Part 239

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.  This week I discuss the possible impacts on the BTL market if Labour are elected.  I also look at the state of the Tory party ahead of the recently announced election.  I give details on a new mini-series of blog posts, and there’s another example of bad customer service.  Yes, another one.   

Weekly Update

A massive congratulations to a friend of mine who has become a father this week.  I know that he, and his wife, have been wanting this for a long time.  Everyone is happy and healthy, and I’m sure they’ll be great parents.

I’m starting to get ready for my next break from work.  I’m starting to feel a bit run down physically, which isn’t helped by the fact I rarely sleep well.  I have a week off in June, and two weeks off in September, with another week booked in for December.  

I still have another two and a half weeks of holiday allowance to use up before the end of 2024.  I think I might take half a week in July, then a week in October and November.  That would mean from September I would have at least a week off every month until the end of the year.

After finishing work on Saturday, Oana and I went into the city centre for the food market.  We tried a Turkish grilled chicken wrap which was nice.  They cooked the chicken on skewers over coal and it was delicious.  We tried ordering from a few other vendors but they had all run out of what we wanted.  To be fair, it was very busy.

In the city centre, a new hotel is soon to open, and they had a stall at the market advertising their new restaurant.  It’s going to be serving Indian tapas and we were offered some complimentary canapes, and a voucher for our first meal there.  The little canapes we had were amazing, so we will be trying to place out for sure.

As we were still hungry (the wraps were quite small) we ended up going for amazing tacos.  In true Oana and David form, she had the beef brisket tacos and I went for the pork.  I need to find somewhere that does good Al Pastor because it’s been too long since I had them last.    

If you bring ammunition into Turks and Caicos, you’re going to have a bad time…

Having travelled to the US a few times, and having taken part in a high school exchange, I think I’ve got a decent amount of experience when it comes to conversing with Americans.  There are some great things about the US, such as the pride the people take in being American.  Sometimes, though, it veers into indoctrination and ignorance of the rest of the world.

Sadly, I’ve had this debate several times with Americans who have claimed we, in the UK, are not “free”.  The thing is, if you think about it, none of us are truly free.  We give up certain freedoms to live in a democratic society.  As much as I might like to punch certain people in the face, I know I can’t do this without facing legal and social consequences.  I’m not free to walk into a bank and take cash from the safe, nor am I free to just take another person’s phone.  We all give up freedoms to live in a democratic society.

It gets even worse when you start talking about guns.  Some Americans have a really strange relationship with guns.  I just don’t get it.  No normal civilian needs a military-level assault rifle.  There’s no plausible reason for one to be owned by a private individual.    

Anyway, you might be wondering what all this has to do with the tiny British Overseas Territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands.  Well, a few weeks ago a group of American tourists were arrested in the islands for possession of illegal ammunition.  The possible sentence for this crime is up to twelve years in prison.  According to those arrested the ammunition was left over from a previous hunting trip.  

Whilst I understand that this was, almost certainly, a simple mistake, I still don’t have much sympathy.  When you travel to another country you have to understand you are agreeing to abide by another set of laws, traditions, and customs.  If you aren’t willing to do this, then don’t go.  Also, whenever I travel abroad I always make sure we have checked and double-checked our luggage to guard against taking the wrong thing to the wrong place.  If you didn’t bother to check your luggage then you have no one else to blame.

Possibly the most frustrating part of this story was when I read that multiple US officials had travelled to the Turks and Caicos Islands to try and convince the government to release the prisoners, not realising that there is a split between the judiciary and administrative arms of the government.  This request was an attempt to get the government to ignore the law of the land, just because…  

It appears that the five people arrested will probably not serve any serious time in prison, and hopefully, they won’t make the same mistake again.

This week’s episode of Things Shouldn’t Be This Difficult is brought to you by Samsung; official sponsor of complete dipshittery.

Oana needs a new phone. I don’t mean she wants a new one; her current phone just doesn’t work. She’s had it a few years and it’s been a good servant but the time has come. 

She wanted to switch to Samsung so I helped her look for a phone and we found one she wants. We ordered directly from Samsung and had to pay for delivery, which is a bit fucking much when you’re spending hundreds already, but I digress. 

Samsung offered multiple options for delivery including this Saturday, which is ideal because Oana doesn’t work weekends.  Saturday morning came around and I had not received any notifications about delivery. 

Normally DPD, the courier Samsung stated would be delivering the item, send an email on the day with a link to track the progress of the driver.  As I hadn’t had this, I contacted Samsung via live chat and later on the phone. The upshot is the order is delayed, and they can’t tell me if, or when, it will be delivered. 

I explained that as I’d paid for delivery, I should get a bit more information than that. Samsung replied they are not responsible for delivery and that the phone is still in the warehouse. So, Samsung are not responsible for their own products being ordered from their own site? Wow….

Until now I had quite liked Samsung, but this has pissed me off. 

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I had a similar situation with Argos.  It can’t be anything I’m doing because I’m placing these orders online with no personal interaction.  It just seems as though most companies are content to offer shit service because they know they can get away with it.

This Week’s Tory Clusterfuck

In the national news the biggest story, without doubt, is the announcement of a General Election to take place on July 4th.  I can see this being a bit of a massacre for the Tory party. There are 346 Tory MPs at the moment, and already 119 have announced they will not be standing at the next election.  The phrase, “rats leaving a sinking ship” never had a better example.  

