JollyScot's Journey Starts

Where are you and where are you going?
wolf
Posts: 1102
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2017 5:09 pm
Location: Germany

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by wolf »

JollyScot wrote:
Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:49 pm
...As for emotional reasons, the only one I would have is that buying a property was annoying and I wouldn't want to go through it again if we did decide to return to UK in the future.
Was there a UK specific reason why it was annoying? Or was ist because of the sellers? I am interested into the real estate market, but I don't have any experience with buying, renting, selling. I live in Germany, so I guess there are also certain laws and regulations. Well, but if you don't mind sharing what was annoying, it would be quite useful. Of course only if you like, because as you said it was an emotional reason, so I don't want to dig into that any deeper as needed.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

There are a few reasons that are probably UK specific and the way in which the system is set up.

In the UK the sellers can go to what is called a “closing date” when there is a few people interested in a property. This basically requires anyone who wants to bid on the property to put in the highest bid they are willing to pay in a sealed bid process. The seller will then pick (usually the highest) offer that they want.

For me I just won’t take part in this process, if I bid on a property I generally wanted the sale agreed with 24/48 hours. The issue was that as soon as I put in a bid the estate agents would convince the seller to go to a closing date. So the very offer I made would end up leading to the process of escalating up the price. So I would be left waiting up to a week to hear if my offer was accepted and not sure if I would offer on other potential places that came up.

Eventually any offers I made were along the lines of “I am offering X and this offer stands for the next 24 hours. If the owner decides on a closing date my offer is withdrawn and no further offers will be made”. The offers I put in were always what I thought it was worth and I would never move on the price if there were counter offers or anything else.

In addition to this people in the UK just now aren’t selling their properties. People are I think waiting to see what happens with Brexit before they make a move. With potential mortgages rates of 0.89%, it is pretty cheap for them to just sit on their hands. With the small number of places for sale it means a lot of people go and see what is available.

Combine the lack of properties with investors starting to shift out of the London market to Scotland. The increase of people buying up properties for holiday lets and there is a big squeeze going on. Which is leading to the estate agents not really needing to do a good job to sell what they are listing. This makes the whole experience very frustrating for someone who is trying to buy an actual home I think.

I’m not sure how this would compare to Germany as I have read you guys give tenants a lot more rights and that prices are therefore kept down. For the UK though the housing market here is a bit of a mess to navigate. With lack of houses being built, lack of current houses up for sale, increased foreign investments, increase in properties moving to holiday lets there's a big crunch.

Scotlands system is at least a bit better than what goes on in England. When a sale is agreed here then it is in effect legally binding and both parties can’t back out. In England thats not the case and you have cases where sellers demand a price increase the day before the move date or they will relist or a buyer will demand a price drop the day before move date or they will walk away. The issue with this is people may require the sale of their house to buy the next house or the buyer may be “homeless” because they expected to move in. It basically allows horrible people to be horrible.

I dunno this may just sound like a rant but I think I have highlighted the issues with it that annoys me. I would happily rent a property but that process here is almost as bad. So for anyone looking at the UK they should be aware that the property market here is a bit of a disgrace. It is very heavily skewed towards being beneficial to those who own multiple places I think.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Wedding is now all organised and after a few days of being pestered by people wanting to have "input" that's now all died down. They have finally all accepted that they don't have any say in what is going on. There still ended up being a reasonably big hit with family members demanding to attend. That said we will all get a 10 day holiday out of it for the family and the actual days cost is pretty negligible.

So far for the year my expenses are a fair bit higher than last year due to a few extra expenses, looks like it will be £6,000 higher for the year. Several months of travel resulted in flight costs and slightly higher accomodation and food costs. The wedding also added a fair bit extra, mainly because I'm covering the families accomodation for the trip too. In general though the "base" expenses with these items stripped out have been ok.

So the work on my flat is slowly coming along with the new bedroom almost done and the prep for the upgraded kitchen complete and waiting for install. Found an issue with a broken/noisy extractor system in the walls which is annoying but hopefully I can get that fixed but will probably need to create a hatch into the service shaft that contains the system.

