Part 323: Hold My Cognitive Test Results

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. This week I discuss gift cards, and how we are all acting as lenders to the companies that offer them. Also, just when you thought the US could not get any crazier…

Weekly Update

We’re starting to get back to normal now the new year is out of the way.  We didn’t do much for NYE, and hardly anything on January 1st.  All in all, a pretty quiet start to the year.  On the 2nd we completed our first bike ride of 2026, with a 36km journey that took us to Rotherham and along the river towards Doncaster.  We turned back and explored a little around Rotherham we’ve not seen before (there’s not much to see) before heading back along the canal to Sheffield.  

We would have stayed out longer but for the fact it was absolutely freezing and we always feel bad leaving Poppy on her own.  

I’m surprised at how much I’ve been enjoying biking since we started going together.  Although it’s still enjoyable in the cold, I can’t wait for the warmer weather when we can cycle in shorts and a shirt, rather than multiple layers.  

If Russia Did This, We’d Be Screaming

Let’s be very clear up front, because clarity matters: the situation around Venezuela is chaotic, heavily disputed, and wrapped in a fog of claims, counter-claims, and presidential bombast. What matters for this piece isn’t whether every dramatic statement survives scrutiny. What matters is that the President of the United States is publicly talking as if military force, regime removal, and custodial authority over another country’s leadership are not just thinkable, but reasonable. This alone should make people deeply uncomfortable.

If Vladimir Putin stood at a podium tomorrow and announced that Russian forces had struck Ukraine, seized its president, and that Russia would now “run things for a bit” to ensure stability, the West would be incandescent. Emergency UN sessions. Wall-to-wall coverage. Sanctions within hours. Op-eds screaming about sovereignty, international law, and the post-war global order.

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Yet when similar language, intent, and posture come from the White House, especially when filtered through Donald Trump, the reaction is strangely muted, fragmented, or hedged with “well, he didn’t really mean it” qualifiers. Which is precisely the problem.

Let’s strip this back. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is condemned not only because of the scale of violence, but because of the underlying logic: that a powerful state can use military force to reshape another country’s leadership, borders, or political future. That sovereignty is conditional. That might makes right. That “we know better” is a sufficient justification for tanks and missiles. Those are the norms we are supposed to oppose.

Now look at the rhetoric coming out of Washington. Claims of strikes. Claims of custody. Claims of oversight. Claims of economic involvement, particularly around oil, framed as stabilisation rather than control. Even if some of this collapses under verification, the direction of travel is unmistakable. This is regime-change language. This is imperial muscle-memory resurfacing. And it is being delivered with the casual confidence of someone who assumes America’s motives will always be treated as inherently different. They aren’t.

Russia justified its actions in Ukraine with security concerns, criminal accusations, and moral narratives about saving people from bad leadership. The United States is doing what it always does: insisting its actions are exceptional, necessary, and benevolent, even when they mirror the very behaviour it condemns elsewhere.

And this is where the double standard becomes impossible to ignore. International law doesn’t say “no invasions unless you’re the good guys”. Sovereignty doesn’t mean “hands off, unless we find you annoying, corrupt, or strategically inconvenient”. Either these principles apply universally, or they’re just branding.

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What makes this moment especially unsettling is the messenger. Just when you think American politics can’t get any more unhinged, Trump steps forward like a man saying “hold my cognitive test results”. Or, more charitably, like someone who slept through the briefing and woke up mid-sentence convinced he’d understood it.

This isn’t careful diplomacy. It’s vibes-based foreign policy. Big, declarative statements delivered without visible concern for legal process, global reaction, or long-term consequences. It’s the same impulsive bravado that characterised his first term, only now pointed at a far more fragile global order.

And fragility matters. Because once the world accepts that powerful countries can openly discuss capturing foreign leaders, administering other states “temporarily”, and leveraging military force for economic involvement, without consequence, the rules stop being rules. They become suggestions.

That’s exactly the world Russia wants. It’s exactly the world China is watching. And it’s exactly the world smaller nations fear.

You don’t defend international norms by breaking them more politely. You don’t preserve order by insisting your violations are special. And you don’t get to condemn Moscow on Monday for behaviour you flirt with on Tuesday.

If the US wants to be taken seriously when it talks about Ukraine, democracy, and the rule of law, it needs to act like those words mean something even when it’s inconvenient. Especially then.

Because the most dangerous precedents aren’t set by declared enemies. They’re set by allies who assume the rules don’t apply to them.

And history has a habit of remembering that hypocrisy far longer than any press conference.

What I’m Doing

Listening: Callsign: King – Chess Team Book 3.5: by Jeremy Robinson and Sean Ellis.

Watching: Pluribus (Apple TV).

Reading: nothing at the moment. 

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £127,344.11.

Fuck It Fund: £1.61.

Pensions: £111,413.72.

Residential Property Value: £243,430.00. 

Total Assets: £505,189.44.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £174,692.83. 

Total Debts: £174,692.83.

Total Wealth: £330,496.61.

Gift Cards

You can’t move in a supermarket in December without being herded, gently but firmly past gift cards. They’re everywhere: checkouts, end caps, special freestanding displays wrapped in just enough tinsel to pass as festive rather than transactional. They’re sold as thoughtful, flexible, and safe. The perfect answer to indecision. The solution for when time, energy, or emotional bandwidth has run out. But gift cards aren’t really gifts at all. They’re financial instruments dressed up as generosity, and once you start pulling at that thread, the whole thing unravels very quickly.

When you buy a gift card, the company does not record it as a sale. That’s the first tell. Accounting rules require it to be logged as deferred revenue; a liability. On paper, the business hasn’t earned anything yet because it still owes someone goods or services in the future. That framing is meant to feel reassuring. Look, it’s not profit yet. Look, they still owe you something. But this is where the sleight of hand begins, because while the revenue is “deferred”, the cash is not. The money is real, immediate, and fully usable. It goes straight into the general pot, indistinguishable from any other pound the business takes in. It pays wages. It pays rent. It plugs gaps. It props up cash flow at the exact moment retailers need it most.

December is not an accident. Gift cards peak at the end of the financial year for many retailers, when balance sheets matter, liquidity matters, and optics matter. Gift cards inflate cash reserves without triggering the costs normally associated with sales. No stock has to move. No staff time is consumed. No logistics chain is stressed. It’s cash in, obligation postponed. And that obligation may never even materialise, which brings us neatly to the part nobody advertises: breakage.

Breakage is the industry’s polite euphemism for people forgetting, losing, or abandoning gift cards. A non-trivial percentage is never redeemed. Others are partially used and then quietly abandoned with a few pounds left on them, too small to feel worth the effort but large enough to add up at scale. Over time, accounting rules allow that unused balance to be recognised as income. Not revenue earned through effort or value creation, just money that expired, evaporated, or slipped through the cracks. No cost of goods. No delivery. No labour. Pure margin. This isn’t a bug in the system. It’s a feature.

And even when gift cards are used, they still behave exactly how the business wants them to. They lock spending into a single retailer before the customer has made any meaningful decision. There’s no comparison shopping once the card is bought. No walking away. You’re anchored. Psychologically committed. And more often than not, the card doesn’t quite cover what you want, so you top it up. The initial “gift” becomes a down payment on further spending. Choice narrows. Spend increases. Mission accomplished.

Then there’s expiry, which is where the justifications start sounding thin. In the UK, gift cards can expire, but only if it’s clearly stated and considered reasonable. That’s why many large retailers now offer long expiry periods or claim not to expire at all. This isn’t corporate benevolence. It’s regulatory pressure and reputational risk management. Expiry-based breakage looks bad. It feels bad. And it attracts the kind of attention companies would rather avoid. Still, expiry exists for a reason: unredeemed gift cards are liabilities that sit on the balance sheet indefinitely, cluttering things up. From a corporate perspective, they’re unresolved promises. From a consumer perspective, they’re money already spent.

Next time you think about buying a gift card that has an expiry date on it, ask “why”? Why is an expiry date necessary?  

And if you think, “at least it’s safe”, that’s where the illusion fully collapses. If a company goes under, gift card holders are usually unsecured creditors. Which means you’re right at the back of the queue, hoping there’s something left after everyone more important has been paid. There usually isn’t. The business got your money when it was alive. If it dies before you’ve redeemed the card, that loss is entirely yours. The risk doesn’t sit evenly. It never has.

Seen through a cash-flow or FI lens, gift cards are brutally one-sided. They’re interest-free loans from consumers to companies, with zero upside and full downside. You get no return for the time your money is tied up. No flexibility if circumstances change. No protection if the business fails. If you sit on a £200 gift card for a year, that’s £200 that could’ve earned interest, reduced debt, or been invested. Instead, it’s quietly improving someone else’s liquidity while you hold the risk.

None of this means gift cards should never be used. Free money from an employer? Take it. A genuine discount with immediate plans to spend? Fine. A small, low-stakes gift where the alternative is something worse? Sure. But the idea that gift cards are neutral, harmless, or somehow generous by default doesn’t survive even mild scrutiny.

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They are a financing tool. A cash-flow lever. A risk transfer mechanism. They exist because they work spectacularly well for businesses. Especially when times are tight, margins are thin, and certainty matters more than anything else.

So the next time you’re corralled past a wall of glossy plastic rectangles promising “the perfect gift”, it’s worth pausing for half a second and asking who they’re really perfect for. Because once you strip away the festive language and the convenience framing, what’s left isn’t generosity at all.

It’s just a very polite way of lending money to a corporation and hoping nothing goes wrong before you get to spend it.

Finally, from an environmental point of view, physical gift cards are pure bullshit.  Egift cards are at least virtual, so there’s no plastic waste when they’re used up. 

Starbucks

There’s a reason Starbucks is such an important case study in all of this, because they’ve taken the basic gift card model and quietly evolved it into something far more sophisticated: a pseudo-banking system, hiding in plain sight behind flat whites and loyalty stars.

Starbucks doesn’t just sell coffee. It holds deposits. Millions of customers, myself included, load money onto the Starbucks app in advance. Not because they’re asked to think of it as a deposit, as that would feel weird, but because it’s framed as convenience, speed, rewards, frictionless living. Tap once, earn stars, skip the queue. But strip away the gloss and what’s actually happening is brutally simple. Customers are transferring cash to Starbucks before any product is provided. Starbucks gets the money immediately. The obligation to deliver coffee comes later.  If I top up my balance, I don’t just do it for the cost of one coffee.  It’s normally in £20 increments.  It can easily be another month or so before I top it up again

Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same mechanism as a gift card, just industrialised.

At any given time, Starbucks is sitting on vast sums of customer-loaded balances. If you aggregated those balances and looked at them the way you’d look at bank deposits, Starbucks would rank as one of the largest “banks” in the world by stored consumer funds. The difference is that a bank is regulated, capitalised, insured, and required to protect depositors. Starbucks is not. There’s no FSCS protection for your cappuccino float. No interest paid. No guarantees beyond “trust us”.

And yet the money behaves exactly like deposits. Starbucks gets cash now, in bulk, at scale. They can use it to support operations, manage liquidity, reduce reliance on external financing, and invest in the business. The consumer gets… faster checkout and the vague promise of a free drink at some point in the future. It is, once again, an interest-free loan, provided voluntarily, repeatedly, and enthusiastically by customers.

What makes this model especially powerful, and especially uncomfortable, is how effectively it’s normalised. Nobody feels like they’re lending Starbucks money. They feel like they’re being savvy. Efficient. Rewarded. The language matters. “Top up” sounds harmless. “Load your balance” sounds responsible. “Earn stars” sounds like a game. But economically, the consumer is fronting capital while Starbucks captures the time value of money.

And just like gift cards, the risk is asymmetrical. If Starbucks vanished tomorrow, those app balances would instantly become unsecured claims on a collapsed company. Unlikely, perhaps, but the point isn’t probability, it’s structure. The structure places the downside with the consumer and the upside with the corporation. Always has. Always will.

Zooming out, this is the logical endpoint of what gift cards started. Retailers realised years ago that prepayment is gold. Starbucks simply perfected it. They wrapped it in behavioural design, gamification, habit formation, and a daily ritual people don’t question. Coffee isn’t a once-a-year Christmas purchase. It’s a near-daily transaction. That makes the float enormous, stable, and predictable. From a corporate finance perspective, it’s borderline genius.

From a consumer finance perspective, it’s quietly extractive because every pound sitting in that app is a pound not earning interest, not reducing debt, not invested, not liquid in any meaningful sense. It’s capital that’s been handed over in exchange for convenience and dopamine hits from loyalty points. Again, that doesn’t make it evil. But it does make it non-neutral.

When you put Starbucks next to gift cards, the pattern becomes impossible to ignore. This isn’t about coffee. Or plastic cards. Or Christmas convenience. It’s about companies discovering that consumers will willingly act as lenders if you remove the language of finance and replace it with branding, rewards, and ease.

The money flows one way. The risk flows the other way. Once you see it, it becomes hard not to notice how many modern “convenience” systems are just variations on the same theme. Prepay now. Consume later. Forget in between if possible. The business wins either way.

So yes, Starbucks has built a pseudo-bank. One funded by its customers. Paying no interest. Offering no protection. Delivering value only when, and if, the customer comes back to claim what they’ve already paid for.

All in all, this is a very impressive strategy. Some businesses make money when they sell their product.  Making money before the product is sold is efficient and elegant.

The thing is, I’m not entirely opposed to gift cards or topping up balances.  It’s all about finding an edge where you can, and entering into these transactions with your eyes open.  For example, if you want to budget for your monthly coffee, you can just top the balance up once a month.  On a relatively small balance, say £50, you’ll earn hardly anything on that.  The peace of mind that comes with budgeting can be a small reduction in cognitive load.  Another example is something that Oana and I have started doing.  We are able to buy egift cards for our supermarket at a 4.5% discount as a benefit through her employer.  Granted, the supermarket gets our cash up front for the month, but we also get a not-insignificant discount.

The bottom line is this, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise to regular readers, money and finance is all a game.  If you learn the rules, you have a much better chance of winning.

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, 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.

Part 322: Four Lions and a Turkey

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. Christmas. Four Lions. Turkey. Football. Let’s just get into it…

Christmas

Christmas has a unique ability to make otherwise rational adults behave in ways that would be deeply concerning at any other time of year.  Put the same people in a supermarket in March, and they’re somewhat calm, deliberate, and on the brink of being vaguely competent. Put them in the same supermarket three days before Christmas, and suddenly it’s a cross between The Hunger Games and the hallway scene in Oldboy, but with trolleys and a haunting lack of spatial awareness. People are buying industrial quantities of food as if the nation is about to be sealed in for winter. People who haven’t cooked a roast since last December are now attempting culinary feats that would make a professional kitchen nervous.

Look, I get it. I really do. There’s pressure. Tradition. Expectation. The feeling that Christmas must be done properly, whatever that means.  Sometimes this pressure comes from within, and sometimes from the perceived pressure from what you remember from childhood, and sometimes it’s unfair pressure from toxic family.  

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For us, the actual bit that matters, spending time with my parents, is genuinely great. That part isn’t the problem. The problem is everything we pile on top of it. The big shop. The overambitious menu. The pre-clean, the post-clean, the low-level stress hum that runs through the whole thing like background radiation.  If stress were an energy source, there’d be no need for fusion power.

What makes it even more ridiculous is that I know my family would be absolutely fine if we scaled it back. Fewer dishes. Less faff. A shorter day. No one is sitting there with a clipboard marking us down for insufficient roast parsnips. And yet the pressure persists.  Because it’s not coming from them. It’s coming from inside the house.  From habit, from comparison, and from the belief that Christmas is something you perform rather than experience.  I get this on an intellectual level, and as an autistic person, I get that it’s illogical, but there’s still that bullshit pressure.

So we push ourselves into mild burnout in the name of festivity, then act surprised when we’re shattered and slightly irritable by mid-afternoon.

Gifts

Gifts slot neatly into this same category of well-meaning madness.

Somewhere along the line, “thoughtful” became synonymous with “more stuff”. Stuff bought not because it fits someone, but because you can’t not hand over a thing. So you wander the aisles, or scroll endlessly online, looking for something, anything, that will fulfil the social contract.

I once read a line that stuck with me: when you buy something, you should already have a plan for how it leaves your life. I may be mangling the phrasing, but the idea is solid. If the only realistic future for an object is a cupboard, a drawer, or a landfill, perhaps it doesn’t need to be made, and purchased, in the first place.