Election time is always entertaining as you see so many politicians trying to behave like normal people and not the self-absorbed morons many of them are.  Speaking of self-absorbed morons, Boris Johnson has been active on Twitter, where his recent Daily Mail column was published.

So, Johnson claims that Kier Starmer would be the most dangerous PM since the 1970s.  Remind me again how many people died during Covid under his government?  The absolute incompetence of Johnson and his government led to many needless deaths and chaos in the UK.  To borrow a quote from one of my favourite shows, “If I saw Johnson drowning, I’d throw him a fucking barbell.”

Letters to Oana

Last week I posted the first part in a new mini-series called Letters to Oana.  This is something Oana asked me to set down in writing for her in case anything should happen to me and I’m not around to manage our investments.  So I’m typing up a basic guide to what she would need to know to manage her own investments, and with her permission, I thought it might be useful to share it with other people.  

Please note that, just like all my other posts, it’s not intended to be advice.  I’m not qualified to give financial or investment advice, and I would suggest speaking with a professional if you want advice tailored to your circumstances.  This blog is for entertainment and information about my thoughts, feelings, and progress towards FI.  

Looking Back

Part 11 of the Looking Back series is now live, and you can find it here.

What Am I Doing?

TV: MasterChef (BBC).

Audiobook: Fluke by Brian Klaas (audible).

It was the MasterChef final and it was a great contest.  In the end, 28-year-old vet, Brin Parathapan was the deserved winner.  He cooked some incredible-looking food and consistently wowed the judges.  He’s a real talent but I’m not sure if he’ll pursue cooking full-time as he seems to love being a vet. 

The next iteration of MasterChef will be the celebrity version later in the year, I think.  It’s generally the one I like the least, but I’ll still end up watching it no doubt.

I also finished Fluke and, for the most part, I enjoyed it.  With approximately a third of the book left I started to get a bit bored and was willing it to finish.  I’m not sure what book to tackle next, so if you have any suggestions please leave a comment.

Support Mortgage Advisor on FIRE

If you would like to show your support for my blog please comment, like, share, and subscribe.  All these things help the blog to grow.  If you want to make a financial contribution towards the running costs of the site, please use the donation form below:

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £13,400.00. 

Stocks and Shares ISA: £75,333.73. 

Fuck It Fund: £45.60.

Pensions: £78,986.94. 

Residential Property Value: £229,818.00. 

BTL Property Value: £148,301.00.

Total Assets: £545,885.27. 

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £172,359.25. 

BTL Mortgage: £104,871.60.

Total Debts: £277,230.85. 

Total Wealth: £268,654.42.

A few nice bits of income dropped in this week; three separate dividend payments and a couple of other bits.  Achieving £10k is looking unlikely because of the BTL being sold, but it’s more a case of one step back to take two steps forward than a failure.  Once the equity is released I can put that money to good use and build a stronger foundation to move forward. 

Now that I’ve changed my focus from generating passive income to accumulating value, I’m much less concerned about not hitting the £10k income goal.  I’ll continue to hold assets that generate income, and I may even go back into BTL if the stars align.  I’ll still track my investment income, but it’s less of a priority now than it was when I started this blog.

It’s still looking as though this will be a bumper year for stocks.  My ISA and pension are performing very well, and if the current trend continues I should hit the £80k goal for each well before the end of the year.  I may even hit £90k should this surge continue.  

I completed my tax return for the 23-24 financial year, and it was no surprise to learn I owe a few hundred pounds in tax.  It’s all part of having rental income, but at least this will be the last year I need to complete one as we stopped letting the property before the end of the last tax year.  I’ll just need to pay some Capital Gains Tax when the sale goes through.

BTL Update

Things are progressing but, as always, these types of deals seem to take forever.  I’ve had more fun and games with an app that doesn’t work as intended whilst trying to provide proof of ID.  The solicitor wants two forms of photographic ID and two documents for proof of address.  ID is not a problem; I just scanned my passport and driving licence, but for proof of address there’s no facility to just upload an electronic file.  Instead, you have to print your bills off and then take pictures in the app to upload.  Seems a bit antiquated and not particularly “green”.  

It’s going to be interesting to see what changes there are to the BTL market following the election.  If Labour are elected, as seems likely, it may be that they make it more difficult for private landlords to operate.  They might introduce legislation making it more difficult for tenants to be evicted.  Also, they could commit to building more homes that can be let via local authorities. 

None of these ideas are necessarily bad, but it’s important to remember that not all landlords are evil, and some fill an important gap in the housing market for people who need flexible living arrangements.  There are bad landlords, but there are also bad doctors, bad politicians, and bad taxi drivers.  It’s the offending individuals that need to be targeted, and not the profession in general.

That’s all for this week.  Thank you for reading, and please remember to like, share, comment, and subscribe.  If you like my content, please consider donating towards the running costs of the site on the form below.

Disclaimer

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my employer, nor should they be considered advice.  

If you want personalised financial advice, seek an appropriate professional.  If you are in financial difficulty, seek advice via the resources below:

StepChange

MoneyHelper

Biolink 

You can now find all my social media pages by checking out my Biolink:

bio.link/davidscothern.