This week I had a look at the communal insurance policy for my building. I noticed that it does not allow individuals to run holiday lets on residential properties, currently there are five in the building listed on Airbnb. This basically means the building is actually currently uninsured because of places being used for non residential purposes.

As I mentioned earlier a few people have been buying up places for holiday lets, I don't really care if people make a holiday let or not. If however by doing so my flat becomes unisured because of it then I have issues with it a little more. As such I will raise the issue with those who manage the building, hassle I didn't want but I am not going to pay insurance costs for nothing. My guess is that currently they are under the assumption that an insurer would still pay out, but anyone whos worked with an insurance company before will know that is not how they work.

I had the flat valued by a few estate agents and the rental yield I could get is at the 6.5% mark so it looks like I will probably keep the flat and rent it. If I were to sell it the profit looks like it would come out at about 2 years of rent, which is pretty good but I think I would prefer the income. I have added the house renovation costs to the value of the property and so haven't marked them down as costs. This will end up totalling about £10,000, but if I update my networth to account for the estate agent valuations then it was money well spent I think.

Some of my other investments took a tumble though so as of now the increase in property value is cancelled out by other things. Still I am not plannig to sell anything so it doesn't really matter as of now.

On the work front I managed to get the Zero Hours contract agreed and signed and it should result in maybe 20 hours of work a month being sent my way. It will also allow me to work from wherever I want, this should make the relocating to somewhere other than the UK a bit easier as the work will cover more or less all expenses and my savings can sit and build up more.

Over the last two years of officially leaving my full time job (although I found contract work) I still haven't really pinned down what to do next. I've tried a few bits and pieces but nothing has really stuck yet. I have had a stint of travelling which was fun and the contract work stopped the initial progress I made on other interests. Hopefully once I move and settle somewhere for a more extended period I can start getting some proper progress going again.

Partner is finally coming round to the fact that she can also go and try other things and maybe build something. She always insisted that she was going to get a job, took me a while to bring her round to the fact that she didn't need to. Maybe she will still end up getting one but at least now she knows it is not a requirement if she would rather do something else. It is up to her, she is currently trying to figure out what she wants to do. This seems to involve try every possible class or training that she can think of, hopefully she finds one she enjoys.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

So a few things have happened since the last update.

Got married and the day was nice in that it was very stress free and only had to deal with our immediate family for the trip. Although initially I wasn't keen on any of them coming along and adding to the planning and stress of the day it ended up being a good holiday. The costs for my partner and I for the whole thing was about £2,500. Considering this included the 10 day holiday around the wedding as well. As per Jason’s description we managed to stop most clowns from turning up and just enjoyed the time instead.

Now trying to process our paperwork to permanently relocate to another EU country before UK leave properly, as with everything this involves a lot of bureaucratic nonsense and going round in circles. Hopefully this is almost complete and can finally settle somewhere for a while. I try to avoid news about Brexit as in general the whole thing is embarrassing to watch and I just get upset watching it.

Even though we have managed to collect and almost deal with the official side of paperwork we are now hitting a small wall of dealing with estate agents. Conversations go along the lines of.

“We would like to rent this flat”
“You don’t have a job”
“Here is proof of cash equivalent of 6 years of rent payments”
“You don’t have a job”
“Here are dividend payments and rental income over the last 2 years from company and 1 year rental contract with income amount”
“You don’t have a job though”
“I can pay 3x the deposit and first 3 months in rent upfront”
“You don’t have a job”

Maybe we will eventually be forced into just buying a property when our paperwork is done. We are having drinks with some people from the area and maybe they can point us in a more productive direction.

On the doing work from home front I have been approach regarding a 6 month more or less full time role. I’m not sure what I will do yet, but will probably set a higher price and see if they will agree to it. It will come under the zero hour contract I agreed, but just a lot more hours than expected.

My flat is now 100% finished and rented out to someone, so I have a 3rd stream of income now. It went within the first week that it was listed, possibly could have asked for more but a couple of teachers rented it so hopefully works out fine.