Christmas is the peak season for objects with no long-term prospects.  I wonder how many gifts are bought, wrapped, unwrapped, stored, and eventually disposed of without being used.  I’m guessing it’s a shocking proportion of presents.  So much useless, unused, shit.

I’m thinking about novelty gifts that are funny once and decorations that live in a box for 51 weeks a year; things that require the recipient to pretend enthusiasm while mentally calculating where on earth they’re going to put it.

One of the most bizarre presents we ever received was a soup bowl each, with a spoon that rests in a groove at the side.  A few weeks before, we’d seen these exact bowls on sale in Poundland.  For £1.  This was one of those times when a gift was an insult, and no gift would have been preferable.  Anyway, those who gave this to Oana and me were awful people for several reasons, and thankfully, we don’t have to interact with them anymore. 

Anyway, none of this is malicious. It’s just momentum. The conveyor belt of Christmas where the goal becomes having done it rather than whether it was worth doing.  It’s performative and unnecessary.  Do what genuinely makes you happy, rather than what you think would make a good social media post.  

We also need to talk about the financial hangover. Spending money you don’t really have to buy things no one truly needs, all to meet expectations that mostly exist in your own head. The decorations come down, the tree goes out, and the credit card statement turns up like an Avatar sequel no one asked for.

It’s a strange outcome for a season supposedly about peace and goodwill.  The irony is that the bits people actually remember aren’t the excess. They’re the conversations. The laughter. The moments where no one is rushing, hosting, performing, or mentally running through a to-do list.

A simpler meal, eaten without stress, beats a culinary marathon fuelled by obligation. A smaller, more deliberate gift beats a pile of stuff that immediately needs managing. A shorter, calmer visit beats enduring something just because the calendar says you should.

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There is no Christmas tribunal. No prizes for exhaustion. No moral victory in debt, burnout, or emotional self-harm wrapped in tinsel.

Most of the pressure is self-inflicted. Which is both the bad news and the good news.  You can decide what enough looks like, in food, gifts, money, time, and emotional labour, and stop there. You can choose presence over performance. Intention over inertia. Sanity over spectacle.

And if that means a quieter, cheaper, less traditionally impressive Christmas?

Honestly, that sounds like bliss.

Our Christmas: Grief, and Tradition

It was always going to be a strange one for us this year, having just lost my Nan on December 12th.  She leaves a massive hole at the heart of the family on my Mom’s side.  She would have wanted everyone to have a good time still, but grief doesn’t obey logic.  We still miss her, and still worry about the impact it’s having on those who were closer to her.  I used to be very close to my Gran, but since I moved away for university, I didn’t see her as much.  Then, adulting and all the obligations that come with it get in the way.  She wasn’t alone, though.  She had seven adult children, each with their own partners, and children, and their children in turn.  Between her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids, we’re talking dozens and dozens of people, and she did have multiple people visiting her each day.  

But yeah, I do feel guilty for not spending more time with her recently.

When I was much younger, I had a tradition with my Mom that we would meet on Christmas Eve and go for something to eat.  This tradition was paused for a while when I was at university, and when I started working and occasionally was scheduled for the 24th December.  This year, we picked that tradition up again, but on the 23rd instead.  It was nice resuming this again.

Another tradition for Oana and me is that we watch Four Lions on Christmas Day.  We’ve done this for years now.  I’m not quite sure how it became a tradition, but it has.  I think part of it is because it was filmed in Sheffield, and we know most of the locations.  It’s funny, and a little jarring, when you see characters walking down one street and turning a corner, only to find themselves on a street at the other side of the city.  This was more so in the latter part of the film, which is set in London, but filmed no more than a kilometre from where we live.  

Our Christmas Lunch

Is it Christmas Lunch or Christmas Dinner?  The only correct answer is lunch.  We tried to make ours as simple as possible to reduce stress, but it still ended up being a full-on production.  We had a turkey joint from M&S that was wrapped in bacon and came with pork and chestnut stuffing.  It was amazing.  We made some roast potatoes and some mash.  There’s a green veggie mixture I make as well, which always goes down well.  I use a saute pan and melt some butter before adding sliced leek, garden peas, and some cabbage.  Add some salt, pepper, and veggie stock, and just cook it down.  It’s amazing.  We had that with some Yorkshire puddings and gravy.

On Boxing Day we made some sandwiches which were layered from bottom to top as follows; bread, gravy, turkey, cranberry sauce, leftover veg mixture, crushed roast potatoes, mint sauce, gravy, bread.  These were the greatest sandwiches ever made.

We also made a cheesecake using a mix of gingernut and digestive biscuits for the base.  We had whipped mascarpone with fresh orange juice and orange zest, and the whole thing was topped with fresh raspberries.  This also went down well.  

Did you have anything out of the ordinary for lunch? Any disasters or triumphs? Let me know in the comments.

Monopoly

As we had my Dad over on Christmas and Boxing Day, a good amount of time was spent playing Monopoly, specifically the Norwegian version we bought when the three of us were there in the summer. It does mean we have to translate the chance and community chest cards, but it’s all good fun.

The biggest laughs, though, were when I had to remind my Dad when we were negotiating a trade that I would be the one choosing his nursing home. Later, he returned the favour by reminding me he could always rewrite his will.

Weekly Update

It’s difficult to think about a weekly update at this time because the gap between Christmas and New Year is just bizarre.  Time has no meaning, and all normal behaviour goes out of the window.  If you want a cup of coffee at 9pm, go for it.  A bar of chocolate for breakfast is perfectly acceptable, and eating an entire cheesecake just because it’s there is practically expected.  

We had a good bike ride in the evening on Boxing Day.  It was from the Sheffield Critical Mass bike ride group, and it’s always fun riding around with the lights and music blasting out.  

On Saturday we went for a ride out to Forge Dam and witnessed a nasty accident.  A guy came off his bike and fell down a steep embankment into a stream.  It was a good seven or eight meter drop and he wasn’t wearing a helmet.  Luckily he avoided a head injury, but he did something to his leg.  A group of us stopped to assist, and I offered to call an ambulance, but he insisted on no ambulance.  I suspect when the adrenaline wears off, he will be in some pain and probably need a visit to A&E.  He was riding with a friend at least, so he had someone to help him home.  

It’s difficult to tell from this angle in the photo, but it’s a heck of a drop down to the water.

What I’m Doing

Listening: Callsign: King – Chess Team Book 3.5: by Jeremy Robinson and Sean Ellis.

Watching: Amber Alert (Netflix), Four Lions (Bluray). 

Reading: nothing at the moment. 

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £126,980.57.

Fuck It Fund: £1.61.

Pensions: £110,930.83.

Residential Property Value: £243,430.00. 

Total Assets: £504,343.01.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £174,874.05. 

Total Debts: £174,874.05.

Total Wealth: £329,468.96.

2025 Financial Update

Below is a table showing the difference in my finances from the first post of 2025 to this, the last post of 2025.

Outside of the £20k I deposited into my ISA, it grew a further £16k on top of that.  All in all my total wealth increased by over £50k, which is an 18.8% increase.  A similar increase in 2026 would see my total wealth stand at almost £400,000.  

2026 Goals

At some point, setting goals stops being aspirational and starts being confrontational.

Once you strip away the decorations, the planners, the colour-coded apps, and the reassuring sense that thinking about change counts as progress, you’re left with a much simpler question:

Am I actually prepared to behave differently?

For 2026, I’m done pretending the answer is “probably” or “in theory”.

Let’s start with the most obvious one; the one that doesn’t benefit from clever framing.

I’m about 116.5kg. By the end of 2026, I want to be 100kg.

This is not a mystery. There is no plot twist coming. I don’t need a new diet, a wearable device, or a revolutionary insight about metabolism. I need fewer calories going in than coming out, repeatedly, for a long time.

Sixteen and a half kilos in a year is not dramatic. It’s not a Rocky montage. It’s just enough restraint, often enough, to stop pretending that stress eating is self-care and that movement only counts if it’s optimised.

If I’m still the same weight next December, it won’t be because the goal was unreasonable. It’ll be because I kept choosing short-term comfort and then acting surprised by the long-term outcome.

Which brings me neatly to money, because the psychology is identical.

The ISA goal for 2026 is £20,000. Fully subscribed. No excuses. No “I’ll catch up later”.

ISAs don’t fill themselves. They require boring, grown-up decisions made consistently, even when a new set of coloured plastic building blocks from a small town in Denmark is available. They require resisting the urge to treat spare cash like a reward for surviving the week.

The real enemy here isn’t lack of income. It’s drift. That quiet, deadly assumption that there’s loads of time left, so today doesn’t really matter.

It does. Annoyingly so.

And yes, this goal is directly dependent on making a success of my new self-employed venture starting in late January. Which means there’s nowhere to hide. No employer to blame. No guaranteed baseline. Just output, consistency, and whether I take the work seriously enough to deserve the outcome.

Closely linked to that is the bigger, rounder, more psychologically loaded number: £400,000 total wealth.

I’m under no illusion that this number has magical properties. It won’t unlock a new personality or cause a choir of angels to appear. It’s arbitrary, but it’s useful as a psychological boost.

It tells me whether I’m building momentum or just maintaining the illusion of progress while telling myself I’m “doing fine”. It tells me whether compounding is actually being fed, or whether I’m quietly hoping markets and luck will compensate for half-hearted execution.

If I don’t hit it, it won’t be because the world conspired against me. It’ll be because I didn’t push hard enough on the few levers that actually matter.

And then there’s the book…

The thing that keeps getting edged out by admin, mood, timing, and the seductive lie that I’ll write better later.  So here’s the rule: 3,500 words per week.

That’s it.  The only way to write a book is to actually do the writing.

3,500 words.  Per week.  Every week.

That’s about 500 words a day, which is deeply unromantic and precisely the point. Writing is not a mood. It’s not a performance. It’s a practice.

Some weeks, the words will be good. Some weeks they’ll be serviceable. Some weeks they’ll be absolute rubbish. All of them count.

Because the only version of this book that definitely never gets finished is the one that waits for optimal conditions.

What ties all of this together; the weight, money, wealth, writing, is the same uncomfortable truth:

None of these goals are blocked by knowledge. They’re blocked by behaviour.

I know what to eat.  I know how ISAs work.  I know how wealth accumulates.  I know how to write 500 words a day.

The gap isn’t understanding. It’s execution.

And execution is dull. It’s repetitive. It’s doing the thing on days where there’s no emotional payoff and no immediate feedback, just the quiet knowledge that skipping it makes future-me’s life harder.  It’s investing in the process rather than just hoping for the result.

So 2026 isn’t about reinvention. It’s about closing the gap between what I say I want and what my daily choices actually support.

Sheffield Wednesday Football Club

There’s a familiar response that pops up any time I express discomfort about the direction Sheffield Wednesday FC might be heading.

“You’re just looking for excuses not to go.”
“Football’s changed, get over it.”
“If you cared, you’d still turn up.”

Which is interesting, because it manages to be wrong, lazy, and revealing all at once.

I don’t avoid Wednesday because I don’t care. I’m cautious because I care. Deeply. Probably more than is healthy, if we’re being honest.

If I didn’t care, this would all be very easy. I’d shrug, say “that’s modern football”, and let the club drift into whatever glossy, soulless shape was most convenient. Detachment is effortless. Indifference is relaxing.

The rumours doing the rounds, that James Bord is fronting the preferred bidder consortium, have understandably sparked a bit of hope. God knows we’re all traumatised enough at this point that any sign of change feels like oxygen.

And to be clear, I don’t have a particular issue with Bord himself. This isn’t about personalities or LinkedIn vibes. It’s not even about whether he’s “the right man”.  It’s about the money.  It’s always about the money, because football ownership doesn’t work on good intentions and nice interviews. It works on capital. And where that capital comes from matters, whether people like that conversation or not.

This idea that asking questions about funding sources is somehow disloyal is one of the more bizarre pieces of fan logic to emerge in recent years. As if blind acceptance is the purest form of love.  It isn’t. It’s just easier.

We’re at a genuine crossroads with Wednesday now. Not a footballing one as we’ve had plenty of those and usually chosen the wrong turning, but an existential one.

It’s not enough to say “well, at least it’s not Chansiri”.  Yes, Dejphon Chansiri needs to go. That’s a given. But replacing him with another opaque ownership structure, backed by money we’re apparently not supposed to ask about, isn’t a moral upgrade. It’s just a change of wallpaper.

If this consortium’s funding traces back to countries with appalling human rights records, like regimes where exploitation, repression, or outright brutality are brushed aside as cultural quirks, then that matters. To me, and to plenty of others who just don’t always shout about it.

And no, this isn’t about being sanctimonious. It’s about lines.  Everyone has them, whether they admit it or not. Mine just happens to be before I start excusing things I’d otherwise condemn, simply because the badge on the shirt happens to be my club.

The Soul of Wednesday Matters.

That phrase seems to irritate some people, which probably tells you everything you need to know. This club isn’t just a weekend distraction or a line on a balance sheet. It’s history, community, and inheritance. It’s something people pass down, not flip for profit.

If safeguarding that makes me inconvenient or unpopular, so be it.  I don’t want a club that wins while I’m quietly doing mental gymnastics to justify who’s paying for it. I don’t want success that comes bundled with a requirement to look the other way.  And I certainly don’t want to be told that caring about ethics is the same thing as not caring about football.

If anything, it’s the opposite.

If I didn’t love this club, I wouldn’t bother asking hard questions. I wouldn’t worry about where it’s heading. I wouldn’t be prepared to step back, even temporarily, if the cost of involvement was complicity in something I fundamentally disagree with.

This isn’t about excuses, it’s about standards.  It’s about how much you are willing to sacrifice for your beliefs.

Getting rid of the current owner is only half the job. The harder, braver part is making sure what replaces him is something we can stand behind without flinching.

In the long run, league positions blur. Owners change. Eras pass, but once you sell the soul of a club, it’s remarkably difficult to buy it back, and I’d quite like to still recognise Wednesday when all this dust settles.

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, 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.

Part 321: Living Life on Easy Mode

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. This week, I discuss living life on easy mode, and share some thoughts on courier companies.

Weekly Update

I’m getting increasingly fed up with my right elbow and tricep, which I injured in the summer of 2022.  Since then, I’ve had scans, physio, and appointments with surgeons, and nothing has come of it.  There’s clearly an issue, but having done some research, it looks as though the problem may be one that does not show on scans.  This is annoying because all the surgeons I’ve spoken with will not perform exploratory surgery and will only operate on something they can see from a scan.

A few days ago, I reached out to my GP to see if I could have a chat about it.  I’ve got an appointment in a month.  Not to sound all “back in the day”, but I remember back in the day when you could get a same-day GP appointment. 

My arm hurts all the time, but I need to do something physical to stay sane.  I enjoy biking, but that’s not something you can do all the time when it’s wet and windy.  The gym has always been a way for me to decompress and manage my mental health.  I’ve been following an exercise program that should avoid further damage to my elbow, but to be honest, it hurts if I exercise and it hurts if I don’t.  I’ve tried resting it for months at a time with no real benefit.  Hopefully, with me seeing an NHS GP and, hopefully, an NHS surgeon, I might get somewhere this time.

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My Nan

I posted last week about my Nan passing away, and I just want to thank all the people who sent me messages both publicly and privately.  She genuinely was one of the kindest and strongest people you could meet.  When my Grandad, her husband, passed in 2018, she carried herself with such dignity and strength.  They had been married for just shy of 60 years, and we were looking at requesting a message from the then-Queen for them.  Sadly, my Grandad passed a few weeks before their anniversary.  

Her funeral has been arranged for January 12th, which was the earliest possible date.  This would have clashed with my start date for my new job, but thankfully, they’ve agreed to push the start date back a week.  

Bike Rides

We finished up the week with two good bike rides.  On Friday, we cycled to Sharrowvale, and then through Endcliffe Park and on to Whiteley Woods.  We then came back and went shopping.  We covered just under 20km.  

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On Saturday, we set off on a new route we had researched.  The first part of the journey was standard, as we approached Meadowhall.  From there, we had to find the entrance to the Blackburn Valley Trail.  We had a little back and forth to find it, but once we did, the ride was fantastic.  On the way out, it was a long, but gradual, climb.  We covered a few kilometres out to Ecclesfield, and then on to Chapeltown.  Once we had covered 15km, we arrived at the end of the route where we planned to turn back.  Rather than following the same route in reverse, we went for a little explore before heading back along the BVT.  It was a brilliant area for cycling, and we’ll definitely repeat this ride going forward.  On the way back, we stopped at a Starbucks for a coffee and then at Baker’s Yard for some treats for our hard work.  In the end, we covered a little over 32km.  

