It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

DT2001

fred246 said:

I don't think anyone wants to fix boilers. They make so much money installing them. The man who installed my parents boiler said he had no idea how they worked and couldn't repair them, only install them. The parts are quite expensive and they often just guess what is wrong and so have to keep buying more bits. Just less hassle to say it can't be fixed and you need a new one.

Our plumber repaired ours for 15 years before replacing. The new one (Worcester) had a fault and he said phone them as covered by warranty and get them to replace x (which they’ll do free of charge as item found to fail too quickly). He also fixes our air source heat pump. 
Maybe Fred you’re just unlucky 

MallyGirl

Bravepants said:

My gran had her house modernized in 1978, including a new Worcester Bosch boiler. That boiler was still working in 2012 when she passed at the age of 92, 34 years later! Every year it was serviced by British Gas and every year we would be told how "it's an old boiler now and some of the parts are getting obsolete". I think as long as you pay for an annual service scheme they will make every attempt to repair.

Our heating is on the blink again - BG finally turned up today to fix and will be back tomorrow with necessary parts. It is an Ariston that we had new in when we added a big room with UFH 7 years ago. This will be its second replacement pump plus it needs 2 more parts. He also said we need an £800 power flush - we only had one 3 years ago but the water is like black sludge We asked what boiler make he would rate (as in what ones did he have to do least work on) and he said Worcester or Vaillant. Then we got into a discussion about water softeners and apparently you shouldn't top up the pressure with softened water so should always bypass the softener when doing so - unsurprisingly we don't have a bypass on the softener so it wouldn't have made any difference knowing this. We have been topping up every day. I hate our heating with a vengeance!!!!

Daughter came home from uni yesterday and stayed in bed till lunchtime as it was so cold.

Sea_Shell

I think that's enough heating chat for now.

We've been debating what to do with our 5yr bond cash, spare cash, small pots, and tax free lump some next year.

It looks like we're going to end up investing £21,500 outside of ISAs, which should be fine given a CGT allowance of £12,300.


Also, does anyone else use a 0-35 "cautious" fund instead of pure cash?

DT2001

MallyGirl said:

Bravepants said:

My gran had her house modernized in 1978, including a new Worcester Bosch boiler. That boiler was still working in 2012 when she passed at the age of 92, 34 years later! Every year it was serviced by British Gas and every year we would be told how "it's an old boiler now and some of the parts are getting obsolete". I think as long as you pay for an annual service scheme they will make every attempt to repair.

Our heating is on the blink again - BG finally turned up today to fix and will be back tomorrow with necessary parts. It is an Ariston that we had new in when we added a big room with UFH 7 years ago. This will be its second replacement pump plus it needs 2 more parts. He also said we need an £800 power flush - we only had one 3 years ago but the water is like black sludge We asked what boiler make he would rate (as in what ones did he have to do least work on) and he said Worcester or Vaillant. Then we got into a discussion about water softeners and apparently you shouldn't top up the pressure with softened water so should always bypass the softener when doing so - unsurprisingly we don't have a bypass on the softener so it wouldn't have made any difference knowing this. We have been topping up every day. I hate our heating with a vengeance!!!!

Daughter came home from uni yesterday and stayed in bed till lunchtime as it was so cold.

Sorry Sea_shell to return to boilers.
£800 seems a bit steep even for a large property and I thought every 5 years was reasonable. If it is that bad already I assume your rads are quite old and generally rusting.
I used to top up our unvented system about once a month (5 bed property). In addition sludge will make boiler work much harder. Unfortunately not cheap to solve either way. Hope the boiler is fixed tomorrow.

thriftylynny

I'd be interested to know as well Seashell, as i have a similar amount sat making next to nothing now in a Marcus a/c . Spent today researching low price shares that may have the potential to double my money once Covid subsides ...but there's always the big ''or not'' isn't there? Few months ago i was a second away from placing a punt on a certain airline which has since almost doubled it's share price !!

shinytop

Sea_Shell said:

I think that's enough heating chat for now.

