Part 251: I don’t have time for patience

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.  This week I discuss statistics, and how to spot misleading ones.  Also, a week ahead that has huge potential.  There’s the usual financial updates, and some fun with cold callers.

Weekly Update

Football

The football started last week and my team, Sheffield Wednesday, have had a flying start.  We beat Plymouth 4-0 in our first game and followed up with another victory against Hull.  I think this is going to be a great season with Danny Röhl leading the team.  

Danny came in partway through last season when we were bottom of the table and without a win in ten games.  He changed our fortunes and we avoided relegation.  The turnaround in our form was like night and day.  At just 35 years old, he’s got a hell of a career ahead of him.  

For the first time in quite a while, there seems to be a positive buzz around the club despite there being something of a conflict between some of the fans and the owner.

Cold Calls

I had a funny cold call the other day.  Oana and I have a little in-joke when we want to ask the other a question, which goes like this:

Me: Hey, can I ask you a question?

Oana: What?

Me: Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise?

For those who don’t know, this is a Star Wars reference.  We also like to mix it up with;

“Do you know how the Orcs first came into being?”

Yes, we are geeks when it comes to sci-fi and fantasy.  

This is where the fun begins…

Anyway, I like to mess with cold callers with this sort of thing.  I had a call from someone claiming to be from some housing repair thing with the council, but I had many reasons to doubt the authenticity of the claim.  Following the greeting and introduction, the call went like this:

CC: Can I ask about your housing repair?

Me: Can I ask you a question first?

CC: er… ok…

Me: Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise?

CC: …

Me: It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you. It’s a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life… 

CC: …

Me: He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful… the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself.

CC: …

*click of call disconnecting*

Me: hello?

The different types of cold call…

There’s a distinction between cold calls that serve a purpose, like a company you are regularly dealing with getting in touch to give an update or something.  Then, there’s the cold calling which is intrusive and designed purely to get something from you.  When someone approaches you for something and it’s unsolicited, it’s not about doing something for you but rather doing something for them.  

It’s like when someone on the street stops me and my automatic response is, “I don’t speak English”.  Without fail it’s met with a perplexed reaction and I just keep on walking.

If you are just living your life and someone interrupts you, you don’t owe them anything other than basic politeness in the first instance.  If they interrupt again after you’ve made it clear you’re not interested, then the gloves come off, so to speak.

Where there’s blame, there’s a claim…

Last Sunday we went for a walk around the city and stopped for an early dinner at a Turkish place we like.  We had a nice meal and set off walking back.  Along the way, Oana lost her footing and went down pretty hard.  There was a spot of loose bricks which had a drop of a couple of inches.  If you didn’t know it was there and had the misfortune to step in that exact spot, it was going to be painful.  

Oana landed on her left kneecap and twisted her right ankle.  The knee was a mess with blood coming out and a massive bruise, and the ankle was visibly swollen.  Had an elderly or frail person gone through this it could have snapped their leg in two.  It’s almost like getting your foot completely trapped and then going over when you try to take a step forward.  

She has started the process of making a claim for this as it’s been a nasty injury and she’s been in pain all week.  It’s been severe enough to disturb her sleep.

The Week Ahead

I’m a little nervous about the week ahead.  I can’t say too much at this stage, but if things go my way I could see my FI plans accelerate massively.  I could be in an incredible position by the end of the week, or I could be as I am now.  There’s no bad outcome, just the potential for a very positive outcome.

I should find out what’s going on early in the week, and I’m just itching to find out one way or another. 

Another event early in the week is the Kiefer Sutherland gig.  We’ve seen him live twice before and it’s been a good show both times.  It’s going to be a bit rushed as I’m working until 6pm on Monday, and the doors open at 7pm.  If you’ve not heard any of Kiefer’s music you should check him out on YouTube.  It’s not my favourite music, but it’s easy to listen to and he puts on a great live show.

Health

Regular readers will be aware that I’ve got a few ongoing health issues.  This week I had an appointment to discuss the results of some of the routine blood tests I have done every few months.  The long and short of it is that I’ve crossed a threshold at which they need to monitor me more closely.  I didn’t follow everything they said, but basically, I have an estimated 11% chance of a heart attack or stroke in the next ten years.  

As you can imagine this was a bit of a shock to the system but it’s also a sign that I need to make drastic changes.  I’ve started checking my blood sugar levels more often and so far it’s helping reduce the amount of snacking I’m doing.  If I can make changes to my diet like reducing the amount of salt, saturated fats, sugar, and other rubbish, then I should be able to reverse this.  

Part of the problem is stress and modern life.  It’s difficult to work full time, clean and maintain a home, shop, and prepare healthy food that hits the spot in terms of taste.

Diabetes UK Step Challenge

From July 1st until September 30th Diabetes UK is running a step challenge to raise money for their cause.  There are three step targets to choose from; 500k, 1m, or 1.7m.  I had originally gone for the 1.7m steps, but it’s become clear I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.  I’m now aiming for the 1m target.  