My net worth would have taken a bit of a hit over the last couple of months with the wedding, paperwork fees and temporary rental. However, bitcoin went a bit mental and I sold half of what I had. It wasn’t many but that small number suddenly became worth a lot and did so quickly. Even though something in your head shouts tulips at you when you see what is happening there is still enough behind the technology that I will keep some as a “what if” scenario. I could maybe see more benefit in learning and working with the underlying block chain technology rather than investing in the coins. I wouldn’t buy more I think, the small amount I bought a few years ago is enough of a win for me.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

We have finally managed to organise a place to stay and done all the paperwork to be a permanent resident. Turns out you can get this all sorted with savings only within the EU. I think some of the states are more awkward about letting it happen but where we are it was annoying gathering paperwork but once done it was fine.

Slowly starting to build my way into some kind of daily schedule. The last year has largely been a bit aimless although fun.

I am setting a prescribed wake up time again as though I had work. I think not having this has caused me to be a bit of a mess around when I wake and then go back to sleep. To aid the waking up early I have been continuing with the cold showers. They are now at the point where they don't even bother me when get in and has the added benefit of I feel better when I get out.

Over the next few months I will be joining a language class I think. I am trying to decide between online lessons 1-1 or actually going to a class. The costs probably works out about the same. I think the 1-1 would help me learn faster but the class would mean meeting a few other people who are new to the area.

The work that I was asked to do ended up not working out. After finding out I was actually happy that I wasn't going to have to do something. Maybe that is enough of a reaction for me to finally turn away from agreeing to anything. It is hard to do when the price is high. Even though I moved past the point of needing it there is still something in my head that says I should keep going. Maybe I need to look closer as to why that is, I'm sure there are valid psychological reasons.

I did get a message over the Christmas break from someone I used to work with. He has recently resigned from his job and retired. Seems he watched what I did and listened to why I was savings so much and decided to try the same. A combination of high savings, a small inheritance and buying a house when it was "cheap" means he has gotten their quite quick. So kudos to him and it seems not everyone I worked with thought I was a moron.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

We are settling into our new place and have been getting a routine up and running.

First is our meals are planned on a Sunday for Monday shopping trip. We pick, some sort of staple, a sauce, whether we want meat and finally pick 3-5 vegetables. This is done on odd days, even days we will have either sandwiches, soup or salad along with leftovers. On the Sundays we will have takeaway or eat out. I starting to think we should reserve Sundays for cooking things we don't usually have.

Most meals out we could make ourselves and its whether the cost of not doing it is worth it. After having a recent curry that was 12x the price of homemade. The rest of the weeks food came in at less than that one meal. Even time wise I don't think it saves that much, takes about an hour to make the meal vs about and hour to go to a place/order takeaway. I am starting to lean towards just eating out when we are meeting friends rather than regularly. Even though I retired early I never really stopped the going out for food, maybe because the savings rate was still high.

For the last maybe 18 months I have been eating 1 meal a day so the plan above works well for me. After the first week or so of my brain telling me i was starving now I usually get hungry about 4pm.


I have started to spend 4 hours in the morning doing work. A combination of learning some programming and reading all the books I have added to kindle over the last year (63 on the list). Read so far:

The Meditations of Markus Aurelius
The Obstacle is the Way
The Subtle Art of not Giving a F***
Deep Work: Rules for Focused success in a distracted world
The Startup Playbook
Anything You want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur
Instant Motivation: The surprising truth behind what really drives top performance
Business Adventures
Elon Musk biography
Slicing Pie: Fund your company without funds
Be Obsessed or be Average
Choose yourself

The business type books I am not sure how much I get out of them. There are some interesting stories but they ultimately boils down to, I work hard, work really hard, I'm great because I work hard....work hard. Exception would be slicing pie, its an interesting way to split a company that seems largely fair. If I ever go down this route I would consider it.

