The reformed materialists

Where are you and where are you going?
wolf
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by wolf »

ThriftyRob wrote:
Tue Nov 24, 2020 11:10 am
I found a link to an FI calculator via MMM. I put my numbers in and it confirmed I’m FI! :)
congrats! what are the conditions to be FI by the calculator?

ThriftyRob
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by ThriftyRob »

wolf wrote:
Tue Nov 24, 2020 11:16 am
congrats! what are the conditions to be FI by the calculator?
Thanks. The standard FIRE dogma - cover current expenses with 4% return on capital invested.

ertyu
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by ertyu »

I’m FI at 4% also but boy I don’t trust it.

ThriftyRob
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by ThriftyRob »

ertyu wrote:
Fri Nov 27, 2020 10:30 am
I’m FI at 4% also but boy I don’t trust it.
I think it's prudent to have more cover, so drawing 3% would be better!

ThriftyRob
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by ThriftyRob »

The fight against consumerism
In the run-up to Christmas, the material world launches all its temptations on us. I have mostly resisted the barrage of Black Friday (just ordered two bottles of gin: one for offering to guests over the holiday and the other for a present). I was sorely tempted by a wool sweater from the manufacturer's sale (a company in the Faroe Islands). I have clicked on my size and colour choice but have left the checkout page open in my browser and I haven't completed my credit card details. I have a good choice of warm sweaters and I don't really need another, but it's blue and would join up another web in my wardrobe! I'm really pleased that I haven't been tempted to search for photographic gear or home electronics!:) There are lots of airlines offering deals on flights, but I'm not ready to book travel yet until the Covid threat is contained and the world is open again.
Work
I had a flurry of work meetings on Zoom and Teams this week. It's really wearing having to concentrate on a screen full of thumbnail pictures of meeting participants! Fortunately, two days were with a board who pay me an honorarium so the income will be good when it arrives. Today and tomorrow I'm editing and laying out a magazine for a local client, so writing this piece here is part of my relief from the boredom! The money is decent so I'm not complaining.
Retirement locations
We need the travel ban to end before DW and I can check out retirement locations. That's a bummer because fixing on a town would really help my motivation to declutter, refurb and market the house. The airline serving the Isle of Man is moving its flight from London City to Heathrow from 1 December, which would be better for us. I'm biding my time watching relocation reality tv programmes (A Place in the Sun, etc.) on satellite tv. Very educational!

ThriftyRob
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by ThriftyRob »

December Update

Spending
An easy month for me to avoid spending as I was hospitalised - first for six days for a pre-planned elective procedure (which went very well) and five nights unplanned with a fever (now sorted by antibiotics). Being hospitalised while Covid-19 is spreading like wildfire was an interesting experience. The stay generated some interesting themes for blogging and I may have the makings of a blog and a book, a possible side-hustle and certainly a new project for me to focus on.
In the intervening days we spend £1221 which is about 50% up on recent running rate but accounted for by a wedding gift for our niece, a major service and roadworthiness check for DW's car, presents for family and stocking up with nice food and treats for the holiday season. I also went back to the Navia website and treated myself to the jumper I liked.

#vanlife
I have flirted with thoughts around the lifestyle for months. In addition to enabling our goal of travelling, the conversion of a van to a RV appeals as a worthwhile renaissance project. In December, a comprehensive e-book on how to complete your van-conversion was published. I downloaded a copy and having worked through it, the recommendations point to spending £8000 on the base vehicle plus about the same on converting it and fitting it out. £16k sunk cost! The investment income lost would cover many nights in hotels or airbnb. Comparing running costs between a van and an economy car, they are about double. So from a financial perspective I don't think we'll be becoming vanlifers! That prompted the 'what if' thought process about travelling in an economy car and subsequently just relying on public transport and bicycles.
In fact, I'm more committed than ever to going car-free.