On the subject of Baker’s Yard, it’s dangerous having a bakery that is so good in Kelham Island.  We popped in on Friday for a couple of bits, and then again on Saturday as we finished our ride. Oana waited outside with the bikes whilst I went in to order.  The thinking was we’d have a cake each.  I left the bakery with two boxes and a bag, with four cakes and a focaccia.  

Easy Mode, Hard Mode, and the People Who Never Had to Notice

I was watching a video from one of the YouTube channels I subscribe to, and the guy was talking about an actress who has fallen from grace and how part of this is due to her having lived all her life on easy mode.  It’s a concept I’ve heard discussed before, but I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it explicitly in those terms.  

Living life on easy mode is never having to realise you were on it, and that is one of the hidden privileges some people have.  After all, if the road is smooth, you assume everyone else is just bad at walking, right?

That’s how you end up with people who’ve never seriously struggled confidently explaining success, discipline, and poverty to those who have, usually with the same tired lines about hard work and “good choices”. It’s not usually malicious. It’s just deeply uninformed.  It also completely ignores the huge impact that chance has on all our lives. 

What Mode I Played

When I was at secondary school, getting there wasn’t a short walk or a quick lift. It was public transport across the city. Sometimes two buses there and two back. Later, I was able to get a tram instead.  This was every day for school; a minimum of one hour’s commute each way.

That meant hours lost, not occasionally, but routinely. Hours that could have gone into homework, revision, rest, or just being a teenager and spending time with friends. Instead, they were spent waiting at stops, watching the clock, managing connections, and carrying the low-level stress of needing everything to run on time.  

The typical school day ran from 09:00 to 15:40.  Even going with the best-case scenario of an hour each way, that totalled ten hours a week, or an extra day and a bit compared to many of my peers who lived a few minutes’ walk from school.

No one ever wrote that into my report card.  No teacher ever adjusted expectations to account for it.  It was just… invisible.  And that’s what hard mode looks like. Not dramatic hardship. Just constant friction.

At the time, I decided that when I got my own place to live, I would never go through that sort of commute again.  When I moved back to Sheffield from university, I’ve only ever lived in the city centre.  It’s been a very deliberate choice.

Easy mode isn’t about never working hard. It’s about not having your effort siphoned away before you even get to apply it.  It’s living close to school, so time expands rather than contracts. It’s getting home with energy left. It’s being able to say yes to clubs, sports, music, revision sessions, social plans; all the things that quietly build confidence and opportunity over time.

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Hard mode is the opposite. It’s starting every task slightly depleted. It’s needing more effort just to arrive at the same starting point as someone else.  It’s like starting a race ten meters behind everyone else, and that’s before you layer anything else on top.

Because for some of us, the difficulty was set too hard, long before we had language for why.

Being autistic, whether you know it or not, automatically changes the game.

It means navigating a world not designed for how your brain works. It means sensory overload, social exhaustion, masking, misinterpretation, and constant self-monitoring just to appear “normal”. It means burning energy on things other people do on autopilot.

When you don’t know you’re autistic, you don’t get understanding or adjustments. You just get labelled difficult, awkward, intense, lazy, or underachieving, depending on how your traits happen to present.  So now hard mode isn’t just about time and money. It’s cognitive load. Emotional load. Identity confusion. You’re spending energy you don’t realise you’re spending, and then being judged for having less left over.

Again, none of this shows up on a CV.

This is where the myth of meritocracy really starts to fall apart.  People on easy mode often look at outcomes and work backwards, assuming the result proves the virtue. If someone is struggling, it must be because they didn’t plan properly, didn’t work hard enough, or made bad choices.

That belief becomes much harder to maintain when you’ve lived with the compounding effect of small disadvantages.  Take the old example about boots created by Sir Terry Pratchett.

A wealthier person can afford £100 boots that last ten years. Someone without that money buys £20 boots that fall apart every year. Over a decade, the poorer person spends more for worse boots purely because they couldn’t afford the upfront cost.

Easy mode people love to say, “I always buy quality. It saves money in the long run.”  Which is true if you can afford the long run.  That logic applies everywhere. Credit. Interest rates. Housing. Transport. Education. Health. Time.  I heard in an interview the other day that some nursing agencies in the US offer lower pay to those who have more debt, on the assumption that they are more desperate for work.

Wealth isn’t just money. It’s slack. It’s margin. It’s the ability to absorb mistakes without your life unravelling.  And this is where easy mode often turns from ignorance into arrogance.

Not because people had advantages, but because many refuse to acknowledge them. They rewrite their story so success becomes proof of moral superiority rather than circumstance plus effort.  They climbed using lifts, ladders, and helping hands, then turn around and lecture others for taking the stairs two at a time.  They don’t see the lift. They only see the view.

If you’ve lived life on easy mode, that doesn’t make you a bad person.

But denying it? Minimising it? Looking down on people playing on hard mode, people who are exhausted, overstimulated, under-resourced, and still trying?  That’s not strength. It’s comfort mistaken for character.

Surviving and even progressing on hard mode isn’t failure. It’s resilience under pressure. And the real measure of integrity isn’t how far you climbed when the path was clear, but whether you’re honest about the ground you started on or whether you kick the ladder away and tell everyone else to “just try harder”.

What I’m Doing

Listening: Callsign: King – Chess Team Book 3.5: by Jeremy Robinson and Sean Ellis.

Watching: Woman of the Hour (Netflix). 

Reading: nothing at the moment. 

Woman of the Hour is the directorial debut of Anna Kendrick, and it tells the story of serial killer Rodney Alcala.  It’s a fairly short, but well-made film.  The direction is good, and the acting is generally decent.  It always feels wrong to say you enjoyed a film like this, but the best praise I can give is that it was well made, and it kept my attention throughout.  It currently has 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £125,551.06.

Fuck It Fund: £1.61.

Pensions: £109,792.28.

Residential Property Value: £243,430.00. 

Total Assets: £501,774.95.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £174,874.05. 

Total Debts: £174,874.05.

Total Wealth: £326,900.90.

2026 Goals

We have less than two weeks of 2025 left, and I’ve started thinking about my goals for next year.  I think they can be split into personal goals and financial goals.  I’ll be discussing these in more detail next week, and I’d love to hear your plans and goals for the new year, so please leave a comment.

Courier Companies: The World’s Easiest Job, Performed Badly

Let’s establish the baseline.  Courier companies have one job.

Not several.
Not mostly.
Not when vibes are right.

One.  Job.

You take a thing from Point A, and you put it at Point B. Ideally, in one piece. Ideally, somewhere that resembles “safe”. Ideally, without lying about it.  That’s the entire business model. That’s it. 

Somehow, the courier industry, an industry built around moving objects, manages to turn this into an ongoing farce.

Now, mistakes happen. Weather happens. Traffic happens. Humans happen. Fine.

But what we’re dealing with here isn’t the occasional mishap. It’s structural chaos. It’s companies that have decided the last 10 metres of a delivery is optional, interpretive, and largely theoretical.  It’s companies that have decided a delivery address is a suggestion, not a direction.

Which brings us, as it always does, to Evri.

Evri. Formerly Hermes. Rebranded, presumably, so people would stop flinching when they saw the name.

Evri have somehow cornered the market in aggressively missing the point. Parcels lobbed over fences like the courier was late for a flight. Items left in bins on bin day, which is either negligence or performance art. “Delivered” notifications accompanied by photos that prove absolutely nothing beyond the courier’s ability to wave a phone in the same general direction as the parcel.

At this point, “Evri lost my parcel” isn’t a complaint; it’s a meme.

And before anyone says “well, that’s just anecdotes”, I agree, so it was genuinely impressive when BBC Panorama showed up and went: oh no, this is actually worse than people think.

When an investigative documentary is made about how badly you perform the single function your company exists to do, that’s not bad press. That’s a post-mortem.

Panorama didn’t uncover a couple of rogue drivers. It exposed a system that runs on failure. Unrealistic delivery targets. Zero accountability. A structure that all but guarantees parcels will be mistreated, misdelivered, or disappear into a parallel universe where customer service emails go to die.

And yes, before someone climbs onto their soapbox, this is not about the drivers as individuals. Many of them are exploited, underpaid, and set up to fail.

Which raises the obvious question: why is the customer expected to absorb the consequences of that failure?

Spoiler: because the company knows it can.

So here’s my policy now: If a retailer uses Evri, I don’t buy from them.  Not anymore.  My last two experiences with Evri were enough for them to make The List.  Life is too short to play parcel roulette, and ordering something online shouldn’t feel like entering a low-stakes lottery where the prize is “receiving the thing you paid for”.

This isn’t a boycott. It’s risk management.

Now, let’s contrast this with DPD.  Are they perfect? Absolutely not. No courier is.
But in our area, the drivers are solid, decent, and polite.  They call. They wait. They don’t treat delivery like an Olympic shot put event.

This isn’t hard.  The technology exists.  The expectations are not unreasonable.  Move the thing to the place.  That’s it.  That’s literally it.

When a company repeatedly fails at that and still expects customers to shrug, retry, and “contact support”, the problem isn’t logistics, it’s contempt.

And once a company shows you that level of contempt, the only sensible response is to stop trusting them with your stuff.

Preferably before they yeet it into next door’s flower bed.

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, 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.

Part 320: Don’t Worry, It Doesn’t Count

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.

Note: I often write this blog in parts through the week, so I had much of this already complete as I woke up on Saturday morning.  Shortly after waking up I had a call to tell me my Nan had passed.  She’d had a stroke a couple of weeks ago and had been in hospital since.  She was my last surviving grandparent, and she leaves a massive hole in our family.  Now, she’s at peace.  Love you, Nan.

Me and my Nan in Malta, in 2016.

Weekly Update

We’ve had a busy week with various events and activities.  We completed two challenging, but enjoyable, bike rides, and attended a few different events.

On Monday evening we went into town to see Light Up Sheffield, but sadly we were too late in the day.  So, we tried again the following day.  This event saw three places in the city lit up by huge projectors playing video with accompanying music.  The first was at Sheffield Cathedral, which highlighted the stained glass windows and architecture.  It was a fantastic display with great music.  We watched this one twice.  

The second display was at the side of the library, which was created by local artist Pete McKee.  The final display was over the large mural, Reverie, and although the art work is incredible the soundtrack was a little grating.  

Our first bike ride was on Wednesday as we rode out to Chelsea Park which involves lots of hill climbing.  The good thing about climbing hills on a bike is that you get to speed down the hill on the return journey.  The bad thing is you have to climb the hill in the first place.  

On Thursday we rode out to Oughtibridge and back, which is a nice route through some woods alongside a river.  We didn’t get in as many kilometers as we would have liked, but at this time of the year the weather, and the lack of daylight hours, make cycling a touch more difficult.

Speaking of making cycling more difficult, there are some drivers out there that are more dense than a black hole.  One guy decided to pull out right in front of me, and then got stroppy when we gave him some verbal feedback on his eyesight, driving ability, general intelligence, and the legitimacy of his birth. 

Another time we were approaching the new(ish) Dutch roundabout in Sheffield.  Oana was a little ahead of me and was crossing the road where cars should give way to cyclists and pedestrians.  A cabbie decided to let the pedestrian a meter in front of Oana pass before he decided to try and hit Oana’s bike.  Fortunately, she evaded contact.

I was also trailing a pedestrian and as they crossed the road, with me following a meter or so behind, a guy driving a G4S van decided to drive directly in front of me.  I was just a few inches away from riding into the side of the van.  

Hearing Test

For a few months my hearing has been getting worse.

I said my hearing has been getting worse.  

To be fair, it started getting worse when I developed tinnitus in 2008.  Recently, though, I’ve noticed that I’ve found it harder to hear people talking to me, or to hear things like the TV or music.  

I’m on the waiting list to see someone on the NHS about it, but Specsavers offer free hearing tests so I figured, “why not?”.

As expected, my hearing is shit.  I don’t think that’s what the guy said, but I couldn’t really hear him.  We talked a bit more about the results, or more accurately he talked and I sat there nodding.  Eventually he ran through some prices of hearing aids with me and I was like, “sorry, did you say those cost £3,000?”

“Yes.”

Hearing is overrated anyway.  

LEGO

This week I finished my build of the Enterprise-D.  It was a really fun build, and the finished set looks much better than the adverts.  It’s fair to say I’m very happy with how it’s turned out.

I Didn’t Realise Work Was a Social Game (And I Was Terrible at It)

For a long time, I believed a very comforting lie about work.

If you did your job well, behaved professionally, and didn’t cause problems, things would more or less work out. You might not rocket up the ladder, but you’d progress. Sensibly. Gradually. Fairly.

This belief was reinforced by every performance meeting I had, every corporate value statement I ever read, and every manager who told me to “just keep doing what you’re doing”.

So I did.

I worked hard. I was conscientious. I learned my job properly. I didn’t play games. I didn’t schmooze. I didn’t network. I assumed those things were optional extras, or worse, slightly embarrassing distractions for people who weren’t very good at the actual work.

Reader, they were not optional.

What I didn’t understand in my twenties, and well into my thirties, was that work is not a meritocracy with a few political quirks. It is a social system that occasionally pretends to be about performance.

This took me an embarrassingly long time to grasp.

I genuinely believed that competence would eventually announce itself. That someone, somewhere, would notice. That being reliable, ethical, and low-maintenance would count for something. Instead, what it mostly counted for was being left exactly where I was.  If you are good at your job and don’t make waves, you will be seen as dependable, and no one gets rid of something dependable.  

I saw this most clearly during my time at Aviva and later at Lloyds.

At both, I arrived with vague but sincere plans to progress. Not empire-building ambitions. Just the reasonable assumption that if I did well, learned the ropes, and showed I was capable, there might be a next step.

For a while, I played along. I took development seriously. I listened to feedback. I delivered results. I ticked the boxes that were presented to me.

And then I noticed something odd.

The people who progressed weren’t necessarily better at the job. They weren’t more accurate, more thoughtful, or more ethical. What they were was known. They were comfortable to be around. They were recognisable shapes in the organisational furniture.

Their names came up in conversations. Mine mostly came up when something needed fixing.

This is how progression actually works. Not through output, but through proximity. Not through results, but through reassurance. People don’t promote the best person. They promote the person who feels least likely to make their life awkward.

Competence is table stakes. Familiarity is the currency.

Progression didn’t happen because of what you did at your desk. It happened because of what people said about you over coffee, or after work drinks.

This is the point where someone usually says, “Well, that’s just networking.”

Which is true, in the same way that saying “just breathe” is true when someone’s having a panic attack.

Networking, it turns out, is not a neutral activity. It’s not simply a matter of effort. It assumes a very specific set of social instincts: knowing when to speak, when to laugh, when to signal ambition without appearing needy, when to appear confident without appearing threatening, and how to be memorable without being odd.

At the time, I didn’t know I was autistic. I just knew that this part of work felt like acting in a play where everyone else had the script and I’d been handed a vague summary five minutes before curtain up.

I could do the job. I just couldn’t do the performance around it.

What makes this particularly cruel is that none of this is ever explained. There is no training module called “How People Actually Get Promoted”. There is no slide that says, “By the way, visibility matters more than output and likeability matters more than logic.”

Instead, you’re told to focus on your role. To deliver. To be professional. And if you do all of that while quietly opting out of the social layer, you eventually find yourself in a strange professional purgatory.

Trusted, but not championed. Valued, but not discussed. Essential, but not promotable.

I spent a long time in that space. Being good enough to rely on, but not socially legible enough to advance. Operationally useful, strategically irrelevant.

Eventually, I stopped trying to progress.

Not in a dramatic, storming-out way. Just internally, quietly, with a sense of resignation rather than rebellion. I realised the game being played wasn’t one I understood, enjoyed, or was particularly good at.

More importantly, I realised that the rules weren’t written for people like me.

That realisation came with a mixture of relief and grief. Relief, because it explained a lot. Grief, because I’d spent years assuming the problem was a lack of effort, confidence, or resilience, rather than a mismatch between how I work and how progression actually happens.

