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Mr_Odwin

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Posts posted by Mr_Odwin

  1. Posted

    On 12/07/2020 at 9:57 PM, soag said:

    I've been reading back through some of my old posts... Honestly old me was a bit of a ass... Don't know how you all put up with me. 

    I live in constant regret for what I did previously. No matter what, I think that what I'm currently doing is pretty cool, but then when I reflect on it later I am filled with cringe, and think that past_Odwin is awful.

    • Like 4

  2. Posted

    On 13/07/2020 at 2:12 AM, soag said:

    So I was skimming through all my old posts and came across a poll I created back in September 2005.

    Thought I'd repost the results, a wee trip down memory lane if you will. Kinda like when they replay an old awards show on the telly... 

     

    I probably appear in that list because of over-posting. I spent too much time on here to the detriment of my academic qualifications! :-D

    • Like 1

  3. Posted

    On 24/07/2018 at 10:36 AM, Kav said:

    https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/patch-notes/v5-10

     

    On 18/07/2018 at 7:31 PM, Charlie said:

    Enjoyed our brief game. My Xbox crashes immediately afterwards and I couldn’t find you again!

    I had to dash off to drop my daughter at something. I wanted to drop you a message to tell you where I'd gone, but I don;t think I have you on FB or messenger or ...

    On 24/07/2018 at 10:36 AM, Kav said:

    https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/patch-notes/v5-10

    Motion controls work great with joycons but they're totally broken when using a pro controller. It's a travesty. Who on earth would want to turn their controller like that for motion controls? I'm gutted.

  8. Posted

    On 9/21/2017 at 1:43 PM, Ashley said:

    Working on specing a new request, which basically has a number of factors and for each one the person meets the requirements they get that factor.  Each factor also has its own score (one may be worth 1 point, another 2 etc) and obviously they get a total amount of factors and a total score (up to 7).  Over the course of several emails, and eventually a face to face conversation, the discussion basically went as follows:

    Them: They pass if they get 2 factors and a score of greater than 2 or 2 factors and a score between 2-3.5
    Me: Is that not the same thing by and large?
    Them: No because if they get a score of 4 they shouldn't be included
    Me: But 4 is greater than 2
    Them: Yes, but not between 2 and 3-5
    Me: But you said either greater than 2 or between 2-3.5
    Them: Yes, so if they get 4 they shouldn't be included
    Me: But that meets the "greater than 2" part
    Them: But not 2-3.5
    Me: But you said or
    Them: Yes because it can be either
    Me: So if they get 4 its the first part
    Them: But not the second
    Me: So you only want it if its between 2-3.5?
    Them: Yes
     

    We must have overlap in colleagues. :p

  9. Posted

    I've just started listening to a podcast that is new to me: http://trek.fm/mission-log-home

    Each episode they analyse a star trek episode, and they're doing them in order. They talk about the plot, the themes, how well it holds up today, and if there are any moral messages. I'm only just a few episodes in (and I started with TNG, so ep 97, I think) but it's making me want to listen to TOS because they reference it all the time and make it sounds good.

  12. Posted · Edited by Mr_Odwin

    Its supposed to be the Prime timeline.

     

    I'm just getting a bit sick of all these prequels. For a show that is all about looking to the future etc it does go backwards way too often.

     

    Yeah, can we not stick something 30 years after TNG? That way we can have nifty cameos with the cast from the different 90s series. This trailer just makes me think they're gonna mess up some timeline or established part of canon.

     

    Actually can I just have another 10 seasons of TNG?

  14. Posted

    Do employers still give character references? I thought the done thing was to confirm that they did work there for the period of time stated.

     

    Apparently (according to Reddit, so take it with a pinch of salt) you can sue for defamation if your character reference isn't 100% accurate and it results in you not getting the job.

     

    I don't even know. We never follow up with references here, so I can imagine other companies also don't bother.

  15. Posted

    Three months is an insane amount of time for a notice period' date=' unless she's super senior in the company.[/quote']

     

    I'm on a three month notice period. It's a mid-level manager thing where I work. However, in practice I've not seen anyone work it; all you have to do is move to a competitor, or not tell the MD where you're going and you'll be on gardening leave instead. And also, she'll probably never give you a decent reference.

  17. Posted

    With employer contributions pensions make sense. But as soon as I left full-time employment to freelance I stopped paying into mine, I'd rather have access to the money - you never know what crisis may happen where it would be useful, plus there's value in spending it now on things like paying off the mortgage quicker. I'm just taking the risk that I'll have enough assets to live comfortably when I retire.

     

    Property seems the best bet these days. In my Hertfordshire town prices have gone up 50% in 10 years. I felt like we overpaid at the time, but it seems like a good deal now, and demand is only increasing.

     

    Everyone's situation is different, so there's no rule that fits all.

    Everyone's handling of risk is different too. My mortgage rate is so low, that I've taken on some risk and am paying into a S&S ISA instead of overpaying the mortgage.

     

    Property is great because there's an instant replacing of rent with something that actually adds to your personal wealth. Having said that, something like the FTSE 100 has on average, after inflation, increased about 5% each year for the last 20 years (taking into account the dotcom bubble and the 2008 banking crisis) so for the last 10 years you'd have made 63% on any investment you made then.

  18. Posted

    Where do you save for your pension though? Just through your work pension scheme or do you have a separate pension savings account as well? :confused:

     

    Make the most out of your employer/employee contributions that you can in your work pension. So if they offer 1:1 matching up to 10%, then put in 10%.

     

    After that it doesn't matter if it's with your work pension or a SIPP with a different company - you still get a tax rebate. The only differences are in the fees that you'll be charged for funds and the service provider.