Deep work caused me to change my 4 hours to have the Internet off and phones in a different room. There have been times when I get stuck and can't search for answers. I am still trying to decide if this results in a more productive session, I think in the long term it probably is. It could lead me to having more resources I might need available upfront

Stoicism books are interesting, I might read more but the comments of "it changed my life" I hear from some I don't get out of it. They seem to be books on common sense and thinking about the world around you. I guess if you have never done that they may have more of an impact. Then again I have only read a couple so my view is somewhat shallow on the topic.

After the morning I will then either go out for a walk or do something a bit more difficult (tennis, running, swimming, weights). The rest of my day I view as guilt free. sometimes I do more work but generally catch up on TV, computer games, comics, mindless Internet browsing, getting upset at news and so on. I could shift around my work time to take out the simpler "work" items that don't need much thought. Add those to the afternoons.

I have been tracking exactly what I have been working on, it has been useful to see. I thought I was spending a lot of time doing accounts and managing the business I have up and running when in reality it comes in at 10 hours a month. When reading books it also give me the exact time to completion. Been averaging about 337 wpm. I know some say speed reading is a thing and I looked into it when I was at university. I came to the conclusion that it was nonsense and if I increased my speed it resulted in an equal fall in my understanding. The only thing I do that is recommended is to follow my finger across the page, but I have always done that.

Not started on the language learning yet...oops

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Been a while since I posted and we have been plodding along trying to figure out the whole retirement thing.

We have started to look at a few houses out here. I think I would rather rent but there is this complete refusal to deal with our situation where we are. Income from dividend, rents and company pay they just don't want to deal consider. We could eventually find someone who understands and is willing to do a deal (like now) but it limits what we could get in a large way.

There are some nice places where we are. We could get a nice 3 bed flat for around about the £180,000 range. We would then be able to rent out the spare rooms and have our housing cost drop to zero. We looked at the 1-2 bed places and relative to renting these didn’t make sense. We would be better just staying in the more expensive than we need place we are now than making a purchase.

We still have in the back of our minds the option to go back to the UK and live in the property I have. Even though I am enjoying the time here there is an overhead associated with it. Dealing with health insurance, learning new taxes, registering paperwork, figuring out new rental rules a few other items I don’t remember offhand. I think I would rather cut those items out of my life. The perma-travel of a few months in various places is easier than an outright move as the “citizen” based requirements just don’t factor in.

If we were to go back to the UK the flat there is worth £150,000 and we could rent out the spare room at £650 a month. Which if we look at the 4% number would be the equivalent of a £195,000 investment. So, in the UK we are more than living for free in the flat. With the added benefit of no new country overhead and the gym, pool and so on that’s in the building.

We will see, the decision will be made at the end of the year when the initial rental contract we have runs out.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

So it's been a few months since I have commented but have a general update for the year of living in EU and after the 12 months we have actually bit the bullet and processed the paperwork to go back to the UK. A few people suggested I hang on and wait until Brexit is over but with my flat being owned outright and large portions of my meals coming from staples, even if it is a disaster it won't really impact me quite as much.

Anyway the target date for moving back is sometime in March and then hopefully we can sort out a pretty nice routine for ourselves.

I have our combined expenses for the year and relative to my previous it was a bit of a disaster at £34,144. That said it was between two of us, so really £17,000 per person. My wife covered her own health insurance so its a little higher than this. EU health insurance is nowhere near US costs so it wasn't too bad.

I did pick up some work at the end of the year and along with dividends and some rent from my UK flat I have just about broken even.

Income
Pay: £12,660
Dividends: £12,003.73
Interest: £144.66
Gifts: £350
Rent: £7,150

Total: £32,308.39

Expenses
Bank Fees: £87.94
Bills: £1,810.51
UK Flat: £2,840.46
Clothes: £535.12
Electronics: £645.03
Entertainment: £343.82
Food - Out: £1030.11
Gifts: £817.96
Groceries: £1,709.36
Holiday: £1,376.74
House: £4,459.53
Learning: £485.32
Medical: £216.25
Other: £4,079.88
Rent: £11,339.88
Travel: £2,368.01

Total: £34,144,91


Now although this is all very bad to look at there are a few costs in there that are about to disappear.