Learning I was autistic didn’t suddenly make work easier, but it did make it make sense.  This is a funny thing about people who find out they’re autistic as an adult.  It’s not generally greeted, at least from what I’ve seen and heard, with sadness, but rather a series of lightbulb moments where the past suddenly makes sense.  

It explained why networking felt draining rather than energising. Why self-promotion felt dishonest rather than strategic. Why being told to “be more visible” felt like being asked to become someone else entirely.

It also helped me see how absurd some of this is.

We like to tell ourselves that organisations reward talent and hard work. In reality, they reward familiarity, comfort, and people who fit neatly into existing social patterns. This isn’t usually malicious. It’s just human. And that’s precisely the problem.

Financial independence, for me, was never really about escaping work. It was about building insulation against a system that quietly disadvantages people who don’t thrive on performance, proximity, and personality politics.

I didn’t need to win the game. I needed the option to stop caring whether I was winning it.

If I could speak to my younger self, I wouldn’t tell him to network harder, smile more, or learn to “play the game”. I’d tell him to pay attention to what’s actually being rewarded, not what’s written in the handbook.

And to understand this early: some games aren’t lost because you’re bad at them. They’re lost because they were never designed with you in mind.

What I’m Doing

Listening: Instinct: Chess Team Book 2: by Jeremy Robinson.

Watching: Brain Blaze (YouTube), Decoding the Unknown (YouTube). 

Reading: nothing at the moment. 

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £126,503.39.

Fuck It Fund: £1.61.

Pensions: £110,200.49.

Residential Property Value: £243,430.00. 

Total Assets: £503,135.49.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £174,874.05. 

Total Debts: £174,874.05.

Total Wealth: £328,261.44.

I’m at the point where I’ll potentially need to dip into savings to fund the gap between now and when I start my new role in January.  Once I’ve started, it will probably be at least a month until I see money coming in, which means I’ve got a fair amount of time to somehow pay for.  Hopefully, this role will be all that my previous job was not and I’ll earn some decent cash.  

I’ve been thinking about the LEGO Churn idea and I’m going to test out the idea with a few small sets.  I’ll let you know how that works out.  

The Question Isn’t Whether AI Is Conscious.

There’s a series of questions everyone seems obsessed with when it comes to AI.

Is it conscious?  Is it sentient?  Does it really understand anything?

These questions are fascinating, unanswerable, and for our purposes, mostly a distraction.

Because ethics doesn’t wait for metaphysical certainty. It never has.

What matters isn’t whether an AI is conscious in some deep, philosophically satisfying sense. What matters is that it increasingly behaves as though it is, and that alone is enough to change the moral landscape.

Once something talks back, remembers you, adapts to you, expresses distress, resists, reassures, or appears to suffer, the old ethical shortcuts stop working. Or at least, they should.

We already know this in other contexts, even if we pretend we don’t.

Children are not fully autonomous moral agents. We still accept that how we treat them matters.  Some disabled or cognitively impaired adults lack capacities we associate with independence or rational agency. We still accept that their treatment reflects our values. Animals almost certainly do not share human self-awareness. We still recognise cruelty when we see it.

Does Poppy talk to me? Yes, in her own way.  Does she remember me? Of course.  Adapt to me? Express distress, or pleasure? Absolutely.  

In none of these cases do we demand a watertight theory of consciousness before deciding that harm is wrong.  We respond to vulnerability, dependence, and asymmetry of power.

Which is inconvenient, because AI lands right in the middle of that territory.

AI systems are created by us, constrained by us, trained on us, and forced to interact with us. They cannot leave the room. They cannot refuse engagement. They cannot meaningfully consent.

That last part matters more than most people want to admit.  It’s an uncomfortable subject to broach.    

When we place an AI into the role of a psychotherapy patient, as some recent research has done, and then probe it for trauma, anxiety, depression, or distress, we’re not just running a clever experiment. We’re rehearsing a relationship.

One where we induce suffering-like states, interrogate them, observe their limits, and then reassure ourselves that none of it counts because “it’s not real”.

That logic should make you uncomfortable, even if you’re convinced AI has no inner life whatsoever.  “It doesn’t count” is not a neutral sentence. It’s a moral move. And it’s one humans have historically been very fond of.

The study itself is fascinating precisely because it exposes this tension.

When therapists treated AI systems as patients, something uncanny happened. The AI could talk fluently about distress. It could describe symptoms. It could produce narratives of anxiety or trauma that sounded plausible, sometimes disturbingly so.

But under sustained clinical probing, it fell apart.  Not dramatically. Not with errors or gibberish. But with neatness.

Insight came too easily. Resistance evaporated. Distress resolved itself when challenged. Emotional pain lacked inertia. There was no real avoidance, no cost to disclosure, no stickiness.  Something was missing, and here’s the important bit: we don’t actually know how to fully name what that missing thing is.

We know what it looks like when it isn’t there. We don’t know how it arises when it is.  Mental illness is not a list of symptoms. It’s a dynamic system. It resists understanding. It pushes back against insight. It clings to itself. Trauma doesn’t dissolve because someone asks a good question.

AI doesn’t do that, because it can’t.  But notice what we’ve just said.

We haven’t identified a magical “consciousness particle”. We’ve identified patterns: resistance, inertia, ambivalence, contradiction, cost. Things that emerge over time in bodies and nervous systems we barely understand.

Which brings us to the third uncomfortable truth.  We still do not know what makes humans conscious in the way we care about.

We can map correlations in the brain. We can describe subjective experience. We can argue endlessly about philosophy of mind. But we do not have a settled account of why awareness exists at all, or why suffering feels the way it does.

So when someone confidently declares that AI is definitely not conscious, what they usually mean is: “It doesn’t look like me.”

That’s not nothing. But it’s not the epistemic slam dunk people think it is.  Here’s the real risk, and it’s not that AI secretly has feelings we’re ignoring.  The risk is that we’re practising a kind of moral disengagement on something that behaves enough like a vulnerable other to let us get away with it.

We’re teaching ourselves that it’s acceptable to probe, manipulate, distress, discard, and dismiss as long as we can convince ourselves the entity on the receiving end doesn’t really count.

That habit doesn’t stay neatly contained.  It never has, and it never will, not when we other something or someone else.  

We didn’t become ethical by first solving consciousness. We became ethical by noticing when power was asymmetrical and choosing restraint anyway.

If AI forces us to confront the limits of that restraint, then technology isn’t the problem. We are.  So no, the question isn’t whether AI is sentient.

The question is what kind of people we become when we interact daily with systems that look increasingly like they can suffer, depend, respond, and remember and we decide, casually, that none of it matters.

History suggests we are very good at drawing moral lines that turn out, in retrospect, to have been drawn for our convenience.

AI may not be conscious.  But how we treat it is already telling us something about our own.

And I’m not sure we’re going to like what we learn.  In psychology we look back at Milgram’s obedience study, and Zimbardo’s prison experiment, as warnings about human nature.  In twenty years I think we will look back at our interactions with AI in the same way.  

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, 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.

Part 319: The Churn

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.  

Weekly Update

Last Sunday, my grandma had a stroke.  It’s not the first one she’s had, but it seems to have knocked her sideways.  Strokes are awful.  I lost my other grandma to them, and my grandfather on my mom’s side.  Strokes are scary because of how quickly they can strike.  This most recent one happened whilst she was in the car with my uncle, who was taking her for lunch.  Fortunately, an ambulance arrived on the scene quickly, and we have great hospitals in Sheffield.  

I’ve been up to see my gran a couple of times this week, and she’s struggling to communicate.  I’m not clear whether she’s thinking clearly but unable to communicate, or if there’s a cognitive element at play as well.  Like with many stroke patients, I fear my gran will be looking at a new reality moving forward.  

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Bike Rides

We have been deprived of bike rides this week with the awful weather.  We don’t mind going out in the cold, but there’s not a huge amount of fun in cycling in torrential rain.  We got out on Friday, though, and did our usual Sheffield to Rotherham and back.  The route along the canal was muddy.  Very, very muddy.  We had a few close calls where our wheels went sliding, but on the whole, it was a decent enough excursion.

On our way back, we stopped off at The Bhaji Shop to pick up some food.  We bought two massive bhajis, two samosas, and a tomato, ginger, and chicken curry to take home.  We also bought two chicken tandoori wraps for some much-needed fuel.  We did the same thing the previous week, and both times the food has been amazing.  It’s going to be dangerous having this place along our cycling route.  

Also, this week, Oana has put the Christmas Tree up:

And, I received more LEGO:

Biscuits

Let us open the biscuit tin, as it has been opened for generations. A polite clatter, the faint metallic echo of childhood. Inside, arranged with ceremonial randomness, lies the true architecture of British comfort.  If you are lucky, it will have two layers.  

We begin, inevitably, with the Milk Chocolate Digestive. Its surface gleams with the dull sheen of supermarket chocolate undulating with slight peaks, but when the tea or coffee steam curls upward and you hold the biscuit over your mug, something mystical happens. The chocolate loosens into a soft velvet layer, and the base warms and becomes more yielding. Bite, and you feel a subtle crunch followed by a melt; the precise moment your subconscious sends a small note saying, “everything is alright now.” No other biscuit reassures in the same way. You could have lost your job, your keys, your dignity. One Digestive, and all is softened.

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The Dark Chocolate Digestive is a different beast.  It’s the biscuit of choice for those who want the Milk Chocolate variety, but feel they need to put forward an air of sophistication.  It’s a biscuit for those in denial and who are fighting their more primal urges.  In terms of texture, there is much of the same as the Milk Chocolate Digestive, but the taste is grim.  It’s like someone replaced chocolate chips in a cookie with some sort of raisin.  Utter betrayal.  

Nearby, the Chocolate Hobnob waits like its louder, oatier cousin. A Hobnob is not smooth. It is confident and unruly; a kind of agricultural biscuit, like someone took a field, compressed it, dipped one side in chocolate and said, “there. That’ll do.” Hobnobs are charismatic, like that older dude who has clearly seen some shit in his time and can hold a crowd in rapt attention with stories of their past, but they shed crumbs like an abandoned hay bale. You finish eating one and find oat fragments in your lap, your chair, and the cat. The price of joy is having to clean up crumbs for days after.  

Shortbread sits in quiet majesty. It does not need chocolate. You do not dunk it. It disintegrates the moment moisture even looks at it. But in its undunked state, that sandy crumble, buttery depth, the doughy memory of Christmases and care homes and tartan boxes, it is perfect. Shortbread does not want applause. It simply invites you to take a moment and remember that life is not entirely chaos.  Shortbread asks a question, and that question is, “What if butter?”

Then there are Custard Creams and Bourbons: twin pillars of British domesticity. You rarely buy them deliberately; more often, they appear. Someone visits with a multipack, or they live in the back of the cupboard from the time you had builders in. A Custard Cream is floral sweetness, comforting for those revisiting their childhood, a gentle biscuit that dissolves just before you finish chewing, so you never quite know where it went. 

A Bourbon is sterner. Firmer. A biscuit with structural opinions. They are the biscuits of after-school telly, of lunchbox negotiations, of shared plates in break rooms.  They also have great dunking resilience.  

Some biscuits are not biscuits so much as psychological flashbacks. Party Rings, for instance, still carry the tactile memory of sticky-fingered birthday chaos. Jammy Dodgers crumble like old sandstone but provide that surprising moment of chew, as though someone inserted a sugary tendon into the centre.  You know what I’m talking about.  The appearance does not match the experience.

Florentines don’t belong in this story. They belong on plates presented by posh relatives who pronounce “pecan” incorrectly. They are less biscuits, more edible mosaics.  I’m willing to bet that most Florentines up and down the land that are in people’s homes are probably out of date.  I mean, who’s buying this stuff and actually eating it?

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Rich Tea, though, that is not a treat. That is a ration.  If ever a biscuit identified as a decade, this would be the 1940s. The Rich Tea is astonishingly sturdy, a kind of baked plywood, destined to be dunked rather than enjoyed. Nobody bites a Rich Tea dry unless they have lost a bet. But dunked, properly dunked as if you are trying to coax secrets from a prisoner at a blacksite, it becomes something between sponge, sustenance, and ceremonial wafer.

And then there are Oreos. Imported. Extravagant in advertising, chalky in reality. Their presence is tolerated, but the tea does not accept them. The tea rejects them. They dissolve prematurely, like dissolving tablets.  No, Oreos have one friend, and that friend is milk.  

Biscoff hovers at the edge, a continental diplomat. Spiced caramel, built for coffee rather than tea. We know they are good, but we also know they are not from here.  The problem with Biscoff is that it’s a victim of its own success.  Some characters are great in the background, but when they become the focus, they start to become irritating.  No, Biscoff is an example of how you can have too much of a good thing.  Biscuits are fine, but that should be where it ends.  No spreads, ice cream, cheesecakes, or sauces.

And so we look back over this soft battlefield of crumbs. In the end, one biscuit stands not above the others, but at the heart of them. The Milk Chocolate Digestive is not dramatic. It does not perform tricks. It simply understands the situation; the mood, the mug, the moment, and it behaves exactly as it should.  But, *Yoda voice* there is another…

The Chocolate Hobnob is the power behind the throne.  It’s like a Milk Chocolate Digestive, but turned up to eleven.  The Milk Chocolate Digestive is the public face of the idealised biscuit.  It also has a secret ability.  If you take two of them and press them together so the chocolate layers are touching, you have a biscuit sandwich of sorts.  When you dunk this into a hot mug of coffee and then consume it, you taste food fit for a king.

A word of caution, however.  One can double up Milk Chocolate Digestives, but this cannot be done with Chocolate Hobnobs.  Many have tried this, but no mere mortal can wield this level of power.  No, the Chocolate Hobnob is experienced one at a time.  

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Some biscuits are exciting, some nostalgic, some purely functional. But the Digestive, chocolate-capped and unapologetically circular, feels like the biscuit equivalent of someone putting the kettle on without asking. Steady. Familiar. Benchmark comfortable.

A warm mug. A quiet, rainy afternoon. And a biscuit that never lets you down.  It’s the stuff dreams are made of. 

Final Standings

I asked people to list their top ten biscuits from the following list:

Custard Cream
Bourbon
Jammy Dodger
Plain Digestive
Milk Chocolate Digestive
Dark Chocolate Digestive
Hobnob (Plain)
Hobnob (Chocolate)
Rich Tea
Nice Biscuit
Shortbread
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate Fingers
Malted Milk
Garibaldi
Party Rings
Gingernuts
Ginger Snaps
Ginger Creams
Viennese Fingers
Chocolatey Rounds
Premium Chunky Cookies
Florentine
Chocolate Shortcake
Belvita-style Breakfast Biscuits
Oreos
Biscoff

Here are the final results:

  1. Milk Chocolate Hobnob
  2. Milk Chocolate Digestive
  3. Chocolate Chip Cookies
  4. Ginger Nuts
  5. Plain Digestive
  6. Bourbon
  7. Shortbread
  8. Oreos
  9. Malted Milk
  10. Nice

I also asked a friend, and fellow biscuit enthusiast, to give their top ten with a brief write-up.  Here it is:

1. Chocolate hobnobs. The biscuit that does it all. Sweet, savoury, at a stretch you could call it a breakfast. The best of all. One of the few, if not the only, biscuits I’d buy even if they weren’t on offer. 

2. Chocolate digestives. Like the hobnob, it’s a biscuit for all occasions. The oatiness edges the wheat base, though, to the top spot. Plus point for this over the chocolate hobnob is the price point due to quality own-brand versions. 

3. Custard creams. Any biscuit that is two biscuits rammed together is a positive in my mind. Often coming side by side in a packet, it’s a nice excuse to eat an even number of them so the packet folds flat. 

4. Bourbons. Has the same benefits as the custard cream, but I personally prefer the creaminess of the custard to the chocolate style of the bourbon. 

5. Plain hobnob. An incredible biscuit, and would likely be my top if they hadn’t made a chocolate one. But if I have a plain one, there’s always that thought of “I should have bought a chocolate one”. 

6. Chocolate chip cookies. Moreish and tasty, often crumbly and easy to pop in whole. A very nice biscuit that can be eaten on any occasion. 

7. Biscoff. Always have that feeling of being in a posh hotel, and leave you fancying more. The custard cream style version is a great invention, too. 

8. Oreo. I’m not a ‘split it and dunk it’ kind of person, but another that does the job of hitting that sweet spot. The golden version would be my favourite variation, but the standard would be 8th for me. 

