Inflation falls to 2.4%

chucknorris

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Bloody hell chuck....150k on an extension!?

Were in different worlds!

I guess sometimes it's neccesary to relfect on this kind of thing, as obviously everyone will see differently depending on their position.

Sorry I should have said extension AND refurbishment of the existing house, it needs:

Rewiring
New drive
New boiler
New kitchen
New front door
New bathroom
Landscaping
New floor coverings
Cosmetic work to the facade (bit ugly)
New double glazing (triple at rear where railway lines are about 120' away but not that noisy)

grizzly1911

chucknorris wrote: »

EDIT: But then there is a different type of timing, where you are in life rather than the economic cycle, for example if you consider yourself successful and content, why take on more risk and risk losing what you have (if it was your long term goal to get to that point in the first place).

This is an important factor in this debate IMO.

Not everyone is in a postion to or could take advantage of leveraged positions as they get older.

Yes having a balanced portfolio is good but a lot of people don't have that luxury.

If you were in with the need to buy property and thus took on a suitable mortgage then that is one thing. For the majority to have foreseen the collapse and rushed out and mortgaged to the hilt is fanciful.

If someone has benefited from low rates since the collapse they have been very lucky not "prudent". Savers have been very unlucky.

Interesting how we have gone through phases from don't borrow unless you have too, save up (mortgages excepted), to a mix of both through to saving bad, finance everything through debt.

Having effectively "consumed" Joe Punters savings pot this time round, to save the economy, what will they do next time?

Many future punters simply won't have the where with all to save.

http://www.saveoursavers.co.uk/articles/should-savers-be-scared-of-big-bad-canadian-wolf-mark-carney/

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Were in different worlds!

I guess sometimes it's neccesary to relfect on this kind of thing, as obviously everyone will see differently depending on their position.

Seeing as you're in a reflective mood it might be worth considering whether Chuck arrived in this position as a result of blind luck, hard work or a mix of the two.

I'd take a wild guess that he left school with some qualifications and built on these - as you say a different world to yours.

Generali

chucknorris wrote: »

I'm (only?) 55. Yes my share/cash position is quite annoying, the recent rise in the ftse really caught me out dithering and I feel quite foolish now.

I'm a recent covert to pensions, previously I avoided them like the plague, but when I started lecturing I had the opportunity to pay into the teachers pension fund where I am buying the max additional pension allowed. But I will only get up to about 18k of pension (excluding the state pension). But I might take a sipp out in the form of a ftse tracker which would kill two birds with one stone. But I do share your concerns over private pensions.

My cash isn't doing too badly overall (long term bonds) but I do accept cash is a bad place for me to be. But I will be possibly using up to 150k of it extending my house next year and I also have about 125k of mortgage on my investment properties which is not tax deductable, so when my mortgage rate goes back to normal from 1% I could pay that off. Between the 2 that gets rid of most of my current non ISA cash.

Ah, now being a member of the Teachers' Pension is a rather different proposition. I'd be getting plenty of money in there, despite the political risk. Can you still buy back years?

At work we are going on the basis that infrastructure (roads, railways, utilities) and commercial real estate are good bets right now for approaching retirees (last 10 years or so of working life). You should be getting into bonds at your age but with bond yields where they are right now you'd have to be crazy to do the right thing.

Yield is your friend IMHO as is diversification. An extra BTL probably isn't the way to go as your risk is concentrated, better to buy into an infrastructure fund or a REIT or shares like British Land. I love British Land as a company. It's a thing of great beauty.

Rio and BHP are going to be throwing off huge amount of cash over the next few years, especially BHP as they've largely stopped investing and are going to sweat their assets. You need to be pretty ballsy to buy into them though as you will almost certainly see some capital loss but probably great income generation.

Just my $0.02. Certainly the above isn't financial advice and you shouldn't consider it to be. I'm not an investment professional and never have been, I just work around people that are.

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

Seeing as you're in a reflective mood it might be worth considering whether Chuck arrived in this position as a result of blind luck, hard work or a mix of the two.

I'd take a wild guess that he left school with some qualifications and built on these - as you say a different world to yours.

Will you stop just insulting post after post?

It's getting very tedious.

You don't know my world, and your insuinuation that I left school with nothing and have slobbed out since is just another boring old insult from wotsthat, who has a chip on his shoulder.

Everyones circumstances are different. I never insulted chunknorris, just reflected on how we will all see the world differently.

grizzly1911

Generali wrote: »

Yield is your friend IMHO as is diversification. An extra BTL probably isn't the way to go as your risk is concentrated, better to buy into an infrastructure fund or a REIT or shares like British Land. I love British Land as a company. It's a thing of great beauty.

I have just been looking at Land Securities for an elderly relative who has an historic holding.

British Land does look interesting.

Both seem to have taken heavy knocks in the collapse, but seem to be recovering better than some of my AVCs that are in a property fund:mad:

chucknorris

wotsthat wrote: »

I'd take a wild guess that he left school with some qualifications and built on these.

You are sort of right, except I didn’t apply myself at school and left with only laughable qualifications. I was an immature fool until I was in my mid 20's when I suddenly realised that I was a failure and was heading nowhere fast, in fact I had arrived. So I went back into education and eventually university (poly) as a mature student aged 28, I studied really hard and got a first in quantity surveying. After graduating aged 32 I really felt that I had lost 10 years over everyone else career wise so I kept on working hard.

EDIT: I would recommend studying later in life to anyone that feels that way inclined, it is never too late. Although at the time I wondered if I was starting too late at even at the young age of 28.

chucknorris

Generali wrote: »

Ah, now being a member of the Teachers' Pension is a rather different proposition. I'd be getting plenty of money in there, despite the political risk. Can you still buy back years?

You can't buy previous years any more, but you can buy additional pension up to a current maximum of £5,900. It was £5,600 when I started buying it 18 months ago, it now costs me about 24k a year (they recently revised it due to switching to CPI taking over from RPI inflation) over 3 years, so 72k gross buys £5,600 of pension. I can buy more additional pension as each year goes by, but it is only increased in line with inflation, so only about £150 a year.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Will you stop just insulting post after post?

It's getting very tedious.

You don't know my world, and your insuinuation that I left school with nothing and have slobbed out since is just another boring old insult from wotsthat, who has a chip on his shoulder.

Everyones circumstances are different. I never insulted chunknorris, just reflected on how we will all see the world differently.

Where's the insult? My guess is that you left school with a pretty poor set of qualifications and have left Devon only on rare occasions. I'd suggest that your view of the world is based on limited experience.

I find it quite insulting that you think the reason I don't lose sleep over inflation at 2.4% is because somehow these things don't affect me or because I don't care about your hard working families that are referred to frequently as you clamber up moral mountain.

Dress it up how you like but you weren't just musing about how people see the world differently - you were implying that other people's views are less valuable because they don't live on the breadline.

Graham_Devon

Not even gonna bother giving that a response wotsthat.