House - this is mainly an upgrade that was done to the bathroom and will not be repeated
Other - this is all the costs of processing the UK visa application
Rent - about to drop to zero
Travel - a few trips back to UK for family visits that will stop soon too (not to zero though)
Bills and bank fees - these are EU specific bills that will go away and just have UK Flat costs once moved

So removing these brings costs down to around £14,000 ish a year. Still areas for improvement but a much more manageable base level.

We don't regret doing the year in EU instead of going straight to the UK but it has given me a different perspective of what I like about UK. Even though my country is having its mini breakdown just now. If I can manage to just ignore the news then life will pretty much go on as is. No TV will be the first rule of the flat I think.

wolf
Posts: 1102
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2017 5:09 pm
Location: Germany

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by wolf »

HI JollyScot! Thanks for the update.
Yeah, Brexit did shake a few things up in Europe. Where haven you been in the EU? And what did you learn wrt to "different perspective"?
How much assets have you invested to gain 12k dividends from it? That's pretty high!
Take care. And I wish you a smooth move to UK.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Ah yeah the dividends maybe could be split out a bit as it is not 100% investment income. It comes from about £240,000 in assets plus a dividend payment from the company I own.

Shares: £7,003.73
Company Dividend: £5,000

The investments I have now in the run up to Brexit date are
30% bullion,
25% UK stocks,
40% international,
5% cash

I should probably have less UK stocks because of Brexit, but I think my Bullion holding will help if a disaster strikes, and a large number of large UK companies make their money outwith the UK. So a fall in the £ can make them rise, depends on how much of a mess the leaving is. If there is a disaster then I could pick up some cheap stocks. I'll wait and see, in general i don't want to spend the time really thinking about it. On the actual leaving date though it is probably worth spending the time.

The other £5,000 "dividend" is really from my own company so should probably be counted as pay or salary I guess. That's not how I record it though or what it is in practice.

As for where we are in the EU it is France. So i have now a reasonable experience of what it is like in UK, France, Switzerland and Spain.

There are pros and cons of them all. For the UK specifically I like:

Access to high quality university libraries
Higher food selection and choices
Easier day to day navigation
People happily speaking to you day to day (may be Scotland specific, London certainly is not like that)
Large number of festivals and things going on
Already have a high quality flat I can live in
Company already up and running and easy to maintain (although our government is doing its best to make it harder)
With my family there we end up with reasonably regular trips back and repeated flying gets annoying

I'm sure the places I have lived have some of that too, but for what I do in general the UK is just an easier place to live. France specifically has this large administrative overhead for everything that I don't like. I would rather have a months holiday here than live here full time now.

If I can just ignore the bad new cycle of doom then day to day life in UK doesn't have too many annoyances really.

It really comes down to do I want to spend the next 6-7 years getting a second passport or not. Considering I really don't want to get a proper job again it is starting to look like the answer is no. You don't know if you don't jump in and try I guess.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

So we finally got our decision from the UK regarding the VISA for my wife and they decided to reject the application.

It was difficult for us as the reason they have given is my wife has insufficient proof of her English ability. Her ability is at a C1 level (advanced), she needed to have A1 level (absolute beginner). So it came as a massive shock that we were refused. If you search for 'teacher refused UK VISA" you will see someone who fell foul of the system in the same way as we did.

Over the last 7 years the UK has made about 45,000 changes to the immigration rules. One of them was to require specific exams to be used as evidence. These specific exams excluded the ones for people who are actually proficient language speakers. So essentially my wife provided a certificate that is too good and so doesn't count. After 3 days of reading non stop rules and advice it is still not clear to me if they are or are not allowed to do this.

We could appeal the decision, however the UK currently makes people wait anywhere between 6-12 months to have their appeal heard. So we are essentially given the choice of.


1. Spend another £5000 extra in rent and try an appeal, maybe lose, probably not because the decision is stupid and probably illegal. I think Judges still have some sense.

2. Make a brand new application, pay £3000 extra in rent, £2250 in another application, £500 in travel and new language test fees.

3. Decide to leave the UK to its Brexit mess and write off the whole plan to move at all. Spend the next few years in France.