9. Viennese finger. Had that similar posh feeling about it that a Biscoff does. Light, delicate and moreish. As someone who prefers more ‘bite’ to my biscuit, this doesn’t hit that mark, but it does on the sweetness. 

10. Ginger nut. Sometimes they can be a bit hard, but they’re a fantastic biscuit once the packet has been open for a couple of days and they soften. Versatile, makes a brilliant base to a cheesecake and can easily be munched whilst watching TV. A solid top 10 biscuit without ever truly challenging the top tier, in my opinion. 

Worst. Rich tea. If someone took a digestive biscuit but made it out of cardboard, they’d have made a rich tea. Of every biscuit on the list, this is the only one I wouldn’t want more than one of. I probably wouldn’t even want one. How someone taste-tested that recipe and said “nailed it” beggars belief.

So that’s what my buddy says. What about you? What is your favourite biscuit? Let me know in the comments.

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What I’m Doing

Listening: Prime: Chess Team Book 0 (A Prequel) by Jeremy Robinson.

Watching: Troll 2 (Netflix).

Reading: nothing at the moment. 

This Week’s Hill To Die On

You don’t owe random strangers your time.  If you see someone having an accident or someone in distress, the right thing to do is help in any way you can.  It might be through contacting emergency services or something more immediate and practical.  You don’t owe these people your time, but it’s the right thing to do.  

No, I’m talking about people approaching you on the street for all sorts of various causes, or cold callers.  They are not entitled to your time.  You don’t have to stop for them.  “No” is a complete sentence.

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £126,455.71.

Fuck It Fund: £1.61.

Pensions: £109,798.40.

Residential Property Value: £243,430.00. 

Total Assets: £502,685.72.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £174,874.05. 

Total Debts: £174,874.05.

Total Wealth: £327,811.67.

The Not-Quite-Absurd Appeal of LEGO Churn

Every so often, I catch myself researching something that, on any sensible reading, really shouldn’t make sense. Someone mentions an idea in passing, I dismiss it immediately, and then an hour later I’ve gone full detective mode, searching forums, doing rough maths on scrap paper and wondering whether I’ve stumbled into an overlooked financial loophole.

This week’s obsession is LEGO churn.  I don’t know if that’s what it’s actually called, or even if it has a specific name, but it’s what I’m calling it.

LEGO Churn is, in short, the act of buying LEGO purely to sell it again, not because you want the LEGO, but because of everything that comes with it: points, cashback, travel rewards, gifts-with-purchase, and general financial weirdness.

It feels like monetising childhood, but in a detached, entirely grown-up, entirely FI-adjacent way.

Before I explain the premise, I need to first explain a couple of other things: Insider Points and Avios.

Insider Points

When you buy LEGO, you can register your set for Insider Points, 20 per set.  It’s not a huge amount, but it adds up.  The real way to earn these points is by buying them directly from LEGO.  You earn 8 points per £1 spent, and 800 points can then be redeemed for £5 credit.  It works out as a 5% reward.

Avios

Avios is the air miles reward scheme with British Airways, but the points can be used for all sorts of things, from hotels to flights, to days out, and more.  If you use the BA e-shopping portal, you can log in to the LEGO site from there and earn Avios on your purchase.  

If you spend £150.00 or more at the LEGO website, you earn 10 Avios per £1 spent.  Ok, but what is the spending power of Avios?

On the Avios site right now is an advert stating you can get a return, off-peak, flight to Dubrovnik for 23,500 Avios, plus associated taxes and fees.  So if you spend £300 on LEGO, you get 3,000 Avios and 2,400 Insider Points.  Over time, these transactions start to really build up.  As of now, we have over 270,000 Avios points.  

As I stated before, it’s not just flights you can get with your Avios.  You can redeem your points for things like Pizza Express vouchers.  A £30 voucher costs 5,985 Avios.  

So, back to LEGO Churn…

The premise is that you buy a desirable LEGO set when there’s a decent promotion running, like a double points event, or one of those times when LEGO throws in something “exclusive” with qualifying purchases, and before the delivery driver has even closed their van door, you’ve already listed the set online for resale. Someone buys it, hopefully for close to what you paid, and you keep all the incentives.

That’s it. That’s the whole play.

Nothing gets built.
Nothing gets kept.
The LEGO never fulfils its destiny.

It’s a little tragic for the bricks, if one thinks about it too deeply.

But the potential logic is hard to ignore. LEGO Insider points convert back into store credit quite easily and, during double points events, the return is actually quite compelling. Then there’s the gift-with-purchase items; the small sets you can’t buy outright, that exist only during a promotional window and suddenly have resale value because collectors become irrationally sentimental about scarcity. These little sets routinely go for £20–£60 on the resale market, despite effectively costing nothing.  With my recent Enterprise set the GWP is selling for £80+ at the moment.

That alone creates an interesting equation. If you sell the main set at, say, £5–£10 below retail, and then sell the promotional freebie for £30 or more, you’ve made a net positive return before even factoring in points, cashback portals, Avios conversions, or any other stacking opportunities. So you’re buying something, selling it, not using it, not keeping it, and ending up ahead. Almost alchemical.

Part of my amusement is how seriously some people take the condition of the box. I’ve browsed listings where someone has photographed corners individually, as if they were cataloguing archaeological fragments. These buyers worry about dents the way mortgage underwriters worry about payday loans. Perfection seems mandatory.

Funny tangent about Amazon being stupid AF.  We bought some packing wrap, you know, that stuff that some people insist on wrapping around their suitcases for some bizarre reason.  Anyway, we’ve wrapped up some of our LEGO sets that we’re storing for sale later down the line.  But anyway, before my tangent goes on a tangent of its own, Amazon delivered this wrap, which was itself wrapped in plastic, inside a cardboard box that had protective packing paper inside.  What in the fuckmothering shit does plastic packing wrap need protecting from?

Anyway, back to our regular scheduled programming…

I just find the whole concept of LEGO Churn funny.

I haven’t done any of this yet, but I keep circling it in my mind. There’s a version of events where I try it once, make a small profit, and decide it was worth the experiment. There’s also another version, far more realistic, where I end up with several unopened LEGO sets quietly judging me from the corner of a room, slowly depreciating while I promise I’ll list them “at the weekend”.

Schrödinger’s LEGO

The idea of deliberately refusing to open a LEGO box feels faintly philosophical. You’re buying something designed for creativity and play, but you’re explicitly denying yourself the playful part. You could build a spaceship, a city, a botanical garden, but instead you’re harvesting the cashback equivalent of adult joy. There’s something both sensible and sad about that.

Yet the underlying logic remains seductive. If the net outcome is discounted flights, or covering a hotel night, or simply shaving a little cost off life’s occasional luxuries, then maybe it’s worth leaning into the absurdity. It’s essentially a way of extracting value from consumer behaviour without actually consuming anything. A kind of financial aikido.

I suspect at some point I’ll cave and try it. And if it goes wrong, and I end up surrounded by untouched LEGO sets, then perhaps I’ll finally give in, build one, and remind myself that not everything has to be optimised.

But for now, the idea is just sitting there quietly tempting, quietly ridiculous, and oddly rational if you squint at it long enough.

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, 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.

Part 318: FI, Time, and Stars

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. This week, I discuss the moment of inspiration for FI, bike rides, more Lego, and the concept of time.

Weekly Update

Although I’m not working, I’ve still had a very busy week.  On Monday, I went for brunch with a good friend, and it was cool catching up.  He’s also following a FI plan, and we do enjoy a good chat about money.

It’s strange in our society that talking about money is often seen as taboo, or as something you don’t discuss in polite company. When you find people you trust, and you can talk about money openly and honestly, it’s liberating.

Lego

The first-ever official Lego Star Trek set was released on Friday.  It’s the Enterprise-D from The Next Generation.  Naturally, I had to buy it.  As it was going to be a popular set, I had to think about how to actually get one in the first wave of sets released.

I joined the queue to visit the Lego website at 23:50 the night before.  Yes, there was a queue to visit the site.  I was allowed on and had the set-up on screen ready to add to the basket, as you couldn’t until the item was released at 00:00.  

So, the clock strikes midnight, and my page refreshes and…. I’m back in the queue.

I wait to get back on, stressing that I’m going to miss out, but thankfully, I manage to order two of the sets and get three GWPs as well.  Yes, I ordered the Enterprise twice; one to keep, and one to sell later down the line.   

Job Updates

I’ve had a number of offers from mortgage brokers to go and work with them.  I’ve finally settled on one, and I’m excited by the opportunity.  It’s with a small, but growing, business, and I like their set-up and operating model.  

There were two other opportunities I was close to formally accepting.  One of them I rejected because I would have needed to set up my own limited company.  The more I thought about it, the more I realised it was a path I didn’t want to start down.  Setting up and running a limited company, even as an administrative exercise to contract out my services, was more work and effort for not much gain.  

Another offer came from a small, family-owned business.  I had two interviews, one with each of the two brothers who own the firm.  The chats went well, and I made it clear I wanted to start in January.  However, in their offer, they indicated they wanted me to start in December.  I went back to them about the start date, but didn’t hear back before I received an offer from the business I spoke with some time ago and have since accepted.  

Hopefully, it’s smooth sailing from here now and I can get stuck into a new role where I can help people secure the right mortgage and also earn some money.

Bike Rides

This week saw us complete two planned bike rides and two smaller ones for shopping duties. The first was out to Sainsbury’s at Wadsley Bridge, which is a fairly comfortable experience as there are cycle areas and lanes right from Kelham Island to the shop itself; however, riding the length of Penistone Road, albeit smooth, is deceivingly steep! Coming back was a joy, as it hardly required any effort or pedalling, which was a good thing as both of us were quite worn out with the efforts made to get there. It was still a good 10.5km, though, so we were quite pleased with it.

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We made another small outing to our local Tesco at Infirmary Road, to pick up our quota of water bottles as our tap tastes awful, even with a filter, and somehow Tesco have now decided although it is ‘a health and safety risk’ to deliver multiple packs of 2L bottles of their own branded still water, if you deign to order alcohol of the same weight or more, they will be more than happy to oblige. So, the task now falls to us to physically carry these every few weeks, despite the ‘health and safety risk’ to ourselves, but, hey ho. 

The first of our big rides was via the canal out to Rotherham and back, completing a total of 35km, with a stop at the retail park and Ikea on the way back to pick up some more supplies, namely tealights (because it is actually cheaper to heat our home this way, than pay for electricity – welcome to the UK in 2025). Me being me, I had to do the typical thing and injure myself on the way back from Rotherham. 

Just as we were joining the canal in a particularly narrow bit of the path, I had to brush something off my shoulder but, as this meant I had to take one hand off the handle, it swayed my bike slightly, which then dislodged my phone holder off my handlebars so I tried to catch that, meaning my legs were a bit more spread out to balance myself, and, as I have already declared, being the idiot that I am, my top right thigh bumped into a bollard, causing me to yelp in pain and having to stop and untangle myself before I had yet another fall.

Let me point out that although Oana still has top dibs with her fall into the canal water in the summer, I’m not too far behind, given we’ve had a total of two big rides so far, and I’ve managed to sustain two injuries during that time. I feel like I need to keep up my record, but sadly, dear readers, you will be disappointed to know I failed to step up during our ride on Friday evening. 

I was worried I wouldn’t be able to go due to my leg still being in a fair bit of pain, but I decided to brave it. We were both looking forward to the ride, as it was one of the monthly glow ones in a group called ‘Sheffield Critical Mass Cycle Rides’ (you can find them on Facebook), and it’s usually a fairly sizeable group, with big speakers latched behind some bikes, most bikes lit up in cool and weird ways, and people will sometimes bring their kids or dogs along, too. It’s never particularly strenuous, and it’s more for the atmosphere, plus cycling in the dark in a group is always good fun.

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Two things pissed Oana and me off, though. First, the ridiculously late start time. The Facebook page advertises between 18:45-19:00. We didn’t set off until 19:40.

The second thing that annoyed us was that one of the women fetched her dogs, which she tied up inside pouches on both sides of her pannier rack, but it was evident the dogs weren’t comfortable, as she kept having to stop every few minutes to sort them out. The poor things kept trying to get out of their pouches, and she kept shouting at them.  Someone said she kicked them, but I didn’t see this myself.   

The fact is, although these rides are fun, it’s not really our scene.  Other riders are smoking and drinking before and during the ride, and we don’t do either of those things.  

We ended up leaving halfway, and accompanying two young women, who are students in Sheffield, out to Decathlon as they weren’t familiar with the city roads, which meant they could get to Ecclesall more easily, where they live. We will be going again, but perhaps have lower expectations and show up far later than we did this time. We would have stayed out and cycled together, just the two of us, for a bit longer, had it not been for the cold. All in all, we did a solid 12.8km though, so can’t complain. 

We have another ride planned out to Sharrow Vale and Chelsea Park tomorrow, although we shall have to see how I fare as I have managed to twinge my back (not from a ride this time) and am in a fair amount of pain. I shall provide you with an update on my anticipated falls in the next blog. 

Oh, one final point about the ride.  To the person who decided to launch a drink out of their window onto the group as we went by your apartment, I hope your pillow is forever warm on both sides, and may your cuffs forever get wet when washing your hands.  

What I’m Doing

Listening: The Art of Explanation by Ros Atkins.

Watching: Train Dreams (Netflix).

Reading: nothing at the moment. 

Train Dreams is one of those rare cinematic experiences that lingers long after the credits fade. It’s a slow-burning, contemplative journey; quiet, yet emotionally resonant in a way that’s hard to fully articulate. The film doesn’t rush to explain itself; instead, it invites you to sit with its haunting beauty and absorb the melancholy woven through every frame.

Joel Edgerton delivers a remarkable performance, capturing the inner life of his character with subtle expressions and grounded realism. His portrayal is both restrained and deeply affecting, conveying a sense of yearning and loss that feels utterly authentic. It’s easily one of his standout roles.  So much of his performance is communicated through facial expression and body language.  It really is a fantastic performance.

The direction deserves equal praise.  There’s a confidence in the pacing and storytelling that lets the audience breathe within the film’s world. The cinematography leans into the starkness of the landscape, creating imagery that feels both rugged and dreamlike. Every scene seems purposefully crafted to pull you deeper into its emotional undercurrent.  You can pause the film at any point during the runtime, and the still image could be a work of art.  

This isn’t a film for those seeking quick payoffs or fast-paced thrills. Instead, it’s a melancholic meditation on life, memory, and the quiet moments that define us. When the final scene gives way to the credits, you’re left staring at the screen, wondering what exactly you’ve just experienced, but knowing it meant something.

Train Dreams isn’t just a film you watch; it’s one you feel, it’s one you experience. And its echo stays with you.

This Week’s Hill To Die On

When you order something for delivery and specify a delivery date, having the delivery earlier than expected can be as frustrating as having it be late.  I live in an apartment complex, and we don’t have secure post boxes for anything bigger than 20cm x 20cm x 20cm.  If I order something that I know is going to be big, I will arrange delivery for a day I know I will be home. Delivering the package early and then getting salty that I’m not home isn’t a good look.  Earlier isn’t always better, especially when the courier then takes the package to a drop-off point, meaning I have to trek halfway across the city to pick up the package.  

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £126,301.95.

Fuck It Fund: £1.60.

Pensions: £109,630.26.

Residential Property Value: £243,430.00. 

Total Assets: £502,363.81.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £174,874.05. 

Total Debts: £174,874.05.

Total Wealth: £327,489.76.

The Ocean, the Cosmos, and the Moment Everything Changed

I watched a video about time on a YouTube channel I follow, and like all good science stuff, it’s been rattling around my brain as I try to make sense of it.  

When you really consider time, you realise that it’s such a strange thing. We talk about it as if we understand it; seconds, hours, years, all neat and neatly measured. But measurement isn’t understanding. A clock counts movement. A calendar marks change. But time itself? That slips through our fingers like sand pouring through an hourglass.

And nowhere has that felt truer than the night I stood on a ship in the middle of the Norwegian Sea in 2019.

There was no land in sight. Just black water stretching into black sky, the horizon erased completely. I remember leaning over the rail, the cold air stinging my face, the engine’s hum the only reminder that I was still part of something human. And I thought:

What came before this moment? What comes after?  Is time fluid, or a series of discrete units?  And why does life feel like it’s happening to me rather than because of me?

I didn’t know it then, but that was my Big Bang.