Property ownership
I'm still committed to moving to the Isle of Man for the quality of life and the low tax regime. Our first step will be to rent (12-months with a 6-month break option) in case there are any deal-breakers. After that, we could continue to rent or we could buy a 'lock and leave' compact property to serve as our home base. We need to spend less than six-months/year in the rest of the UK to avoid incurring a tax liability there. I think that's easy with our ambition to visit parts of Asia and the US and also to spend time exploring Europe more.

One idea that percolated to the surface while lying in my hospital bed was a 'two-centre' lifestyle. In addition to the Isle of Man, having a property in Portugal (a winter bolthole) could be attractive. I need to look at purchase and holding costs and compare them with rental.

Transportation
If 'two-centre living' is the way forward for us then there can be complication with stuff like car ownership so I have to evaluate how practical it will be to have a pair of folding e-bikes that we take with us wherever we go. I don't know how resilient they are to go in checked baggage when flying. The idea of all my possessions fitting in a rucksack and having an e-bike as my primary method of transportation really appeals. I had already made the mental note to move my wardrobe in the direction of lightweight clothing, so that's compatible.

Folding e-bikes will fit in an Uber or on public transportation and if we are doing long trips then rental cars will take the strain. I'd previously recoiled away from e-bikes on cost grounds but when they will genuinely replace a car, what's not to like?

Work
Colleagues have been sneaky, devious and political in their dealings in recent weeks. Normally I'd have the energy to take them on and fight but weakened by a fever I have thought through my options. Ultimately it's to extricate myself from the situation at a point which suits me while not stressing about situations and ensuring they experience some discomfort from their behaviour towards me. Actually, I don't think the folks concerned have thought much about me given their self-obsessed, self-promoting, social media approach to life.

It seems that I can add 'people will let you down' to Benjamin Franklyn's two certainties in life being death and taxes!

ThriftyRob
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by ThriftyRob »

Covid
As the UK is in full lockdown again, the doom and gloom are oppressive. Our family has hibernated and we are avoiding people with a vengeance! The weather is pretty grim – freezing temperatures and grey, cloudy skies, which don't help the mood. It's too cold to do chores outside in the garden. I find myself avoiding the news, which is a miserable medley of covid fatalities, infection rates and Donald Trump!

Much to DW's puzzlement, the NHS track and trace app has instructed her to self-isolate for 10 days. This corresponds to her last visit to the supermarket, however, we find it hard to believe that she spent 15 minutes within 2 metres of someone infected with the virus. Pushing a supermarket trolley creates a 2 metre space in front and if she had been stalked by someone in the store she would have been aware of it. Dutiful as she is, she's following through with self-isolation, which ends at midnight tonight.

Transportation
Having done some more research, I found that most folding e-bikes can't be taken on planes due to their batteries being some sort of hazard/safety risk. Bit of a blow that!

#vanlife
I thought I should add clarity to my thoughts last week. I like the idea of selling our conventional home and living mostly in a converted van. DW isn't prepared to stretch that far, requiring that we keep a 'home base'. So my thoughts about the cost of a van conversion are set in the context of the cost being in addition (not instead of) rental payments on an apartment/etc. I'm all for living in a van/RV and the secret of our long marriage is knowing when to compromise!

Geoarbitrage
Heading south for winter is particularly appealing right now in our wintry spell of weather. Having researched Portugal further, it may not be our ideal winter location due to the heavy rains in winter. DW still has concerns about the remoteness of the Isle of Man which we will confront by visiting when they reopen their border to the rest of the UK. DW is doing property searches for Suffolk, which is a nice county but not very tax-efficient! We are pretty much certain to rent rather than buy a home for all the good reasons cited by JL Collins and other FI bloggers.

A wider search on 'geoarbitrage' brings up references to south east Asian countries, so I'll be doing more reading on Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in due course.

Spending/saving
Lockdown makes this really easy. Our only outgoings are utilities and food/household shopping. DW and I both receive our normal salaries while WFH and being confined to home there's no temptation from bricks and mortar shops. I am monitoring prices online for Bowers and Wilkins PX7 noise-cancelling headphones and I'll pull the trigger if there's value to be had.

