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I don't know. But this might give you some pointers:

The annual allowance for pensions

The lifetime allowance is a massive disincentive for this approach if you've started early. It's a perverse allowance in that it penalises good investment performance rather than contributions.
...

I was reminded of this:

Minimum salary required in London: GBP500k? – FIRE v London

I'm not a great fan of much of the "FIRE movement" output but this blog post chimed with my experience:

5 Lessons From 3 Years of Early Retirement - Can I Retire Yet?

Basically, if you plan on...

I not sure if this was aimed at myself but the absolute returns of my favoured world index tracker (Fidelity Index World) over 1, 3 and 5 years have been 12.8%, 33.8% and 98% respectively. With a...

Best comparison table I've found:

Best trading platforms and stock brokers

Most investors could do a lot worse than: Vanguard LifeStrategy funds turn passive investing catatonic

The average...

One of the best explanations I've read:

The annual allowance for pensions

I'm seeing a wide variation in Covid testing requirements for North sea oil companies. The approaches I've either had personal experience of or heard of others undergoing are:

- A temperature...

Go to this site. Read it. Particularly the platform comparison table.

Monevator — Make more money, invest profitably, retire early

As you say, there's no right or wrong. I do however see some property zealots blinkered by home bias. i.e. they dismiss the stock market solely based on FTSE 100 performance (excluding dividends)...

This ^^^.....all day long....

I must work with 25 Ltd contractors. Property investing seems to be a religion for a lot of them. I see them bending over backwards to make it work, mortgaged to...

I've had 4 of these from memory. 2 a while ago when I was a permie due to the high level of of foreign tax I was reclaiming. 2 more recently as LTD.

The first LTD one was due to me screwing up...

The FT ran an article this morning which included a flowchart courtesy of WTT/BDO

The direct link is here:

Subscribe to read | Financial Times

If you are not a subscriber it can be...

This to me is simply a calculation of risk.

I had a not too dissimilar situation myself:

1. Qdos reviewed outside contract & WP review
2. Very late inside determination by small client based...

I see Curve are caught up in the Wirecard scandal....where 1.6 billion Euros was found to be missing from their accounts leading to the collapse of the company and the arrest of the CEO.

EY taking...

Thanks for these comments.

The exact phrase my accountant used was that the "HMRC system cannot cope with a yearly salary on furlough".

Your comments have prompted me to challenge exactly...

Similar story to the OP.

I was benched in May with a letter from both clients saying this was due to projects being postponed due to corona. I e-mailed the accountant about potentially...

My client has now restarted offshore project work, albeit with reduced numbers.

I travelled offshore for the first time a couple of days back. Aberdeen is a weird place right now. Like most...

Generally it doesn't make sense because such a large proportion of your costs are fixed i.e. inherent in the operation of an offshore oil and gas facility. Plus your lenders tend not to like it as...

You can shut wells in at the touch of a button. I know, I've leant on a few.

What I mean is that these prices are too low to cover costs for the majority of north sea fields. Some can just...

At least 500 redundancies at Enquest:

Coronavirus: EnQuest warns of more than 500 North Sea redundancies - BBC News

They're surely on a sticky wicket. $1.4bn in debt and losing money on every...

I'm told the Worley contractor rate cut was 10%

This comes just as most of the NS operators had moved from an equal time rota to 2/3 or similar.

I know a bunch of guys working offshore overseas who's rota has flipped from 4/4 to 2/6 as they...

It's grim for sure. I'd heard of Worley laying off some staff, not heard anything about contractor rate cuts although I guess it won't be long.

Maersk drilling laying off 300 staff. I see...

Even before all this kicked off, it took me 4 loan sales and nearly 4 months to withdraw £34k. Pretty darn "illiquid". Of that, £500 is still sitting there as loans in arrears that they've been...

The only experience I've read on CUK of someone who has been subject to an IR35 inquiry was this chap who had Qdos TLC35. He was subject to the GSK generic letter to 1,500 contractors so by no means...

Agree, its worse than useless.

You can remap it to do something marginally more useful. Or there's a few third party apps which can turn it into something more useful still.

How to remap...

I'd say that most of Aker's contractors are tied to one particular project with a well defined deliverable. They also have a history of massive headcount increases and reductions as the projects...

I'm now hearing of Worley guys receiving outside determinations.

Some more experiences from the energy patch here:

Find fairer IR35 clients. OffPayroll.org.uk

There's a big piece missing in your post:

Do you actually enjoy your job? If you do and it's just that those with less experience are getting paid the same that is chapping your ass then stay,...

This is the kicker. Particularly for offshore contractors, the unfettered substitution presents particular challenges and a risk which some companies will not want to take. I've subbed an offshore...

I'm hearing (albeit anecdotally) that several operators are taking the blanket approach. BP, Shell and Taqa being 3. I'm hearing of contractors clubbing together in the Aberdeen operator offices...

Take a look here. The comments might be of interest also.

Defined Benefit to Defined Contribution pension transfers

I do know two guys that have done it that got the nod from an IFA. I don't...

Thankyou all for your kind suggestions. The festive spirit is alive and well on Cuk.

Hopefully the new laptop plugged into the old drive should do the trick. Unfortunately, in addition to a...

It asked me to do some sort of windows update and restart. I said OK & left it running overnight. The next day the screen was lit but nothing was showing. Being in somewhat of a rush I buttoned it...

....if you choose to buy funds

No dice. Worth a shot though. I've bought a new laptop and SATA to USB cable to try and recover data from the old drive.

I have a SIPP with Iweb also. All in all, pretty pleased. The only complaint I have is that to make any changes to employer contributions (including a one-off payment) requires sending in a form...

Totally agree with you in circumstances where they actually assume a level of risk. If we're solely talking about the set up cost of a SIPP excluding advice regarding the purchase of any holdings...

Can you clarify? Did these costs include advice on the initial purchase of holdings? If it's literally the administrative costs for setting up the SIPP with literally no risk to the IFA then these...

There are no dealing fees for funds with HL (because they tear your eyes out with their 0.45% platform fee on funds)
For monthly direct debit purchases they charge £1.50 per trade for shares, ITs...

Thanks - No joy with the reset described in the link. It seems to start an "automatic repair" then after about 5 minutes won't boot with a black screen

Appreciate the help. I'll try the SATA to...

Thanks.

When I try to download the file from the hyperlink 4.11.RC2, there are 6 files. Three are .iso and three are .txt

Do I need to put all of these on my Formatted USB stick?

I'm...

I've had to google some of those words....that's the level of intellect your dealing with here....please get the sock puppets out.

I was running windows 10. It is not a solid state drive. I...

I have no idea. There was certainly no additional password requirements when I booted up other than the windows 10 password and I don't remember seeing anything during startup suggesting it was...

I'm hoping that the assembled IT contractor Illuminati may pass on some festive guidance to a fellow contractor who barely knows one end of a computer from the other.

My laptop (a three year old...

In a practical sense I agree. In fact, in a practical sense personally speaking they've never been of much use.

I do however know that I wouldn't have made the interview list for any of the roles...

My experience of engineering rates in the oil and gas industry is similar. From an offshore perspective - there's one regular contract position onboard who I'd say is on more than £1000/day. I'd...

Watersports aren't my thing.

If I remember correctly I took an umbrella to work but the testing improved, relations became more cordial and deployment wasn't required. The umbilical was loaded...

I once did a 2 week stint witnessing a subsea umbilical being tested for a client at a manufacturing facility at the Walker quayside in Newcastle.

I turned up on day one with my sandwiches and...