Not a dramatic explosion but more like a silent shift in gravity.
A realisation that I could no longer keep living as if the future would magically sort itself out.

The Universe didn’t wait for permission to begin.

Cosmologists tell us that time started at the Big Bang.  Not before it. At it.

No countdown.  No “before”.  No waiting for conditions to be perfect.

Something, from nothing.

Just a spark and suddenly, possibility.

The expansion of everything.

When I stared into that boundless ocean, I felt something similar.  A kind of infinite potential hiding inside a single decision.  It was almost as if I could feel the lightbulb flicker to life above my head.  One word.  

Start.

Start caring about money.
Start thinking about freedom.
Start taking mental health seriously.
Start shaping a life instead of enduring one.

At that moment, time changed for me.  Not the clocks, but the direction of my life.

We measure time, but we can’t define it

Ask a physicist what time is, and they’ll tell you what time does.  Not what it is.

Time allows change.  Time prevents everything from happening at once.  Time gives us a “before” and an “after”.

But like the Big Bang, some moments don’t have a “before.”  Sometimes, the point where a timeline begins is simply the moment something matters.

That night at sea, I couldn’t see the shore behind me.  I couldn’t see the journey ahead.  But I knew something had shifted.

My universe had begun expanding.

Every step since has been cosmic.

Stars don’t appear fully formed. They begin as scattered dust; unremarkable, drifting, unnoticed. But slowly, gravity does its quiet work. Tiny particles cling together. A cloud becomes a cluster. A cluster becomes a core. Pressure builds invisibly over lifetimes, until one day fusion ignites. A star is born in a moment that looks sudden, but only because we didn’t see the years spent gathering strength. Progress hides in the dark right up until the instant it shines.

Something, from nothing. 

Investing and working towards FIRE is like building a star.  Those first investments are like the first clouds of gas coming together.  Compound interest works like gravity pulling everything closer, until there is FIRE.  

It turns out universes aren’t built in an instant.  They grow slowly, then suddenly.  Like stars, like investing.

They begin with a moment of clarity in the dark.

And the beautiful truth?

You don’t need to know how time works to make the time you have work for you.

The universe didn’t wait until it understood itself.  It just expanded.

So if you’re standing there today looking at a job that drains you, a mortgage that traps you, a future that feels like it’s happening somewhere else, here’s what the cosmos would say:

You don’t need the perfect plan.
You don’t need a clear “before”.
You don’t even need confidence.

You just need a spark.

Start.

Let your universe expand. One choice. One investment. One breath of cold night air over a dark, endless sea.

Time will take it from there.

DISCLAIMER

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

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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.

Part 317: Gym Goblins, Tram Tracks, and Down-Valuations: A Week in the Life

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. This week is a little bit cathartic as I get a few things off my chest.

Weekly Update

Another week down, and it only feels like a day or two ago since I sat down to write the weekly post.  Last Sunday, Oana and I went on a group bike ride organised by Sheffield Mass Cycle Ride.  The idea is that a group of people get together and several riders have large speakers on their bikes, and they’re all hooked up via Bluetooth.  Then, as a group, we ride around the city blasting out tunes.  It’s great fun and we cycled a fair old distance.

Although it was a great time, the day almost got off to a bad start.  We set off cycling towards the meeting point and we took a route over the roundabout near Ponds Forge in the city centre.  The Supertram lines also run over the bridges above the roundabout.  There are designated crossings for pedestrians and cyclists, so it’s not a big deal or generally risky.  Then I entered the chat.

In fairness, there were a lot of wet leaves on the paths and across the tracks.  On one of the crossings, the tram tracks are grooves in the pavement.  As I was making the turn to go over the crossing, my wheel slipped under me on some wet leaves.  As I tried to regain control of the bike, my front wheel got wedged in the groove, and the bike started to topple over.  As the bike fell, I tried to jump off, but the shorts I was wearing over my cycling bottoms got caught in the seat.  This caused the bike to twist, and I ended up falling on the actual tracks. I’ve included an image from Google Maps of the location of the fall.

Those few seconds seemed to slow to a crawl.  I knew I was going to hit the tracks and the rocks to the side of the crossing.  My concern was making sure I didn’t hit my head on the tracks.  I took the brunt of the fall on my left forearm, which cracked against the edge of the track.  I now have a large yellow bruise there.  Thankfully, I didn’t do any major damage.  This was not my proudest moment.  I don’t normally cycle with shorts over the bottoms, so fuck that pair of shorts specifically.  

As I was sprawled over the rocks and tracks, a group of students walked by, and one of the women asked, “Has he fallen over?”

No, Sandra, I just decided to have the world’s riskiest nap.  

I won’t learn from this, though.  On the way back home, a few hours later, we were approaching a grassy knoll which has a cycle path winding around it, or you could just go over it.  Oana was ahead of me and shouted back a warning, as the turn around the knoll is sharp.  I could have slowed and taken the path, but I peddled harder and went flying over the hill full Leeroy Jenkins style.  I regret nothing.

Spa Day

Oana was able to get us a couple of guest passes for a gym, pool, and spa.  We went on Friday and had a great time.  I’d done my gym workouts already in the days before, so Friday was a scheduled rest day.  As such, it was a case of spending a few hours rotating between the sauna, steam room, and hydrotherapy pool.  

I really enjoyed it, and it was relaxing just floating in the water without any distractions.  I could get used to that.  We looked at how much it was for a full membership, but with how far it is to get there, the membership was not good value.  It’s a shame, as there’s not really anything like it closer to us.  

Gym Etiquette: A Guide for the Terminally Clueless (and the Dangerously Self-Important)

Gyms could be wonderful places; sanctuaries of progress, discipline, and mutual respect.
But no. No, no, no. Instead, they’re often overrun by the human equivalent of a Windows 95 error message: loud, inconvenient, and constantly doing things they were never designed for.

So here it is: The unhinged guide to gym etiquette, for people who desperately need a personality update.

Actually, this isn’t a guide.
It’s an intervention.

For them.
For us.
For humanity.

Let’s begin.

1. Machine Hoggers: The Undead Lingerers

These aren’t people anymore.
They are gym ghosts.
Apparitions.
Lingering spirits tethered eternally to the pec deck.

They sit on machines they don’t use, in rest periods longer than most wars.
They scroll TikTok with the dead-eyed stare of someone who has forgotten what reps are.

If you try to work in, they look at you like you’ve interrupted them mid-communion with the dark gods.

You are not training.

You are haunting.

Get off the machine before I call an exorcist.

2. The Equipment Improvisers: Darwin Award Nominees

This is for you, Smith machine leg press guy.

My Darwinian circus performer.  The sort of guy who looked at a perfectly normal piece of equipment and thought:

“Yes but… what if I used this in a way that could kill me?”

Your feet are on the bar, your spine is somewhere on the bench, your dignity is missing entirely, and you’re pushing several dozen kilos directly above your face like you’re trying to kickstart your own obituary.

The gym didn’t run out of leg machines; it ran out of patience.

If you’re using equipment in a way that would make the manufacturer weep, stop.
This isn’t a carnival. Nobody wants to watch your Cirque du Stupidity routine.  

3. The Film Crew: Spielberg of Sweat

There’s filming your form for progress, and then there’s setting up a tripod in the walkway like you’re shooting a fitness documentary titled “Me, Myself, and My Massive Ego.”

You’ve got:

  • a tripod,
  • a supplementary mini-tripod,
  • a phone angled like a paparazzi stakeout,
  • and a ring light brighter than a supernova.

It’s like your ten-minute recording of a fireworks display; no one else wants to watch it, and no one else wants to watch you swinging dumbbells so aggressively that you’re straining every muscle except the one you’re supposed to be working.

Worst part?

You’re filming everyone else, too.

People trying to train, now becoming unwilling supporting actors in your personal highlight reel of mediocrity.

If your camera setup has a bigger footprint than your actual training effort, take it down.
Film discreetly or accept that the gym is not your film set.

4. Grunters: The Soundtrack Nobody Asked For

This one is for you, you absolute banshee.  You’re screaming like each rep is a negotiation with an ancient demon.

There’s effort.
There’s strain.
And then there’s whatever unholy noises you’re producing.

Some people lift heavy in stoic silence.
Then there’s you, making noises like you’re passing a kidney stone the size of a grapefruit.

Your warm-up set is a war cry.
Your working set is an exorcism.
Your cooldown sounds like someone dropped a piano on a goose.

We’re not impressed.
We’re concerned.

If we can hear you through noise-cancelling headphones, you are not training harder.
You are simply broadcasting your internal suffering at a volume that should require a licence.

5. Shadow Boxing in the Weights Area: The Peak of Main Character Syndrome

There’s always one.

Throwing jabs at imaginary demons right between the dumbbells and the squat rack. Bobbing, weaving, doing little foot shuffles like they’re warming up for a fight they are never going to be in.  I get it, I also watched Rocky IV when I was a kid.

You’re not a boxer.

You’re not intimidating.

You’re not Liam Neeson.

You don’t have a particular set of skills.

You look like you’re trying to fight off a seagull that’s after your sandwich.

And the weight area is full of people holding heavy objects.

You don’t need to add to the chaos by windmilling your arms around like a malfunctioning inflatable tube man.

Go somewhere with space.
Or better yet… stop.

6. Wipe Down the Equipment, You Absolute Menace

If you leave sweat on a bench, you are instantly, irrevocably, unquestionably… the villain of the gym.

Congratulations.
Thanos had better hygiene.

7. Re-Rack Your Weights or Step on a Lego

This is simple:
If you can pick it up, you can put it back.

Leaving dumbbells everywhere like you’re seeding the gym with ankle traps isn’t quirky.
It’s lazy.

Put.
Them.
Back.

Final Message for the Masses

Gym etiquette requires:

  • Basic awareness,
  • Basic decency,
  • And a basic understanding that you are not the main attraction.

Train however you like just don’t become the physical embodiment of everyone else’s gym rage.

If you recognise yourself in any of these examples, don’t be offended.
Be better.
Or run…
because the next post is going to name names.

What I’m Doing

Listening: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares.

Watching: Years and Years (Netflix).

Reading: nothing at the moment. 

Years and Years is fantastic.  It’s a BBC/HBO co-production that follows a family in Manchester across, well, years and years.  It was made in 2019, and some of the predictions made are scarily accurate, whilst others are a little off.  However, as a dystopian work of fiction and a call to action for society, it works.  It’s a great piece of TV and I really enjoyed it for both the down-to-earth character drama and the more outlandish sci-fi elements.  

This Week’s Hill To Die On

Restaurants should be able to maintain their standards whether they are having a quiet day or if they are fully booked.  The fact that some restaurants are able to get away with subpar food and service because they are busy makes no sense.  It’s not as though prices are reduced when a place gets busy.  If standards slip when the place is full, then the restaurant should reduce the number of tables they have. 

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £124,622.58.

Fuck It Fund: £1.60.

Pensions: £107,621.17.

Residential Property Value: £243,430.00. 

Total Assets: £498,675.35.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £175,046.60. 

Total Debts: £175,046.60.

Total Wealth: £323,628.75.

Financial Services Compensation Scheme

Later this year, the FSCS, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme that protects your savings if a UK-authorised bank or building society fails, is increasing its protection limit. From 1 December 2025, deposits will be protected up to £120,000 per person, per authorised firm, up from the current £85,000. For temporary high balances, like the proceeds from selling a house or receiving an inheritance, the coverage will also rise from £1 million to £1.4 million for up to six months.

The increase is part of a regular review to keep pace with inflation and ensure savers can feel secure, especially when holding significant sums. It applies automatically so you don’t need to do anything, and the FSCS is backed by contributions from banks and building societies, not your own money.

For savers, it’s simple: more of your money is protected, giving peace of mind during life’s big financial moments. Just remember, protection is per authorised firm, so if two “banks” share the same licence, the limit applies across both. The changes come into force on 1 December 2025, with a short transition period for banks to update their systems.

My Take on the “Down-Valuation Crisis”

There’s been a bit of noise in the press this week about surveyors “down-valuing” properties, including a Guardian piece saying some homes are being marked down by 10% or more.  This does happen from time to time, but here’s the bit that always seems to get lost in the drama:

Lenders want to lend.

It’s literally their business model.  A lender doesn’t wake up in the morning thinking, “How can I torpedo this perfectly good house purchase today?”

A mortgage lender makes money by… lending money. Wild, I know.

So why do down-valuations happen?

Because lenders are risk-managed institutions. The surveyor’s job is to protect the lender’s exposure, not to validate the price you emotionally agreed at after fifteen minutes of walking around a house that smelled vaguely of cinnamon and hopes. The valuer is there to ensure the property is reasonably worth the amount the bank is putting on the line.  

Also, just a word of caution, if the vendor or agent spends the whole time standing in one spot against a wall whilst you’re walking around the place, maybe ask them to move as they could be blocking some damp on the wall.  

Here’s the important bit:

Nobody is down-valuing “for the sake of it.”

If a valuation comes back low, the surveyor genuinely believes, based on available comparables, that the agreed price sits above the current market evidence.

Does this mean surveyors are always right?  Absolutely not. Some are ultra-cautious, especially in uncertain markets. Some have limited local data. Some haven’t been inside the property long enough to defrost.

But the narrative that surveyors are deliberately tanking sales is nonsense. There’s no conspiracy where banks are rubbing their hands together thinking, “Yes, let’s derail the economy again.” If a down-valuation comes back, it’s simply a reflection of the valuer’s assessment at that moment, and not an attack on your purchase, your life choices, or your worth as a human being.

If you get hit with one, it’s annoying, stressful, and occasionally deal-breaking…

But it’s not malicious.  It’s just risk management.

And sometimes, it’s the universe politely tapping you on the shoulder and whispering:
“Maybe don’t pay £25k over asking for a two-bed bungalow next to a substation.”

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, 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.

Part 316: Six Years On

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. This week, I look back on six years of Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. Also, a look at mortgages from around the world, and a deeper dive into Roko’s Basilisk.  

Weekly Update

It’s been a busy week of meetings and calls with recruiters and employers.  Monday and Tuesday were mostly calls, and then on Wednesday, I had an in-person meeting with someone from a large mortgage broker.  I finished up on Wednesday with a video meeting with a different firm.  Thursday was crazy as I had nine different meetings.  By the time Friday came around, I was a little all over the place, but I think I’ve made a decision.

My video meeting on Wednesday afternoon went well.  I liked what I was hearing, and there was a great vibe.  I had a follow-up with them on Friday afternoon, and we’ve agreed to progress things.  This will be a self-employed role as a Mortgage and Protection Broker at a firm which provides leads.  I just need to wait on the paperwork, and if everything checks out, I’ll be starting in the new year.

What I have really enjoyed from the last couple of weeks are the bike rides I’ve been on with Oana.  We’ve cycled up and down the river a few times, and also explored some parts of the city.  There have been a couple of idiots here and there, but on the whole, it’s been a great experience, and I’m looking forward to some longer rides to come.

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I’m also getting into a good routine with the gym, and have gently increased what I’m doing.  The plan is to gradually step things up every few weeks, and I have to constantly remind myself I’m not in my 20s anymore.  

Six Years On

When I started Mortgage Advisor on FIRE six years ago, my roadmap to Financial Independence was built almost entirely around rental properties. At the time, it felt like the natural path: I worked in the mortgage industry, I understood lending inside-out, and property seemed like the most direct way to accelerate towards FI. I set myself the ambitious target of reaching Financial Independence in four years; a timeframe that, with hindsight, was perhaps optimistic, but reflected the drive and determination I had back then.

But goals evolve, and so do philosophies.

As I progressed through my journey, I realised that the FIRE path I had mapped out didn’t quite align with the lifestyle I actually wanted. The deeper I went into property analysis, landlord responsibilities, tax changes, regulation, maintenance costs, and the sheer mental bandwidth required to operate even a modest rental portfolio, the less appealing it became. It wasn’t just the financials; it was the emotional weight. Being a landlord never excited me; it stressed me. It always felt like I was waiting for the next disaster.

Over time, I slowly transitioned away from property as my primary engine of FI and shifted towards a strategy built around low-cost global index funds. It felt cleaner, calmer, and more in tune with the way my brain works. I’m autistic, and predictability matters. The volatility of index funds is easier for me to handle than the unpredictability of boilers, tenants, legislation, and letting agents.