We've been debating what to do with our 5yr bond cash, spare cash, small pots, and tax free lump some next year.

It looks like we're going to end up investing £21,500 outside of ISAs, which should be fine given a CGT allowance of £12,300.


Also, does anyone else use a 0-35 "cautious" fund instead of pure cash?

We used Premium Bonds for a similar amount.  I have thought about using cautious funds but having thought about it, I stuck with cash/PBs.  While I don't need a return on this money, I'd be upset if it lost a chunk of value. 

Msjf

Sea_Shell said:

... It looks like we're going to end up investing £21,500 outside of ISAs, which should be fine given a CGT allowance of £12,300.

Hi Sea Shell,

I'd be worried doing that this side of the March Budget, in case the CGT regime becomes less generous, given the Chancellor's need to claw back Covid-related costs.

Sea_Shell

Msjf said:

Sea_Shell said:

... It looks like we're going to end up investing £21,500 outside of ISAs, which should be fine given a CGT allowance of £12,300.

Hi Sea Shell,

I'd be worried doing that this side of the March Budget, in case the CGT regime becomes less generous, given the Chancellor's need to claw back Covid-related costs.

If we split that between us, the risk of CGT is minimal, even if they slash the allowance.   We can also sell over multiple tax years too.

Sea_Shell

Here's the plan in more detail...

We currently have £22,000 in cash, but only need c.£12,000 to last until Sept 21 (9 months).    So we'll put the "spare" £10,000 in our S&S ISA (fund to be decided, we may just leave it as cash) by the end of 20-21 Tax year.  Or whatever is "spare" come March 2021.

Then in Sept 21, we'll have £60,000 from a maturing 5yr fixed term account, and also DH will access 2 pension "small pots", totalling £9,000.     We'll fill our ISAs for the 21-22 tax year, leaving £29,000.   From this we need to keep back c. £12,000 in ready cash for our Sept 21 to Apr 22 spends (8 months).    We'll invest c. £17,000 outside our ISAs.

In April 22, DH will pull out his 25% cash free lump sum from his DC pensions, which we think will be in the region of £42,500 (depending on pension growth in the interim).

Again we'll fill our ISAs (22-23 tax year), leaving £2,500 to be added to the non-ISA investment.  Or just kept as cash?

As of April 2022, DH will begin drawdown on his taxable DC pension (crystallised), at a rate of £1145 per month (utilising my transfer of 10% PA).   We should be able to get this all out tax-free in 10 years, before DB and SP come into play.

Once we have our 23-24 ISA allowance, we will probably sell the non-ISA investment, and move it to ISA.   Hopefully with no CGT to pay (on those levels - especially if we've chosen a "Cautious" fund.)


Well, that's the plan, subject to any changes in ISA, CGT, or Income Tax allowances.    We'll then juggle and rebalance our cash v ISA v investment funds depending on market conditions, taking it, say, 6 months at time.

The tricky part is deciding what funds to put each tranche of money into, but that's a decision for another day!!

Sea_Shell

shinytop said:

Sea_Shell said:

I think that's enough heating chat for now.

We've been debating what to do with our 5yr bond cash, spare cash, small pots, and tax free lump some next year.

It looks like we're going to end up investing £21,500 outside of ISAs, which should be fine given a CGT allowance of £12,300.


Also, does anyone else use a 0-35 "cautious" fund instead of pure cash?

We used Premium Bonds for a similar amount.  I have thought about using cautious funds but having thought about it, I stuck with cash/PBs.  While I don't need a return on this money, I'd be upset if it lost a chunk of value. 

The fund we have our eye on (or something similar) is the 7IM Cautious S Acc.     In the last 12 months it dropped by 7% in mid-March, which was a lot less than our other funds we hold, and is now 6% up on the year.