If you’d like to follow my progress or make a donation, it can be done here.

Letters to Oana

If you missed it, Part 2 of the series Letters to Oana is now live.

Looking Back

Part 15 of the Looking Back series is also live.

What I’m Doing

Listening: The Clouds of Venus by Brandon Q. Morris and Ashton Mclee.

Watching: Celebrity MasterChef.

Sometimes you encounter someone so utterly stupid that their dipshittery begins to contaminate your own brain.  We experienced this as we started watching the latest series of Celebrity MasterChef on iPlayer.  

One of the contestants was a “reality star” and “influencer” so annoying and so wilfully stupid that I almost couldn’t watch.  I’m not going to name them because I don’t want to give them any recognition.  

I don’t have an issue with people not understanding or knowing things.  However, I do have a problem with people who revel in their ignorance, who show no humility or self-awareness and have no desire to learn or improve.

I also hate the culture of regularly going out and getting so drunk you can’t control your own actions.  Being a drunken idiot is not a personality.  Being unnecessarily loud and obnoxious is not endearing, attractive, or something to aspire to.     

I’m still working through the sci-fi series by Brandon Q. Morris.  I’m on book five and it’s weakest so far.  It’s not grabbing me, but with only nine books in the series, I’m going to stick it out.  

Website Stuff and Support

It’s getting to that time of year when I need to pay to renew my domain and plan with my site host.  I will probably never make money from this blog but I would like to reduce what it costs me to run.  There are a couple of ways you can help and it will not cost you anything.

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Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £14,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £78,407.89.

Fuck It Fund: £346.75.

Pensions: £80,579.90.

Residential Property Value: £234,044.00. 

BTL Property Value: £151,029.00.

Total Assets: £558,407.54.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £185,958.33. 

BTL Mortgage: £104,787.85.

Total Debts: £290,746.18.

Total Wealth: £267,661.36.

The mini-slump in the stock market appears to have ended and bounced back.  We are still, somehow, no further on with the BTL sale, despite having accepted the offer a few months ago.  We had to apply some pressure to get the agreement in principle from the buyers, and now it looks like we may have to apply some pressure to get the sale over the line. 

Statistics

A good statistic should stand on its own. It should not need extensive clarification, caveats, or additional explanation to make sense. This means it should be; clear, accurate, contextualised, and representative.  

A good example would be from a GP surgery; 

“5.5% of appointments with the practice nurse in July were missed in this surgery.  This is above the national average of 4%.”

This statement is clear and requires no mental effort to understand the point being made.  It is, one assumes, accurate and is placed in the context of the national average.  It is also easy to understand the population represented in the statement.

Bad Statistics

A bad statistic does not hit these points, and sometimes this is due to a faulty premise or question.  For example;

“In a survey of users, 100% of respondents reported being happy with the product’s performance.”

Note: the survey had the following options: Happy.  Very Happy.  Extremely Happy.

The more you think about the statement, knowing the context, the worse it gets.  It says nothing of the completion rate of the surveys and does nothing to provide detail on how many users were approached and what research methods were employed i.e. whether it was anonymous, or requested electronically or in person.  

Hanlon’s Razor

Whilst the above example is bad, it’s possible that it’s not intended to deliberately mislead.  It could simply be stupidity, or as Hanlon’s Razor states;

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

An example of a misleading statement would be when a university states:

“The average annual income for students graduating from our university in 2022 was £174,750.”

Anyone looking at this statement should be asking questions, such as;

What department did these students graduate from?

What degree did they achieve?

The average is £174,750 which I assume is the mean, but what are the median and mode?

For those who don’t know, when we talk about the “average” in daily life we are almost always referring to the mean, i.e. the total of all the values divided by the number of values.  For example, the mean of 50+90+40 is 60.  

If I take a series of numbers, such as;

8, 8, 13, 13, 13, 14, 15, 39, 42, 42, 74, 75, 91

The mean is 34.385.

The median is 15 (the middle value when the data set is ordered according to size).

The mode is 13 (the value that occurs most often in the data set).

In the example of annual earnings for the graduates, it’s possible to get the mean stated where 99 students earn £25,000p/a and 1 student earns £15,000,000p/a.  Furthermore, the one earning £15m does so because they have an insanely popular YouTube channel that has nothing to do with their degree in Literature.  

Data can say whatever you want…

I hate seeing data being tortured to the point it claims whatever someone wants to hear.  We are all prone to this to some degree though, and it’s a good habit to check through data before reporting on it.  Are the statistics clear, accurate, contextualised, and representative?

This isn’t just nitpicking for the sake of it.  Statistics are manipulated and used to influence all sorts of decisions from what brands to buy, to where to shop, to where to go on holiday.  No one is immune from the effects of this, and all we can do is stop and ask questions about the information we are presented with.  

That’s all for this week.  Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a great week ahead.  Please remember to share this post, and if you have any thoughts on what I’ve said, leave a comment!

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.