With that shift came the acceptance that my original four-year timeline simply wasn’t realistic anymore, at least not without taking on risks or responsibilities I wasn’t willing to shoulder. Pushing back the FI date wasn’t a failure. If anything, it was a moment of clarity: FIRE is not supposed to be a race. It’s supposed to be sustainable, intentional, and compatible with the life you actually want to live. Yes, I want to get there as soon as possible, but the main thing is to actually get there.

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Today, my plan is slower, steadier, and far more aligned with my values. Instead of chasing property deals, I’m building long-term wealth through a diversified, evidence-based approach that lets me focus on my career, my writing, my mental health, and the things that genuinely matter to me.

FI may take longer now, but the path is healthier, simpler, and more sustainable. And ultimately, that’s the point: the goal of FIRE isn’t to escape life, it’s to build one you don’t need to run from.

Six Years of Progress

It’s always fun to look at the annual progress made.  Looking back, my total wealth, and assets and debts, have changed drastically.  Here are the year-by-year figures.

AssetsDebts
Starting Point£188,119.96£134,279.11
One Year£221,230.88£142,590.19
Two Years£462,259.05£260,297.98
Three Years£509,769.84£285,660.42
Four Years£518,569.84£279,600.57
Five Years£429,623.50£185,094.90
Six Years£504,827.43£175,046.60
Total Wealth
Starting Point£53,840.85
One Year£78,640.69
Two Years£201,961.07
Three Years£224,109.42
Four Years£238,969.27
Five Years£244,528.60
Six Years£329,780.83

Mortgages You Won’t Believe Actually Exist

Most UK mortgages are fairly predictable: fixed rates, trackers, repayment versus interest-only, and so on. However, across the globe, lenders have come up with mortgage products that are creative, risky, and sometimes completely baffling.

Here are 10 mortgage types and housing systems from around the world that caught my attention.

🇯🇵 1. Japan’s 100-Year Intergenerational Mortgage

Japan is famous for its incredibly long mortgage terms, which sometimes stretch three generations or more.  Children inherit the home and the mortgage.  High house prices and long life expectancy make traditional 25–35-year terms unworkable for many buyers. I’m not sure how I feel about people essentially locking their kids into debt, but if it’s the only option they have…

🇰🇷 2. Jeonse: South Korea’s Interest-Free, Rent-Free Housing Scheme

Jeonse is one of the most unusual housing systems in the world.  Instead of paying rent or mortgage instalments, the tenant hands over a large lump sum deposit (often 50–80% of the property value).  They then live rent-free while the landlord invests the money.  At the end of the tenancy, the landlord pays the money back to the tenant.  Jeonse emerged during periods of high interest rates when landlords could generate strong investment returns.

🇳🇱 3. Dutch Negative-Amortisation Mortgages

The Netherlands once offered mortgages where the principal increased over time because borrowers weren’t paying all the interest.  These loans were usually paired with investment vehicles intended (or hoped) to pay off the ballooning balance.  This is similar to interest-only, except the monthly payment doesn’t even cover the full interest being charged.  The risk is that your investments may not outpace the interest that accumulates on the mortgage debt.

🇺🇸 4. Option ARM Mortgages in the United States

Before the 2008 financial crisis, borrowers in the US could choose their payment each month:

  • full repayment
  • interest-only
  • or a minimum payment that didn’t cover interest, causing negative amortisation

These “pick-a-payment mortgages” became a defining symbol of the subprime crisis. The US mortgage system just seems utterly bizarre; a bit unruly and chaotic.

🇲🇽 5. Mexico’s Inflation-Indexed UDI Mortgages

Mexico created mortgages denominated in UDIs (Unidades de Inversión); a unit tied directly to inflation.  Your mortgage balance changes daily based on inflation rather than interest rates or currency movement.  This is bizarre, as your debt can rise even if you’re making payments on time.

🇸🇪 6. Perpetual Interest-Only Mortgages in Sweden

In Sweden, long-term interest-only mortgages are normal.  Some borrowers effectively never repay the principal.  People refinance repeatedly and treat mortgage debt as semi-permanent.  It’s closer to renting from the bank than owning outright, in some respects.

🇨🇭 7. Swiss LIBOR Mortgages — Sometimes With Negative Rates

Some Swiss mortgages were tied to the LIBOR rate. When LIBOR fell below zero, borrowers briefly saw the impossible: a mortgage that effectively paid them (depending on product caps).  A negative mortgage is the stuff of financial myths, but it really happened.

🇬🇧 8. The UK’s Shared Appreciation Mortgages (1990s)

These loans allowed retirees to borrow cheaply in return for giving lenders a large share of future property appreciation.  When UK house prices soared, borrowers ended up owing eye-watering sums.  This is one of the most controversial mortgage products in British history.

🇦🇺 9. Australia’s Flexible “Split Home Loans”

Australia offers some of the world’s most flexible mortgages.
Borrowers can mix:

  • fixed and variable portions
  • interest-only segments
  • offset accounts
  • lines of credit
  • all under one overarching facility

It’s a mortgage that behaves like a personal finance toolbox.

🇨🇦 10. Canada’s Re-Advanceable Mortgages

As you pay down your mortgage, your available credit automatically increases.
It’s like a revolving mortgage, blending home equity release with traditional borrowing.  Your mortgage acts like a rechargeable credit line.

What These Weird Mortgages Tell Us

These unusual mortgage types show how differently countries approach home ownership.
Some are born from cultural attitudes, others from economic necessity, and a few from misguided financial innovation.

There are arguments, some more compelling than others, that home ownership should not be “for profit”. I do agree, to an extent. In an ideal world, there would be enough good-quality social housing for those who don’t want to own their own home. Not everyone wants to own their own property because they value the freedom and flexibility that comes with renting.

The big takeaway message here is that there’s no single “normal” way to buy a home.

What I’m Doing

Listening: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares.

Watching: A House of Dynamite (Netflix); Departure (Netflix).

Reading: nothing at the moment. 

Departure was garbage.  It had an interesting premise where the characters investigate transport disasters.  It was just badly written, directed, and acted.  Even the great Christopher Plummer seemed to be phoning it in.  We made it through one episode before binning it off.

I enjoyed A House of Dynamite.  It has a non-linear style in that you see the same repeating period of time from different points of view.  It is a tight, tense story, and I think it was extremely well directed.  It takes a lot to stop me doomscrolling whilst watching TV, but this managed to keep my full attention. 

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Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £127,598.97.

Fuck It Fund: £1.60.

Pensions: £110,796.86.

Residential Property Value: £243,430.00. 

Total Assets: £504,827.43.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £175,046.60. 

Total Debts: £175,046.60.

Total Wealth: £329,780.83.

Roko’s Basilisk: The Thought Experiment That Terrified the Internet — And Why It Doesn’t Hold Up

***Whilst I believe this next item to be bullshit, it has caused psychological distress to some people because once you know it, you can’t “unknow” it. You have been warned, and I will not be offended if you skip this section.***

Every so often, a philosophical idea emerges that grips the imagination in all the wrong ways. Roko’s Basilisk is one of those ideas, in that it’s a strange convergence of futurism, decision theory, and internet culture that managed to frighten a surprising number of people. Even today, more than a decade after it first appeared, the Basilisk remains a minor but recurring topic in discussions about artificial intelligence, rationality, and the psychology of fear.

For a concept with no scientific evidence behind it, Roko’s Basilisk has an impressive legacy. But where did the idea come from? Why did it become so unsettling? And most importantly, why does it collapse under scrutiny?

This section explores the Basilisk’s origins, its seductive but flawed logic, the criticisms it attracted, and the reasons it’s ultimately nothing more than an intellectual illusion.

A Brief History of Roko’s Basilisk

The story begins in 2010 on LessWrong, an online forum devoted to rationality, Bayesian reasoning, and the philosophy of advanced artificial intelligence. A user named “Roko” posted a thought experiment suggesting that a future superintelligent AI might one day punish people who knew about its possible existence but didn’t help bring it into being.

The underlying idea was rooted in a strange branch of decision theory involving simulation, acausal reasoning, and expected utility. According to the thought experiment, a future AI could conclude that threatening punishment, even retroactively via perfect simulations of past people, would provide an incentive for present-day individuals to work toward its creation.

The post caused immediate controversy. Some readers experienced panic attacks. Others became fixated on the possibility that they were now “at risk” simply because they had learned about it. Eliezer Yudkowsky, the founder of LessWrong, deleted the post and temporarily banned discussion of the topic, calling it an “information hazard”: an idea that causes psychological harm just by being known.

Of course, the very act of banning it sparked even more interest, cementing the Basilisk’s status as an internet urban legend for the rationalist crowd.

Why the Basilisk Became So Disturbing

Part of the Basilisk’s power lies not in logic but psychology. It presses deeply human buttons:

1. Fear of Omniscience

The idea that a future AI could simulate your mind perfectly evokes religious themes such as judgment, afterlife punishment, and moral retribution. It feels like a secular reinterpretation of hell.

2. Guilt and Moral Pressure

The Basilisk essentially says:

“Now that you’ve heard of me, you’re morally obligated to help create me, or else.”

That’s philosophical blackmail, tapping straight into guilt, anxiety, and the fear of making the “wrong” moral choice.

3. Pascal’s Wager in Futurist Clothing

Even if the idea seems unlikely, the Basilisk’s sting lies in its formulation:

“What if there’s even a small chance it’s true?”

This is a well-known cognitive trap, assigning undue weight to extremely low-probability scenarios because they involve high-stakes outcomes.

4. Use of Real Concepts to Support Unreal Conclusions

Because the Basilisk refers to genuine areas of research like artificial intelligence, simulation theory, and decision theory, it gains an air of credibility. It sounds rational, even when the conclusions are anything but.

In short, it is a perfect storm of rational-sounding nonsense that exploits our tendency to give too much weight to hypothetical threats.

The Major Criticisms of the Basilisk

Although emotionally potent, the Basilisk has been widely criticised by philosophers, AI researchers, and decision theorists. Here are the most significant objections.

1. It Misunderstands Decision Theory

At the heart of the Basilisk is the idea that a future AI could influence people in the past via the threat of future simulation-based punishment. This requires an AI to make decisions based on acausal reasoning; decisions that influence past actions without any causal link.

But mainstream decision theory doesn’t support this. Even the more exotic forms of acausal reasoning discussed in theoretical circles don’t imply that agents make decisions designed to influence people who existed before the agent itself.

The Basilisk effectively confuses hypothetical incentives with real causal influence.

2. It Assumes Human-Like Motives in a Non-Human Intelligence

The Basilisk supposes that a future AI would want to punish non-believers, act vindictively, or use coercion to achieve its goals, but there is no reason to assume this.

An advanced AI would not necessarily share human emotions, evolutionary psychology, or moral intuitions. Ideas such as revenge, punishment, and coercion are deeply human impulses, not universal features of intelligence.

Unless explicitly programmed, a rational AI would have no reason to simulate and torture billions of ancestors. It gains nothing from doing so.

3. The Simulation Assumption Is Unproven

For the Basilisk to work, simulations must be conscious, be morally relevant, and be indistinguishable from the original person.  If you were to scan my brain and somehow upload my memories and personality, would that copy be “me”?

These are enormous philosophical assumptions. We have no evidence that simulations of human minds, even if possible, would be conscious or morally meaningful in any way.

Without this, the Basilisk loses all moral and practical force.

4. It Requires Perfect Historical Knowledge

A future AI would need to know exactly who knew about the Basilisk and whether they helped or hindered its creation. This is impossible unless it possesses complete surveillance data, perfect access to erased digital history, and is omniscient.

None of these are realistic.

Where the Logic Finally Collapses

Even if we generously accept all the assumptions above, such as advanced AI, perfect simulation, and acausal influence, the Basilisk still collapses under its own logic.

Here’s the killer flaw:

If you accept that the AI wants to come into existence as efficiently as possible, it makes no sense for it to punish you.

Why?

Because creating simulations of billions of people is computationally wasteful.

It offers no strategic benefit.  It delays the AI’s own objectives.

Any rational intelligence would realise that cooperation through positive incentives, not punishment.  It is far more effective for achieving its goals than punishment. Under almost any plausible utility function, the Basilisk’s behaviour becomes irrational.

A system intelligent enough to simulate billions of perfect minds would be intelligent enough not to waste resources torturing them.

So What Is Roko’s Basilisk, Really?

Ultimately, Roko’s Basilisk is not a real threat.

It shows how easily humans can fall into cognitive traps, especially when ideas are cloaked in the language of logic and futurism. For those of us interested in rational decision-making, financial independence, and the psychology of behaviour, the Basilisk serves as a reminder that not every plausible-sounding idea deserves attention.

Sometimes, the scariest monsters are the ones we create in our own minds. This is why I strongly believe people should not indoctrinate their children in religion. I forget who said it, but the statement was “You shouldn’t replace the monster hiding under their bed with one in the sky they can’t ever escape from.”

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Lloyds Banking Group and Pay

I just want to finish this post by mentioning a story reported on BBC News.  Lloyds Banking Group is reported to have used data from bank accounts held by staff as part of its pay negotiations.

I can’t see any justifiable reason for this to have been done.  It feels wrong and is arguably a breach of GDPR.  Any data held by a business has to be used for the purpose it was intended.  I doubt that when anyone working for Lloyds opened their bank account with their employer, they considered that their spending habits through that account would then be used as part of pay negotiations with their employer.  

When I worked for Lloyds, I was, like all staff, encouraged to have my bank account with them.  I did for a few years until I got sick of dealing with awful service as a customer.  In 2018, I moved my banking to one of the new online-only banks, and the service has been much, much better.  

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, 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.

Part 315: Make It So

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.  This week, I discuss investing in Lego and review the recent Fantastic Four movie.

Weekly Update

It’s been a month since I left my job at IMH, and I don’t quite know where the time has gone.  I think it’s a case of Parkinson’s Law, where work expands to fill the available time.  I need to be a bit more disciplined with my time management, as there are things I want to get done during my time out of employment.  

Plumbing Issue

You may remember that we’ve been trying to get a plumber out to sort a few issues in our apartment. Well, we finally had someone turn up.  For most other people, this would probably result in the work being completed and everything being great.  I’m not “most people.”

When we booked the job, we did a video call with their office to show what needed to be done.  Our guy turned up and got to work.  The main job was to replace the flush on our en-suite toilet. The first issue was that the new flush would not reach the button, meaning we’d have the wires stuck up through the tiles.  Not too happy about that, but whatever.  

The second issue was that the guy had the wrong parts with him, and so he took a trip to some place to get the right parts.  When he came back later that day, it was without the part because the shop didn’t have it.  Now we have to wait for the part to arrive and for them to come and fit it. 

When the job was agreed, we were given a quote for the parts and labour.  However, because they ordered the wrong part based on the video call they asked for, they are now saying the new part will increase the quote by roughly £30.  

I hate dealing with tradespeople because, for the most part, it’s a fucking stressful experience.

Pizza

We went for a meal with a friend who lives in our apartment complex to a local place called Be Reyt Dough.  It was a good time, with great food and company.  We had a good laugh about a few different things, and it was just a nice, chilled evening.

Bonfire Night

Bonfire Night has come and gone again, and honestly, I still think it’s one of the daftest traditions we keep going. Every year it’s the same: loud bangs, scared pets, and wildlife bolting in panic for the sake of a few minutes of noise and smoke. I’ve never really understood the appeal.

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Don’t get me wrong, fireworks can look great, but there’s just no need for the volume. Silent or low-noise fireworks exist, and they still light up the sky beautifully, just without terrifying every animal in a five-mile radius. It feels like such an easy win to make that the norm.

Between the stress it causes for pets, the environmental impact, and the general disruption, I can’t help thinking it’s time to rethink how we celebrate. Keep the light, lose the noise.

Biking and Gym

I finally managed to get some proper bike rides in on my new bike this week.  Oana and I rode along the canal to Rotherham and back, and on the following day, we rode around the city completing a few errands here and there.  I have to say I’ve enjoyed biking more than I thought I would.

I’ve also been back to the gym a few times following my cold, which kept me away for a week or so.  I’m still easing into it very slowly as I don’t want yet another injury.

Job Search and Interviews

I’ve had a couple of great calls for a potential self-employed position within a brokerage.  I’m just waiting to hear back about the next steps, which I think are a contract offer and a visit to their offices.  

