The craftsmanship in a RL white t-shirt is worth the money.
Yes my white t-shirts are excellent indeed.
Also, I am broke.
I have a few t-shirts from Tesco. They're fine and I'm not a cunt.
Well, I am, but not for Fashions sake.
I spend a fair amount of money on clothes, always have. It's only worth slating someone for that if they're the sort of fuckwit who won't buy something they'd otherwise like purely because it's cheap. I have a few mates like that and I lol at them regularly. Or whoever is buying those Prada paperclips for a hundred and eighty quid, those people can all go under subway trains.
Up to a certain point more expensive clothes are definitely worth the money, and even sometimes past the point where it would seem like a sensible investment. I bought a sort of summer jacket for near six hundred quid when I was eighteen through wildly irresponsible use of a backdated student loan, but I still have it and it's still in terrific condition, so I haven't had to buy a summer jacket for thirteen years. I still have done, because other ones have caught my eye, but I didn't need them.
I'd get bored of having the same jacket for thirteen years. Surely it'd go out of fashion as well?
Unless it was never in fashion.
Not at all. I still get compliments on it.
Exactly it.
It's got a horse on it. Shut up and take my money.
Sold.
You can get all your Ralph Lauren needs in tk maxx anyway.
Has anyone had any experience with any of the government schemes for buying a first home?
We're look at either help to buy or shared ownership of a new build so we can get on the housing ladder. The South of England is just crazy for house prices and we are struggling to save quick enough for a deposit as the house prices are going up so quickly. We earn quite a bit between us but we are in a strange position when it comes to getting a mortgage, I'm self employed which makes it harder and my partner has to pay 7k out of her wage to get to London everyday which also annoyingly makes it a lot more difficult to get a decent amount.
You be a mug to not take advantage of one those ISA accounts for first time buyers these days. Free money.
I've got a help to buy ISA. Not sure if I'll bother with the lifetime one.
We looked at the schemes and I think even with htb mortgages, the stamp duty that is attached to these properties are almost the same as the 5%. We're looking now at shared ownership, there is a great new development where we are which would be incredible to live in.
Aren't there gotchas with shared i.e they don't own £x amount of the property but they own a % which if you want to buy back they take the value THEN not at the time it was bought?
I'd move somewhere near by but more affordable and own my own place outright if it was me. Kent used to come up on Rightmove for us (because when you specify 'within 10 miles' you're clearly up for a swim) and it was outrageous value for money. Now, I've only ever seen the A roads of Kent, so it might be a right dump, but given the choice of owning outright in Kent and commuting or having part ownership in London/Southampton I would be bezzing it all day with Dr Chorizo.
The key thing to be aware of is whether these things are freehold or leasehold. People are getting absolutely fisted by leasehold properties being sold off to "investors" who then jack up the prices to obscene levels.
Are they not making buy to let's a lot more difficult to do now?
Yeah, freehold if you can - lots of flats are leasehold, most houses are freehold: https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...u-need-to-know
Our flat is freehold because it's a converted house, if you're getting a place in a new development or a load of flats with a shared garden it will almost always be leasehold and they will fist you on maintenance as well.
If you do go leasehold, check how long is left on it because many Mortgage companies won't go for a place with less than ~80 years. Plus, even if they do allow it, you will have to extend the leasehold to have any chance of selling it yourself and it is expensive as fuck.
We went to see a 2 bed Maisonette with a 78 year leasehold. The old dear was undercutting market value by £20k and still couldn't shift it because only someone not reliant on a mortgage would be able to buy it. The poor cow was only selling because she had to go into a home as well. She hadn't been upstairs in 2 months.
I've just been offered a house to myself rent free for 18 months so I'm looking at some investments to put my money in. I'm definitely doing 3rd Pillar which is a government sponsored additional pension plan that is untaxed and as an added bonus you get it back if you leave the country.
However, is there anything going I should invest in that I can actually use as liquidity before the age of 75?
A flat won't be freehold (in the UK) I wouldn't have thought, although you are now able to buy/acquire (a share of) the freehold with the other leaseholders if you can get your act together reasonably easily. The (reported) problem with modern leaseholds is more the escalating ground rent(s) that a lot of them have written into the leases. Ground rent being something you get absolutely nothing for, and the acquisition of these rights has become a bit of a growth investment industry in recent years (where returns are generally so low on many things). As far as buy to let being made more difficult is concerned, that relates to what items are tax deductible - ie I think you are not going to be able to (or may no longer be allowed to) claim interest payments as a tax deductible expense, which has significant implications (on the financial viability of housig as an investment) if you are a higher rate tax payer (which you are likely to be if you are a buy-to-let landlord)
I've never heard of anyone having a leasehold flat in Glasgow. Is it just an English thing?
Could be.
Freehold in England means you own everything up and down (within certain government restricted limits), which has problems if there is another person's home directly above or below.
We don't have it here (in Guernsey) we have a thing called flying freehold, which is a fudge.
I think it's banned in Scotland
It's not really a bad thing per se, it's just a nuance that has developed historically. It is logically necessary. However, the modern tend towards exorbitant/escalating ground rents has made it a hot issue.
Scots Law is totally different to English Law, as far as I know it's more akin to Roman/Modern European Code Civil style law)
It does seem a bit odd to me. Sounds similar to opening up a shop or a pub or something where you own the business but still lease the property.
I've had nothing but trouble with the Lifetime ISA. Can't even put funds into the cunt.
EDIT: I'm an idiot, as always. Money in. Now I can ignore it exists for a year. Pity there's only one option for the Cash version, mind. I don't fancy getting into the stocks and shares stuff. Not out of fear of losing investment but the whole idea of managing an account on a semi-regular basis.
Got my student loan OVERREPAYMENT letter yesterday, so I have to swith to DD to avoid giving the cunts too much. £150 a month back on my wage within a year.
The Nutmeg one is very decent if you don't want to bother managing it. Mine's sitting on around 8% interest nearly a year in.
Wagwan with your pensions?
At present I have a tiny pension of £300 from when I was a temp. I have been paying into my civil service pension for about 3 years and it would be worth £600 a year if I retired tomorrow. Obviously with another 40 odd years of paying in that’s going to grow a fair bit (if I stay in the civil service, anyway, Christ, what a prospect) and I checked my state pension a while ago and it was something shit like £200 a month.
How does all this stuff work? Neither of my parents reached pensionable age so I don’t really know a whole lot about it. Do you get the state pension along side your private pensions? Or do you only get that one if you’ve been thick / a scrounger all your life?
You get the state one but I don’t think that’s till 67 (more likely 87) by the time we get there.
The state pension is a fucking joke considering how much National Insurance they take each month.
My pension is 5k I think. That over 20 years isn't great.
If my contributions stayed the same I’d be on £20k by the time I retire. A Mars bar will be about 3 grand by then.
I've got a SIPP and a few work based ones which I might combine at some point for ease. Not sure what's going to happen at retirement or how it will work.