  20. Posted

    Also, my previous work did have a pension scheme near the end of my time there, and I made 2 or 3 contributions to it... so what happens to that money now? Is there any way for me to access it or do I leave it and I get it paid out when I'm at pension age? It's only a little amount, but every little helps! :P

     

    There are various fees that get charged moving pensions, and it's different company by company. You'll have to keep track of it, so that you can access it in 30 years, so it's best getting on top of it now. :)

     

    What @Charlie said about pensions is right. Start saving as soon as you're able, with (Age/2)% of your income. It sucks, but it's necessary. If the state pension keeps getting pushed back and back, it would be awful to have to work until you're in your 70s.

  21. Posted

    Do pension contributions count towards the FIRE percentage?

     

    I would say so. The fact they're locked until you're 55 (or older) is something to be aware of though.

     

    Some people even include anything that increases your net worth in the saving % i.e. the capital part of mortgage payments. But to me that's doesn't make sense as you'll still need a place to live when you retire, unless you liquidate and move somewhere cheap.

     

    The FIRE theory is that after fees and inflation you should be able to spend 4% of your portfolio each year and it will probably still be at its original value (adjusted for inflation) after 30 years. If you need more than 30 years then maybe you need to take less than 4%. With 4%, take your annual living expenses and divide by 0.04 (or multiply by 25) and that's what you need your portfolio to be at when you retire. As I said above though, it's complicated by the state pension kicking in, as maybe that means you could safely withdraw 5%? But maybe the state pension will be abolished in 20 years?

     

    My current employer just dumped me on this kind of scheme and I've been too lazy to do anything about it. I know its good but whats depressing is seeing my student loan being about 300% bigger per week than my contribution.

     

    That's a point. I looked at my last annual SLC payment (which would have been through to April 2016) when doing my tax return and apparently I'm down to 16k which I think means I'm about half way there. Not that I'm in a rush to pay it off.

     

    When I paid off my student loan I added that amount to my monthly saving. I never had it so I never missed it.

  22. Posted

    Continuing the trend of admitting how old most of us are getting, a thread about savings, investments and monies!

     

    This is my favourite subject!

     

    Anyone consider themselves especially savvy in this department? Anyone willing to offer advice? For example, I've recently been considering filtering a chunk of savings into a Stocks & Shares ISA, but I don't know enough about the market to know where to start or what you can trust!

     

    With a S&S ISA there are fees that are attached to them (fees from funds you invest in, and fees from your ISA supplier). Typically the advice given in FIRE circles is to just stick all your money into a cheap Vanguard fund, like their "LifeStrategy Funds", where you can pick a level of equity that aligns with your level of risk - I think a lot of people go 80/20 stocks/bonds. The fees are 0.24% per year, and you'll usually pay around 0.25%-0.45% fees to your ISA provider.

     

    Some years the investment will go up, some years it will go down. Thanks to Brexit this year my ISA has returned 18.30% interest. It was higher a couple of months ago, but Trump is causing some issues. TBH, you're better investing and not looking at it for 5 years.

     

    My pension through work is with AVIVA so I have my ISA with them too. It's not the cheapest (Cavendish or Charles Stanley offer better fees, I think), but it's convenient.

     

    When I bought a house, one of the best things I did was get a Help to Buy ISA. If you're even slightly considering a house, you should get one of these ASAP! Or, if you have a bit more money and a bit more time, there's the LISA (Lifetime ISA) which can be used for a bonus either towards a house deposit, or withdrawn when you're 60 for a bonus.

     

    Once you have a house the choice between a LISA and a SIPP/private pension is interesting. With a SIPP you get the tax rebate (which is at least equivalent to the LISA, and significantly more if you pay any 40% tax), and a SIPP can currently be accessed at 55, but will likely be changed to state pension age minus 10. However, SIPP will be taxed as income when you draw from it, whereas a LISA won't.

     

    Nobody needs to talk about their salaries or anything, but with what you do have, are you smart with your finances? Do you bother budgeting, do you save at all, or are you blowing your paycheck every month?

     

    There's also the concept of FIRE which I believe has been discussed before. Financial Independence / Retire Early (may be paraphrasing, don't remember it exactly). The idea of that is to live frugally and save/invest smartly to reach a magic number so you can retire early. @Mr_Odwin I believer has talked about it here.

     

    FIRE is all about your saving %. If you can invest 50% of your net income, you can retire in 16.6 years, and live off your investments. https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement?

     

    You don't have to live frugally; frugality will get you to FIRE earlier, but maybe that is a miserable life.

     

    My saving % is 24%, which I'm quite happy with right now. The situation is complicated by the fact that in 20 years I will no longer have a mortgage, so I will need less income to maintain our current lifestyle, and in 30 years I will have access to the state pension. My wife is currently not working and is a stay-at-home mother. When the kids are both at secondary school in 4 years the plan is that she's going to get a job and we plan to invest 66% of her income each month. That will accelerate our path to FIRE. If this all goes to plan we should be able to retire in our early 50s.

     

    Something I've never touched on at all is actual, proper investment, as in, monitoring the market and buying and selling. It's a lot like gambling, and takes expertise I'll never have. But does anyone here dabble? Doesn't @ReZourceman work advising in this department?

     

    Not my area of expertise at all.

     

    And to close on a bit of advice from myself, despite knowing next to nothing, I understand that if you can get a pension, you should max out your employer contributions! That's what I'm doing now that the company I work for has grown big enough to be required by the government to offer a pension at all.

     

    It's like getting a payrise, but you can't access it for another 20/30/40 years. I'm in. If you pay any 40%+ tax it's a massive return.

  24. Posted

    There's about 70 people employed by the company I work for. From our movements sheet:

     

    is4pLEv.png

     

    10% of us are called James. I go by "Pike". We also have a Jim, a JJ, a JP (even though that's my initials too), and others just get the full name treatment whenever they're referred to.

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