ThriftyRob
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by ThriftyRob »

Covid
DW's self-isolation is over and we are back to new-normal! I was talking to the CEO of an organisation I work with on Friday and her comment was 'everyone's very tired' – which sums up how I feel about this whole situation. My last vacation was almost 12-months ago, I worked through the summer vacation season and I'm really ready for a break somewhere warm and sunny! It has been ok deferring vacation and working through when we have been mostly in lockdown with travel bans, however, I'm proving to myself why regular breaks are so important for keeping energy and spirits up.
Vaccinations appear to be rolling out very slowly in my area and I have no idea when I'll get the call.

Geoarbitrage/ERE
The conversations with DW continue on this topic. She's planning her escape from her job. She has a difficulty with imagining us without a home that we return to and she asks questions like 'What would I do with my violin?' and 'What would you do with your Japanese cleaver?' – testing the presumption that we can sell all our possessions and pack our belongings into a rucksack each. Any advice from someone who has crossed that bridge would be much appreciated!
Actually, I think she's adapting pretty well to the new mindset and is actually exploring how we're going to make ERE happen without making life more difficult than it needs to be. In one discussion, she agreed that spending £100k on a flat where we would store our random possessions that we can't take travelling doesn't make much sense financially. I suggested a three-bedroom townhouse in County Durham (from £30k) and her response was 'but what about the neighbourhood/neighbours?' A rental property at £700/month is also a very expensive secure storage option!
I have been reading FIRE blogs on Chiang Mai which seem pretty positive for over-wintering.

Spending/saving
Our gas supply contract is up for renewal soon. I used a comparison site to find a cheaper supplier and have set up the changeover. Our broadband too. I have bought the PX headphones (great) and two replacement toilet seats (part of staging the home for sale) but otherwise not been tempted by all the January sales offer emails.

jacob
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by jacob »

In the US, people who can not possibly part with their "precious" usually put it in a storage unit while they flit around the world. Then after about 12 months, they get tired of paying the rent to store things they haven't used for over a year and empty it out. If storage units are not a thing in the UK, maybe try to arrange to have things boxed up in someone's garage/attic possibly for money.

ThriftyRob
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by ThriftyRob »

Thanks @Jacob for your reply about 'precious' stuff. We do have secure storage units in the UK. The cost is £11 per week for 16 square feet for one year. Cheaper than buying a flat but still an overhead. I think I'd like to cut the year in storage out of the process and dispose of the stuff when we sell the house.

jacob
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by jacob »

I would also prefer the rational approach of just getting rid of it outright. However, I've found that when letting go of stuff involves emotional attachment, it's often better to let reality argue the point. So out of the three options:

1) Buying a #100,000 flat to store stuff.
2) Having long and boring debates about getting rid of old school papers, toasters, yarn, electronics, ...
3) Paying to store stuff for a year in a unit and letting the person reach the rational conclusion on their own.

... I've found that (3) is often cheaper.

Vaikeasti
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by Vaikeasti »

Just storming ideas but how about renting/buying an apartment and renting it out except for one room that you'd use as storage?

Might be the worst of both worlds but just an idea..

RealPerson
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by RealPerson »

jacob wrote:
Mon Jan 18, 2021 12:12 pm

1) Buying a #100,000 flat to store stuff.
2) Having long and boring debates about getting rid of old school papers, toasters, yarn, electronics, ...
3) Paying to store stuff for a year in a unit and letting the person reach the rational conclusion on their own.

... I've found that (3) is often cheaper.
Sequence matters! We never tried option 1 (thank goodness), but I tried option 2 and when that did not work I tried option 3. Maybe trying 2 first was a mistake because we are now three years into storage. Party of my mistake is that the monthly charge for the storage is automatically charged to the credit card, so almost invisible. I recommend option 3 right off the bat with a manual payment that the SO can then pay manually every month. The details matter!! 👿.