As we had all but wrapped up our life in France ready to move it throws all our plans up in the air again. I am starting to lean towards just leaving it and selling the UK flat fully and making a go of France properly. It would be disappointing as it make our lives more difficult day to day than in UK. However I now don't trust that if we do move back to UK we will be secure in our futures. Not until serious changes to the system happens.

For anyone considering a move to the UK or a life there I would be very careful now. As the core of the systems that runs the country is starting to rot, through a combination of budget cuts, general incompetence and a layer of assume everyone is guilty.

Brexit has just let scandals after scandals go unreported as there is a much larger elephant in the room. If legitimate couples that are highly skilled, high income, high savings, own house outright are being refused on technicalities then I think the skilled workforce in UK will be decimated post Brexit. As for anyone with options it really won't be worth the risk.

For the first time I think my view may be starting to shift towards wanting Scotland to be independent after all. As the question has now shifted from, Can we afford to leave? to Can we afford to stay?

Over the last few years I have watched my country eat itself. It has been sad to watch and the decision we received may be the item that finally causes me to leave fully. Fortunately my years of saving means we can absorb this decision and have other options available to us. Maybe when a few more days have passed I might calm down and rethink, I am skeptical of that though.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

So it has been a couple of months since the UK decided to kick us in the nuts over immigration. We have now reconsidered our next steps and tried to figure out what to do next.

We have appealed the decision in the UK, but now even if we win I am not 100% sure we will even return. As a point of principle though we will go through the full process to try and
A) add more precedent to the UK law to stop Home Office from destroying more people lives. We are lucky in that we made the decision to implement back up plans for everything. A lot of people with less means have no such option however and a decision like this would really destroy them.
B) Remove black marks on my wife's record so we stop getting treated like dirt every time we arrive at the border to visit family.


As a result of the UK mess I am now start to shift myself back into being a worker, very sad day. The plan is to get my skills back up to scratch and begin trying to find myself some more business that allows me to work from home. When I first stopped working full time I started a company to allow myself to pick up small pieces of work every now and then for people I previously worked with. Up until now I never really put much effort into it and just let any business come to me. To give us some extra options I think I will start to make more of an attempt to expand this properly. Will involve building own personal company website, writing papers and descriptions of current regulations and best practices, building advanced courses to cover areas of industry not currently taught or in a learn as you do bucket.

As for my wife she has started the process of really trying to figure out what to focus her efforts on also. As she is multi-lingual (5 languages) she is considering a teaching business for herself. She is looking at what qualifications are useful or required to tech and where she can go and get these. If she can get it up and running then it will hopefully be the kind of business we can travel with fairly easy.


I am not sure if the decision from UK will end up being good or bad for us in the long term. As it has now kicked us into a series of decisions that we were not really considering. However the new plans we have are now looking to build streams of income and skill sets that will allow us to drop into other countries fairly easily if needed.

We are still looking at whether we will stay where we are (probably will for a while now) or to move again with the specific goal of easiest and fastest EU passport. A backup like this is now quite high on our list of requirements. We want to have options that mean we will not be beholden to a single countries government. As we have now been on the receiving end of an abuse of that monopoly on violence they hold.


I spent a bit of time this week working out this week the expected cost to the UK of refusing us entry in regard to taxes and contributions. Although my plan wasn't really to work it was a useful exercise as it shows you the direct costs a countries decisions. As another person like me may well continue to work until retirement. In fact most who reach the level of income of a consultant will be a workaholic so it is not an unreasonable assumption to make. In additional a lot of people who earn high rates for their work also travel internationally and have Non-EU spouses, so they are likely to be hit by it.

Anyway.

I assumed the current consulting rate I have and working on average about 75% of the year.
I used current tax rates for the company and also the eventual person tax rates.
I then calculated the average annual taxes I contribute per year.
I then projected this out until a retirement date of 65 using average inflation and salary increase assumption, assumed same tax rates (they will rise eventually though)
I then discounted each of these back to get the present value of my tax contribution to the economy

The results were an expected cost to the UK of a little over £2,000,000. This is the Present Value of my tax contribution if I were to return and continue with my company as is. As a comparison point I looked at the average for a Home Office worker over the same duration and the tax contribution is about £200,000, once you account for the fact they are paid from taxes and get a pension pot valued at about £500,000 on the open market. The contribution is really the government service they provide as tax wise they are a net negative.