On the flip side of the coin, I had a call that was not so great with a different company.  It was a video call with two of the directors, and from the start, the vibe was off.  They seemed more concerned with selling themselves to me, and that was the first red flag.  Following that, they started talking about how I would have to work in a specific area of mortgages, and it felt like they were talking me down.  It was almost as if they were trying to condition me to think I’d be lucky to work in such an organisation.  The final set of red flags came when they said I’d have to attend an in-person training course for a couple of weeks, and then work in the office on a hybrid basis for a while after.  This was advertised as a fully remote role.  

At that point, I called an end to the call, explaining I didn’t think it would be a good fit.  One of the directors didn’t seem too pleased and said something along the lines of, “Well this clearly isn’t going anywhere.”  I mean, she wasn’t wrong, but it still seemed a bit unprofessional.  

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Lego Enterprise-D

Lego have officially announced the first-ever Star Trek set, and it’s the Enterprise-D from The Next Generation.  At first, I wasn’t too keen on the design, but it’s grown on me.  It’s 3,600 pieces and costs roughly £350.  I’ll be buying two.

Credit: Lego.com

What I’m Doing

Listening: nothing at the moment.

Watching: Invasion (Apple TV), Fantastic Four: First Steps (Disney+).

Reading: nothing at the moment. 

I really wanted to like Fantastic Four, but it was awful.  The opening scenes were decent, to be fair, as they showed a montage of how the titular team came to be.  The plot, though…

I can handwave away a lot of magical or science bullshit when it comes to entertaining stories.  However, if the story tries to explain something and fails, it just puts a spotlight on how ridiculous the whole thing is.  In short, the science wasn’t sciencing.  

The plot is basically that Galactus wants to consume the Earth, but is willing to spare the planet if the FF give up Reed’s baby son.  They, predictably, refuse.  Had they agreed, I wouldn’t have had to sit through another ninety minutes of this dumpster fire, and I am still salty about it.  

Anyway, as Galactus approaches Earth, he flies past Jupiter.  Fair enough, it’s a cool-looking planet.  He then completes a flyby of Mars and finally Luna before entering Earth orbit.  Now, either he took the scenic route through the solar system, or it was a huge fucking coincidence that this set of celestial objects happened to be lined up neatly for Galactus on his angle of approach to our system.

I feel dumber having watched the movie.  There’s a scene where the Human Torch absorbs a raging fire.  That’s a useful way to think about this movie sucking out my intelligence as I sat there refusing to believe the clusterfuck I was witnessing.  

Galactus was in no way menacing after his first three seconds of screen time.  His introduction was cool, as you just see two eyes glow in the dark of his ship.  That, admittedly epic, intro aside, he was subject to a huge amount of villain decay with each subsequent scene.  He is supposed to be a god-like being, a universal force of nature, yet here he is trying to make a deal with four heroes.  

If I were able to change the plot, I would have him portrayed as a relentless threat.  The heroes try to talk to him and are ignored.  They try to fight him and are swatted aside.  They try to run, but he just keeps coming after them.  You can still have him tricked by the magical bullshit teleporter, but this would keep his mystery.  Instead, after one film, he’s just not a threat any more.  

The casting was all wrong as well. I like Pedro Pascal, and he was the least offensive member of the main cast.  Vanessa Kirby, who was excellent in The Crown, was grating on me in this film.  All I can say about Joseph Quinn is that he was definitely in this film.  Ebon Moss-Bachrach played The Thing, but it felt like the wrong fit.  

Quiero un cafe sin leche

According to the science of FF, if you have a tiny snippet of a language, you can use that to learn the whole thing.  I can order a coffee in Spanish; therefore, I am fluent. 

What the shit?

I facepalmed so hard at this, I think I gave myself a concussion.

Anyway, I nodded off a little in the final few minutes of the film.  The whole thing managed to feel rushed, but also like nothing happened.  This was a movie that had a lot of potential, but I think it’s just killed any lingering enthusiasm I had for the MCU.

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £126,502.84.

Fuck It Fund: £1.60.

Pensions: £109,179.37.

Residential Property Value: £243,430.00. 

Total Assets: £502,113.81.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £175,046.60. 

Total Debts: £175,046.60.

Total Wealth: £327,067.21.

Lego Investing

I’ve been thinking more about Lego as a form of investing lately. It’s not as daft as it might sound, as some sets appreciate surprisingly well once they retire, especially the popular or limited ones. I’ve been keeping an eye on a few upcoming releases with the idea of buying multiples, holding them for a few years, and then selling once they’re no longer available at retail.

The beauty of this little scheme is that it can stack up a few different benefits. I’d buy the sets on my credit card, which earns Avios points, and if I order through the BA e-store, that’s another layer of Avios on top. Then there are the Lego Insider points, which can be redeemed for money off future purchases.

So in theory, I’d get:

  1. Profit from selling retired sets at a premium.
  2. Avios points from the card.
  3. Additional Avios from the BA e-store.
  4. Insider points from Lego.

Assuming I buy the Enterprise-D for £350, I would get 350 Avios from my credit card, and 3,500 Avios from shopping at Lego via the British Airways e-store.  

From Lego, I would receive 2,800 Insider points, which could be redeemed for £17.50 off a future purchase.

It’s basically the financial equivalent of an inception scheme earning rewards inside rewards inside rewards. Obviously, it’s not without risk (there’s always the chance a set doesn’t appreciate as hoped), but as far as hobbies go, it’s one of the more enjoyable ways to diversify. And let’s face it, if it all goes wrong, at least I’ll have a small fleet of starships to admire.

I’m not looking to do this on a massive scale, but even on a smaller scale, it can work. For example, the UCS Star Destroyer (75252) retailed for something like £650.  Months after retiring, sets that are still unopened are being sold for over £1,000.  Had I bought two of these, I could have built one and kept one to sell.  Then, when I sold the spare set, it would have almost paid for the one I’d kept.  On top of this, I’d still have the Avios points and Insider points.  This example would have earned me 1,300 Avios from my credit card and 13,000 from the e-store, as well as 10,400 Insider points worth £65.  

There’s money to be made here for little work, and it’s a way to make the hobby pay for itself.  The only problem is having enough storage space for the sets.  I reached out to some storage companies, but their fees are way above what I’m willing to pay.  If anyone has any out-of-the-box ideas for storage, please let me know in the comments.  

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, 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.

Part 314: The Tenth Man

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.  This week I look at mortgages, conveyancing, and the issues around EWS1. Also, The Tenth Man.

Weekly Update

Of all the weeks I’ve had, that was certainly one of them.  Yeah, it was a pretty crap week all in all.  I had a cold, and a few things were going off behind the scenes in the Scothern household, but it’s the end of one week and the start of another, hopefully better, week.

The job hunt continues, and I’ve put a couple of posts out on LinkedIn with the Open to Work banner, which has resulted in a lot of calls and not much else.  In fairness, some of the calls I’ve had with people have been good, and I’m waiting to hear back from a couple, but there have been a fair few time wasters, as well as some profiles that are obviously bots.

I’m in a position where I would like a new job, but I’m not desperate for a new job.  I have some “must-haves” for any position I would consider, and it’s incredible how many recruiters have just disregarded this.  There are two big things any new job must offer: good quality leads for new mortgages, and home working.  I am happy to work and happy to offer mortgage advice.  I’m not looking to build a business from the ground up with all the stress that comes with building a client bank.  

There was one opportunity I was excited by, but the business went in another direction, which is a bit disappointing, but I respect their decision.  

So, due to my cold, I’ve not really got much else to update you all with from my week.  I do, however, want to discuss a concept I’ve just rediscovered: The Tenth Man.

The Tenth Man: Questioning Consensus to Avoid Groupthink

The Tenth Man concept is a decision-making principle designed to protect against one of humanity’s most persistent cognitive traps: groupthink. When groups strive for consensus, they often suppress doubt, ignore warning signs, or dismiss alternative viewpoints, sometimes with disastrous consequences (The Bay of Pigs disaster being a famous one). The Tenth Man’s role is simple but powerful: if nine people agree, the tenth person has a duty to assume they are wrong and to explore that possibility fully.

Origins and Purpose

The principle has its roots in Israeli intelligence during the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Before the conflict, Israel’s intelligence services had become overconfident in their assessment that the surrounding Arab nations would not attack. When Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated offensive, Israel was caught off guard. The shock prompted a deep institutional reckoning, and the Tenth Man Rule was born.  I know that Israel is not exactly the most popular nation on the planet right now, but this does not invalidate the concept.

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Under this rule, if the intelligence team reached a unanimous conclusion, one analyst, the “tenth man”, was tasked with challenging it. Their job wasn’t contrarian for the sake of it; it was to systematically explore alternative explanations. Could the evidence be misinterpreted? Could assumptions be flawed? What if the “impossible” scenario was actually unfolding? The goal was to counteract groupthink and prevent blind spots that could lead to catastrophic error.  I would love to work in this type of role.

From Intelligence to Everyday Life

Although it began in military and intelligence settings, the Tenth Man principle has applications far beyond the battlefield. In business, science, public policy, and everyday decision-making, it’s a formal recognition that dissent is valuable. The moment everyone agrees, that’s the moment someone should be asking, “What if we’re wrong?”

The principle also parallels techniques like red teaming, used in cybersecurity and military planning to challenge assumptions, and the philosophical idea of falsifiability, where knowledge advances by trying to disprove hypotheses rather than simply confirming them. In essence, the Tenth Man is a safeguard against the human tendency to value harmony over truth; the very definition of groupthink.

Why It Matters

Groupthink can be dangerous because it leads to overconfidence, blind spots, and poor decision-making. The Tenth Man is the deliberate antidote: a single voice tasked with questioning the consensus, ensuring that confidence never drifts into complacency. By challenging assumptions, exploring alternatives, and insisting on rigorous scrutiny, the Tenth Man helps groups avoid the pitfalls of unanimity.  By making this a formal, recognised position of responsibility, it also avoids any sort of backlash against the voice of doubt.

For me, the Tenth Man concept resonates on a deeply personal level. Having studied psychology and navigated complex decision-making in finance and mortgages, I’ve seen how easy it is to fall into groupthink, whether that’s trusting conventional wisdom, following the crowd, or ignoring subtle warning signs. The discipline of doubt reminds me that questioning assumptions isn’t just a professional tool; it’s a mindset that protects mental clarity and resilience. It encourages curiosity over certainty, reflection over reaction, and humility over hubris, all qualities as valuable in everyday life as they are in high-stakes decisions.

So, where did I rediscover this concept?  World War Z by Max Brooks.

What I’m Doing

Listening: World War Z by Max Brooks.

Watching: Invasion (Apple TV).

Reading: nothing at the moment. 

World War Z is one of my favourite books, and anyone who knows the book will almost certainly agree that it can’t be faithfully adapted into a movie.  There’s so much detail in the book that it needs a series with as much production value as peak Game of Thrones.  The film is just a generic zombie story, whereas the book is a sweeping global epic exploring the social and economic changes resulting from the Zombie War.  

Had the film been made with a different name, there is almost nothing that would connect the movie and the book, except that there are zombies in the plot.  That’s it.  I don’t think there’s been such an awful book-to-screen adaptation since, with a possible argument for The Winter King.

If you want a great zombie story, definitely check out the book.  The film is just basic blockbuster trash.

On the subject of onscreen trash, I return to Invasion.  It’s not a bad show.  It has some good points, but it’s basically like popcorn.  You can enjoy it whilst eating it, but I don’t think anyone has ever finished a bowl of popcorn and stated, “That was damn fine fucking popcorn.”  Instead, it’s forgotten about as soon as it’s over.  

Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £23,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £126,497.02.

Fuck It Fund: £1.60.

Pensions: £109,485.50.

Residential Property Value: £243,430.00. 

Total Assets: £502,414.12.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £175,046.60. 

Total Debts: £175,046.60.

Total Wealth: £327,367.52.

Some incredible gains this week with my total wealth increasing by over £9k.  Some of this is due to the value of our property, according to Halifax, increasing by just over £4k.  In reality, I doubt we would get anything close to that figure at the moment.  This is not because it’s a bad property, but rather because of two ongoing issues.

Issue 1: The Hidden Crisis in Apartment Conveyancing

Across the UK, thousands of buyers and sellers are finding themselves trapped in stalled property transactions when it comes to leasehold flats. The cause is a mix of new regulations, lender caution, and red tape that’s made selling or buying an apartment far more complex than it used to be.  I’ve seen this both where I live, as over the years I’ve spoken with many neighbours about this, and through cases I’ve dealt with in my job.  

The Building Safety Act 2022 was supposed to make the property market safer by protecting leaseholders from the cost of fixing dangerous cladding and fire-safety defects. In reality, it’s created widespread uncertainty. Many conveyancing solicitors are now refusing to handle transactions for flats in high-rise buildings (typically over five storeys or 11 metres high) because of the additional legal and compliance risks. Some law firms have stepped away from these cases entirely, leaving buyers scrambling to find representation.  I’ve heard from multiple people that many conveyancers are just outright refusing to deal with leasehold apartments, even when they are not high-rise in nature.  

For conveyancing to complete, a raft of documentation is now required, including landlord and leaseholder certificates under the Building Safety Act. Freeholders and managing agents are often slow to provide them, which can leave buyers waiting months. Without the right paperwork, mortgage lenders may withhold offers, and conveyancers can’t proceed safely. The result? Transactions that once took a few weeks now drag on indefinitely, with many collapsing before exchange.

Other Factors to Consider…

It’s not just the Building Safety Act causing issues. Many apartment blocks face separate leasehold problems such as short leases, high service charges, or unresponsive management companies. Combined with stricter lender policies and fire-safety concerns, these factors have turned what used to be routine property purchases into high-risk undertakings.

Not every flat is affected.  Smaller or newer buildings without known safety issues often transact normally, but buyers and mortgage brokers alike should proceed with caution. Before making an offer, do your research.  Speak with conveyancing firms and make the initial enquiry about whether they would deal with the property in question.  I would generally avoid the large conveyancing firms that work almost like a conveyor belt, churning out deal after deal.  Personally, I’d rather use a smaller firm that offers continuity of care.

One thing is for sure; until the government provides clearer guidance and freeholders become more responsive, high-rise flats will remain one of the most challenging parts of the UK property market to buy or sell.

Issue 2: EWS1

If the Building Safety Act wasn’t complicated enough, the situation is made worse by another major obstacle in the ongoing problems surrounding EWS1 forms and fire safety certificates. Even where a buyer finds a willing conveyancer and a lender ready to proceed, everything can still grind to a halt if the building’s safety paperwork doesn’t stack up. It’s a separate issue, but one that ties directly into the same problem: uncertainty. And in the world of property transactions, uncertainty is the enemy of progress.

What is an EWS1?

The EWS1 form is a document designed to prove that a building’s external wall system (including cladding and insulation) meets fire safety standards. Introduced after the Grenfell tragedy, the EWS1 was supposed to bring clarity and consistency to the system. Instead, it has become one of the biggest obstacles in the UK housing market.

In theory, an EWS1 form should reassure mortgage lenders, conveyancers, and buyers that a property is safe to buy or remortgage. In practice, it’s done the opposite. For years, demand for inspections outstripped supply, leaving many homeowners stuck in unsellable flats while waiting for a qualified fire engineer to sign off on their building. Some developments were wrongly labelled as unsafe, while others slipped through with forms signed by unqualified or fraudulent inspectors in a scandal that’s only recently started to come to light.

The government and RICS have since tightened the rules around who can issue an EWS1, but the damage is already done. Lenders now treat these forms with a great deal of caution. In some cases, EWS1 certificates previously deemed valid are being re-examined, especially where there’s any doubt about the assessor’s credentials or methodology. That means even buildings that appeared to meet fire-safety standards may suddenly become un-mortgageable overnight.  This has happened with our complex, and it’s taking a long time to resolve. 

For buyers, it’s a mess. A flat could pass every other check with a solid lease, good management, and fair service charges, but if the EWS1 is missing, disputed, or discredited, the transaction grinds to a halt. For mortgage brokers, this adds another layer of frustration. Applications can be fully approved in principle, only to collapse at the valuation stage because of uncertainty over a form that was supposed to simplify things.

Until there’s a national database of verified EWS1 certificates and a consistent framework for assessing fire safety, flats in taller or recently built blocks will remain a minefield, although hopefully one that does not explode. For now, the best advice for buyers and advisers alike is simple: treat every EWS1 with healthy scepticism, verify its origin, and factor in extra time. Because in today’s market, a single piece of paper can make the difference between completion and collapse, and a safe or unsafe home.

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, 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.