ThriftyRob
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by ThriftyRob »

@jacob, thanks for the reality check on the three options. I'm finding the idea of blowing the best part of £600 on storing crap which could be sold/gifted/thrown away difficult to come to terms with but you're right, it's less costly than the other two options.

@Vaikeasti, thanks for your suggestion, which is logical and would address DW's need to have a home base in the medium/long term. I'll give that further thought and research.

@RealPerson, thanks for sharing your experience. I think involving DW (who is very thrifty) in paying the storage cost would focus her mind and if we have to use option (3) then I'll make sure that happens.

ThriftyRob
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by ThriftyRob »

Car usage
I haven’t driven my car since the end of November, due to lockdown 3. It is irritating me to see the cash tied up in the car serve no useful purpose. But I’m not so irritated that I’m motivated to sell the car (yet). DW takes my car on cold mornings because its heater pumps out warm air almost immediately and doesn’t drain the traction battery (unlike her car).

Showering
Inspired by @hristo botev, I have experimented with not showering on days when I haven’t broken sweat. My family hasn’t told me that I smell disgusting, so it seems to be working fine.

Winter warmth/heating
We set the central heating thermostat to 61ºF to prevent the house feeling icy and damp and we dress for warmth. In my study/office, I wear: sports base layer (polyester/spandex), jogging bottoms, a bamboo long-sleeve t-shirt, a wool sweater with a cardigan over and a pair of thick, wooly socks. I don’t wear gloves (I need my fingers free for typing) and I follow advice that if your hands or feet are cold put on another layer around your core - it works. I chanced across the ‘Sedentary indoor cold wear’ thread and found that useful. I can’t see myself buying a thermal coverall anytime soon though!

Spending
The UK is in its third lockdown. So it’s relatively easy to avoid temptation to buy stuff and spend money. DS has a fill-in job with a supermarket which has the perk of a staff discount card. We have checked that his store works out cheaper (after discount) so we have switched where we shop. DS put his second family member card in DW’s name so she’s doing the food and household shop now. Unfortunately, her logic is ‘because I get x% off, I can trade up to a more expensive wine/etc’ so the shopping bill hasn’t been reduced as much as it could have. Our savings ratio is comfortably above 50%. I noticed an offer of £50 statement credit from Amex for iPhone purchases, which triggered a surge of consumeristic research. I have kicked it into the long grass with the ‘what difference would it make for me in 3 months time?’ question That said, I also looked into sellers of refurbished phones and discovered I can get the same iPhone at around 40% of the new price, saving far more than the £50 on offer. I let the thought percolate as I’m feeling it’s time to move on from my BlackBerry and after several visits to the refurbed phone sales website I plumped for a Huawei P20 for £95, which is a massive saving on a new phone and I should be able to recoup most of the outlay if I suffer buyer's remorse!

Retirement lifestyle debate
DW and I discuss our clearout/downsizing project regularly. Out of the blue, DW will randomly say she doesn’t think she can adapt to not having a ‘home base’ and a life of permanent, slow travel. So I will have to compromise by agreeing we buy a flat somewhere in the UK to meet her needs. I think we’ll have to do some house-hunting. The challenge is around minimising the capital outlay. I have suggested some cities where prices are low and the response I got was: ‘what will the neighbours be like?’. As in, ‘will we fit in?’. This issue was brought into focus by a recently-recycled blog post from @Jacob, in which he discusses how his writing is aimed at ‘elite’ levels of ERE. I’m committed to extreme retirement and I accept that with my wife, I can’t aim for ‘elite’ performance across the whole FI terrain. It’s similar to the discussion about minimising spend versus being a cheapskate. I don’t need to wear a hair shirt!

Where I get stuck in a loop is having associated my ‘renaissance man’ development with woodworking projects in a new house. Building cupboards, sofas, beds and kitchens, etc was fairly interesting but will not really be an option if living in a small rental unit. DW’s attachment to a bricks and mortar home will keep that activity alive.