You could probably quibble over some of my assumptions and that is fine. However it shows that once trust is lost in the system and decision are driven by ideology instead it won't take much to have a spiraling cost to the country. Obviously calculations like what I have done are not considered in the process. Just now everyone is assumed to be trying to cheat the system.


We will see how I get on with the company building, but the last few months will probably end up being a valuable life lesson. In 5-10 years time we could end up better off as a result. It has however resulted in a very significant shift in my options on a large number of topics

fingeek
Posts: 249
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 8:16 am
Location: Wales

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by fingeek »

That sounds a bit shitty. Good luck with building the two companies, it sounds like it's going to be a positive outcome in the end if they are resilient/remote businesses

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Yeah it is a bit awful going through it. At first I thought well maybe it was just incompetence and one untrained actor in it all. However after reading about other stories and going down the process a bit more I am realising it is institutionalised now.

I would be more ok with it if I could just take them to court and sue for damages as a result of them knowingly breaking their own laws. However I found out they made it illegal to sue them when they do illegal things...go figure.

The result is just forcing everyone to absorb the costs of the decision, currently they are losing about 75% of the cases where people appeal. As there is no compensation or repercussions for them they continue to do it. My guess is their strategy is to waste enough of peoples time and make it so nightmarish that people give up. Great way for civil servants to serve their citizens.

I agree that if we can get the companies up and running that in the long term it is probably a good outcome. We are discovering that being half retired with income from different sources is good from a diversification perspective it is awful for when trying to deal with countries and their systems. My knowledge of taxes, visas, rental/property right of several countries has expanded massively though.

Fingers crossed we get through the other side with something of greater value than before though.

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

So since the last update I have managed to secure myself more work. So far I've had maybe 20 days worth. They have sent me some more to look into and depending on how it goes the work could bring me through to the end of the year. Or it could result in zero if we don't win the contract.

The pay is a lower than what I was getting before. I'm ok with this though as they job is a sufficiently complex task that only a handful of people in the industry would be willing to do it (they charge significantly more). The aim for me is to have my CV updated with in demand skills and experience after my 4 years or so of bumbling about. I am still not sure how I will develop the company and what I will focus on, but I am setting up a solid base for it with this I think.

The pay will cover all our living costs in france for the next 3-4 years (nice bonus). If we do end up staying here the expense of moving will be covered. Our savings were paying all of our main living costs but the non standard ones of VISA, initial moving, paperworks and travel back and forth to UK ate up more than I was happy with.

My wife is starting to look at a job now, where we are now doesn't have much in her expertise area so we may end up shifting somewhere that does. Although she doesn't need to pick up work, she is keen to get something.

It has been useful having pay coming from my company rather than as an employee. I typically only process payments to myself once a year. So with everything invested or locked away it means managing cashflow becomes more important. It produces a hard cap on our annual budget even though the earnings in the company can be quite high.

In terms of other areas my property in UK is now rented and returning 5.8% net. I decided against the holiday let as it is actually illegal in the city (although nothing much is being done about it). I would rather not go all in on something that can be snuffed out at will. My other investments took a hit this month but the recent jump in Gold prices has offset that a little.

We are going to stay in our flat share situation a bit longer until we get our feet back under ourselves a little. Last few months have been chaotic and it will be good to just have some time with less over arching noise of dealing with "the system".

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Oh and for those who like the numbers

Average income

Salary: £1041.67 (Annual Payment £12,500)
Rental: £725 (Annual Amount £8,700)
Dividends: £850 (Annual Amount ~£10,200)

Total: £2,616.67 (Annual Amount £31,400)

Average Expenses

I have now been tracking my monthly expenses for about 8 years and the last years running average has come out at about £1,500 per month. That said we have a few one off costs in the last year which means this is not sitting at around £2,200. With the salary this is fine without it is not ideal. (these numbers include that tax bill, I treat it as a direct expense now).

