting nice pensions. As for the young of today? Those that have parents who will/can help them then they should start of adult life OK but student debts for many.

I do find it difficult discussing pensions with those that are retired as they seem to have the attitude that they deserve their decent pension for having worked for 40 years or whatever – maybe they do but we’re paying for it and won’t have the benefit later.

Brimful Of Asha was quite a catchy tune

That song is my worst ever earworm.

I bough Busta Rhymes Genesis as loved Break Ya Neck, can’t listen to the rest really – some of it’s a bit rude too….

This used to happen a lot when I worked at McDonalds such as:
– Fetch tomatoes from where they are grown on the roof
– Count the wall tiles so we know how much tile cleaner to buy

However when I was asked to scrape all the chewing gum from the pavement outside that was a real job apparently.

Seems BA keep making this mistake – surely they can sort themselves out?!

https://aviosaddict.com/can-i-travel-with-less-than-six-months-left-on-my-british-passport/

Trouble was I had a number of trips to make over the preceding months and as not supposed to be any problem getting into France with what I had a thought I’d wait until my travelling had finished before renewing. Immigration were fine so why BA had to cause problems I have no idea.

Yep I have already had my trip and had no problems with immigration, however….

BA didn’t want to let me on the flight. I had to do a fair bit of arguing before someone was asked to do some Googling to show that I was right and they had to override the computer somehow to check me in.

Battersea Power Station has never been “cheap”

Well it was purchased for £1.5m in 1987.

Shame they didn’t buy Battersea power station when it was cheap.

Maybe we need a referendum on what city it should be in? Or build a new one? We could do with some more housing.

My brother-in-law wanted to drop out of school when he was 15 saying he’d be happy working on a building site. So his parents got him a summer job in one. He’s now doing pretty well in IT….

Final salary schemes were fine when we lived for 5 to 10 years after retiring, crazy any still exist.

Yep all the Bon stuff is great – and don’t forget ’74 Jailbreak!

And the Salesman probably wasn’t making any commission on it therefore didn’t care.

Why wouldn’t he get commission? Pretty much everything a car salesman sells earns him something.

the stupid paint/seat treatment kit thing.

I ended up with one of them on my latest purchase, bundled it up as part of a deal, probably shouldn’t have bothered.

If you’re interested I’ll be in my quarters at lunchtime covered in taramasalata

they did the same with Open All Hours. did they not learn?

Well I think Still Open All Hours was OK really – it continued with some of the same characters and had its moments, some will enjoy the continuation of these things.

A follow on to Rising Damp wouldn’t work I’m sure.

I’ve had dinner with (sat next to) Jonathan Aitken and black Stig, hoped to get an introduction to Jonathan’s daughters but failed but did get him to sign a copy of his book – for my Dad.

Tried to have a chat with William Hague whilst waiting for a train, resisted following him on to sit next to him though.

Went to school with Martin Lewis, I’m sure I gave him some money tips.

Erm…I sometimes ride with the bloke that used to own Evans….