Investment/education
Having acquired @Jacob’s list of financial textbooks, they are sitting in a pile on my study floor whilst I work my way through the Warren Buffet ‘Snowball’ biography, which is an enjoyable and stimulating read. The point I’m taking from it so far, is that extreme saving/cash accumulation is pivotal although WB did pretty well from choosing well-researched investments and compounding. I’m also devouring FIRE blogs and nomadic/slow travelling blog posts about Asia, ready for planning our travels.

ERE blogs

I find myself reading the ‘daily’ blog posted on the ERE homepage. A few have set me off down a rabbit hole of reading and research. The ‘living aboard’ about cruising piqued my interest. I followed a link to a cruiser’s blog and found the risks and cost associated with buying a yacht fairly off-putting. I don’t think a life aboard is for us!

Goal-setting and milestones
In this Covid lockdown I’m finding that many of my life milestones that I look forward to are not there. DD was 29 yesterday and normally we would have had a family get-together with a home-baked birthday cake, presents and some champagne, but we couldn’t do that this year. DW and I enjoy travelling and so not having any vacations or long weekends away booked in at all is really tough. I have work/client deliverables which provide some challenge/interest and focus but an absence of any ‘fun’ events from the diary is a sad thing. I think that’s part of the reason I was motivated to replace my phone this week. Being denied the opportunity to go out for lunch with DW is frustrating. The good news is that both DW and I had our vaccinations in the last week which is liberating for when the world begins to return towards normal later in the year.
Last edited by ThriftyRob on Sat Mar 06, 2021 7:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by Western Red Cedar »

ThriftyRob wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:16 pm
Retirement lifestyle debate
DW and I discuss our clearout/downsizing project regularly. Out of the blue, DW will randomly say she doesn’t think she can adapt to not having a ‘home base’ and a life of permanent, slow travel. So I will have to compromise by agreeing we buy a flat somewhere in the UK to meet her needs. I think we’ll have to do some house-hunting. The challenge is around minimising the capital outlay. I have suggested some cities where prices are low and the response I got was: ‘what will the neighbours be like?’. As in, ‘will we fit in?’. This issue was brought into focus by a recently-recycled blog post from @Jacob, in which he discusses how his writing is aimed at ‘elite’ levels of ERE. I’m committed to extreme retirement and I accept that with my wife, I can’t aim for ‘elite’ performance across the whole FI terrain. It’s similar to the discussion about minimising spend versus being a cheapskate. I don’t need to wear a hair shirt!

Where I get stuck in a loop is having associated my ‘renaissance man’ development with woodworking projects in a new house. Building cupboards, sofas, beds and kitchens, etc was fairly interesting but will not really be an option if living in a small rental unit. DW’s attachment to a bricks and mortar home will keep that activity alive.

I can relate to this on multiple levels. I'm at an optimization level of the Wheaton Scale (5), and I think a large part of that is based on compromise and certain expectations in my marriage. My wife is really frugal and open to different lifestyles, but options like living with roommates, van life, or other more extreme ideas don't really make sense when trying to maintain a healthy relationship in our case. I prioritize a healthy marriage over moving up the Wheaton scale, but they don't necessarily have to be incompatible either. It takes time for partners to fully grok these concepts, and its a possibility they never will.

I've also spent a lot of time researching slow-travel recently, and thought about buying a home base and renting it out while we traveled around. I've basically given up on that idea at the moment. My primary suggestion in terms of thinking about travel and all of these big changes, is to think of them as an experiment rather than a fixed commitment. You may find out after a few months of travel that you don't really want to travel long-term, and that is okay. You may decide you would rather take a few, month long trips every year. You may also find an international location that you really like and want to use as a home base moving forward.

I think it is worthwhile to see if your wife is open to traveling as an "experiment" for a fixed time (3 months, 6 months, a year) without first purchasing a home base. Keep your most cherished positions in storage or with a friend or family so you can come back to them. You can even try short term rentals in different locations in England to see how they feel, which I think is consistent with your general plan. This may be challenging in that it requires you to downsize to a handful of boxes.