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Didn't win the contract I was asked to bid on. One of the others bid with a price that was "significantly" below mine. Considering I was already 40% below the going rate for the skill set my assumption is they have either completely miscalculated what they were asked to do, or they are accepting a loss in the hope of eventually winning more work.

I think it is more likely to be the second of those as the other bidders were the big consultancies. This is a fairly standard, get your foot in the door. Then 6-12 months down the line they have multiplied their way through the organisation like a virus.

Overall I'm ok not getting the work, there are other things I can do instead. I think they expected to me to reduce my price to compete. I just thanked them for the update and wished them luck with the project.

I did take a second look at my estimate to see if I had been too conservative in my timings. I could maybe have cut a couple of items back. As the deal was a fixed price I would have been assuming no unexpected issues arose...that obviously doesn't happen.

I have a couple of other items still maybe leading to extra paid work. They are in the early stages though.

I looked at either renting myself or finding myself a quiet internetless area in which to work on things again. When I was doing my degree I would go to an area of the library and then study with both ear plugs and ear protectors. It has been a long time since I've tried to focus like that. I think I should make more if an effort to try and untangle myself from the internet, phone and distractions.

I'm getting there on it, all my social media has been deleted for a few years now. Aimless YouTube watching and messaging are still issues however. As for the messaging I tried to switch people over to Signal from WhatsApp. That was like talking to a wall though. Happy to complain about Facebook when it comes to changing what they're doing it is another matter.

On other life matters our new bikes have arrived. Put off getting them for 18 months as we were unsure we would stay here. Decided to get them for summer instead of waiting again. Came in at €400 each for fairly decent city/touring bikes. Already had a couple of trips out and I had forgotten how nice it is to just saunter along.

When getting the bikes I also picked up a couple of kettle bells to do some cicuits during the week. My weight over the last 4 years has jumped around a little...peak of 84kg and minimum of 68kg...I have now levelled off at 72kgs it seems. That said adding in some serious kettle bell sets will be good.

herp
Posts: 171
Joined: Sat Apr 08, 2017 1:11 pm

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by herp »

Sorry to hear about the missed contract, but it sounds like you did the right thing. No sense in bidding yourself down to bargain basement levels in that case.

I hear you about working in a quiet area. One of the main challenges I've had where I currently work is that it's one of those big open office spaces with lots of interruptions. As a software developer, that's far from ideal. ANC headphones have helped somewhat, but it's still frustrating.

I think you're smart to get off social media. While it's a great tool for organizing events and at least somewhat keeping in touch with people, I also feel like it ironically makes us feel more disconnected as human beings. Interaction behind screens replaces in person interaction (I'm typing that, ironically, on an online forum, ha!).

Glad to hear about getting new bikes! Making it a priority to use your bike as the means of transporation is a really cheap and healthy way to get about.

fingeek
Posts: 249
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 8:16 am
Location: Wales

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by fingeek »

Agreed - I never felt any better after mindlessly browsing facebook or the news. Since eliminating these from my life, I feel like I have some more mental breathing capacity

JollyScot
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:44 am

Re: JollyScot's Journey Starts

Post by JollyScot »

Yeah getting rid of social media was such a good choice. I still keep in touch with people I met regularly and everyone else just melted away. So I can stop pretending I care about what the random person I went to school with are doing.

As for YouTube I had a spell last year where I never used it, but got sucked back in. Although there is less of the cat video and list videos I watch now. Last weekend I watch a speech by Milton Friedman...That then ended up causing 5-6 hours of a rabbit hole of other videos from there. Now this is not as unproductive as most binges but still.

@herp For the working in an open plan office, prior to leaving I used to do pomodoros at the office. I had a simple timer on my desk and eventually people I worked with would come to find me and end up looking at my timer and leave me alone. Then come back when my timer was finished. Took a while for them to start doing it, but once you explain why you have one they fairly quickly start to respect the time. Social engineering of them to some extent but the constant interruptions are annoying in open offices.

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