The ERE skills you will implement as a nomad are probably quite different than those you'll implement with a fixed location and space to tinker.

mooretrees
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by mooretrees »

Lots of good stuff in your last post, but I wanted to comment on the body odor. I've found that as a woman I'm expected to shave my armpits. I'm mostly lazy with that sort of thing and eventually have realized that increased body odor is directly related to increased armpit hair. The more hair, the more smell. So, that's another thing to consider as another way to reduce concerns of BO, just give your pits a quick trim. Also, you really have to smell badly for other people to smell you, except for folks with sensitive noses. And first trimester pregnant women, everything smells bad to them.

I get the lack of celebrating with family, having a zoom birthday call is really an unsatisfying substitute. So glad you and DW got your vaccinations!

ertyu
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by ertyu »

A suggested reframe: "I'm not progressing up the scale" vs. "I am progressing differently." Social and relationship capital is very much an integral part of being "Rennaisance." So, instead of "compromise," you could choose to see your situation as simply optimizing across a different set of parameters.

ThriftyRob
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by ThriftyRob »

I'm following the forum guidelines by replying, not quoting and I hope this lines up and makes sense! @Western Red Cedar, thank you for your thoughtful insights and sharing your perspectives. Your wife sounds like she has similar ideas to mine (she isn't interested in house hacking or shared living at all).

Having read a lot about buy-to-let and renting out property, I have doubts whether it would work as cleanly as we would require for us to have the home available for the six months we need it and rented out for the six months we don't. UK property law is very lenient (in the renter's favour) which can make it unpredictable (and expensive). I agree that an international location for a home base is a possibility, but with two adult children living/working in the London area, we can discount that. As I have written previously, I'd like us to relocate to Isle of Man (again subject to DW's agreement). We need to do a research visit to check whether it's a trip too far back in time! Unfortunately, with Covid-19, the border between the UK and Isle of Man is closed for all except Isle of Man residents returning and for essential workers, so that visit is some way off yet.

Your point about the 'travelling as an experiment' is sound. It's what we're talking about doing but the 'where do we come back to?' question looms large. So the fallback will have to be boxes in secure storage (or maybe DD or DS's flats). The main issue I'm processing aloud here, is my having to compromise by using some of our capital to buy a home that will serve as a home base. (It's the inefficiency that irks!).

@mooretrees - thanks for your kind words and empathy (about zoom birthday calls). I have probably the largest wardrobe imaginable of deodorants and anti-perspirants, accumulated a couple of years ago when I was determined to manage summertime sweaty pits. I discovered in that process that trimming pit hair is effective so I do so every spring. My current regime is to use a stick of 'Old Spice Original' after showering which projects an old school barber shop fragrance and is not unpleasant. My drive to shower daily is motivated by the wish to keep fresh down below.

@ertyu, thanks for your helpful reframe. I'm probably fairly well-progressed with social and relationship capital and I want to keep the family position at least where it is now. I am unwinding myself from some 'positions of responsibility' in community and voluntary organisations as part of making it easier for us to to go away travelling for extended periods and subsequently relocate, so I guess I'm already optimising in that web of goals. I appreciate your pointing that out to me!

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Bankai
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Re: The reformed materialists

Post by Bankai »

There are quite a few issues with leaving an unoccupied 'base' while traveling long-term. One is an obvious opportunity cost of tied in capital. There are also all the usual bills which one is still liable to pay, like factor fees, standing charge for electricity etc. Then there's 100% additional council tax charge (depending on council this might be applied as soon as after 12 months) - if a property has high council tax to begin with, this could be as much as £4-5k for council tax alone. And presumably one would need to pay someone to check the property out every month or two. All in all, an unoccupied property might be even more expensive than an occupied one. One way to mitigate some of the costs would be to 'rent' the property to a family member or a trusted friend at below market to cover bills etc. But this has its own bag of potential issues.

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