Investments and Crypto šŸ’°

UK
66

I like this thread. My strategy is pretty simple.

  • keep my emergency fund relevant with 12 months outgoings/needs (top up as required)
  • 50% of my salary (salary sacrifice) into my pension (global hedged stocks)
  • Spend the rest

Iā€™m not too far from early retirement so I thought I may as well overload the pension before Rachel takes away my salary sacrifice national insurance relief.

I find this works well for me because I can spend without feeling guilty as I know my money has already need invested, whatā€™s left over I donā€™t worry too munch about.

I have a coinbase account, not used it yet - Iā€™ve looked into crypto before, i might buy some maybe as fun, but Coinbase are also offering me a 3.5% savings account (but not ISA), FSCS protected - could be worth a look for my emergency fund.

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67

Where does your EF sit just now if you donā€™t mind sharing?

68

Thereā€™s a limit of Ā£2000 per year for salary sacrifice from April.

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69

Better to do the defense ETF than individual stocks as theyā€™ve been all over the place in recent years.

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70

April 2029

71

I am unfavourable here but I donā€™t believe tax avoidance schemes should exist - why pay tax on it later when we need it now?

Scrap them all, the Ā£2k cap is a good start, but also remove it for those paying funds elsewhere to not pay higher tax or gain access to the benefits system. :face_with_peeking_eye:

72

Trouble is that new schemes are being advertised all the time. As one loophole closes another one is exploited. There is a whole business of people selling these schemes to people that are happy to take the risk

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73

Yeah very much in disagreement here especially as there is taxation that could be levied that doesnā€™t hit workers. I feel enough of my pay packet is eaten up by taxes and basic living costs. No way am I willing to pay more tax to prop up things like the triple lock. While that exists there is zero support from me in terms of levying more taxes on workers.

I imagine my resistance to the triple will make more unpopular thoā€¦ :joy::joy:

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74

I have mine held in a Weekly Paying ETF thatā€™s linked to the price of US Treasury Bonds.

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75

True, but the laws should change and everything but the max matching employer/employee pension % is post tax, that solves some of it, and then no tax back on SIPPs and stuff save paying it later down the line.

The rich could also be taxed, along with the corporations who pay very little tax here.

76

Yeah, a defense ETF that I they were talking about I the Boring money email today.

Iā€™ll look into a few of the ETFā€™s on T212 later. My stocks for today at least performed well :joy:

77

Youā€™d be surprised how long it can take to implement changes in tax law

78

Only because someone hasnā€™t got the front to change those laws too :joy:

Thereā€™s not enough backbone in government, the people will moan but the people will also move on from it.

79

We already have a very progressive tax system - ie the rich already pay disproportionately more than lower earners

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80

It will be interesting to see whether the proposed changes to salary sacrifice actually happen.

There will likely be a general election leading up to when they kick in and all governments want to be popular with voters.

On the separate subject of defence stocks, some of the YouTubers are commenting that, that ship as sailed. ie the best growth in those stocks has been had already. Not sure if thatā€™s true or not

81

While this may be true, itā€™s not really apples for apples. This particularly isnā€™t one of my strong subjects and itā€™ll probably show here.

We have ~6.5 times more people than Sweden for example, and they have a better standard of living than us here in the UK.

We need to do better to live better, those %pts arenā€™t really working for us.

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82

For anyone new to investing i would recommend you start here.

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83

Never heard of them before but I love the look of their UI. I take it you would recommend? Iā€™m not a fan of trading 212ā€™s clutter!!

84

Donā€™t forget youā€™re currently seeing a version of the app which is about to be rolled back to the previous (better) version any day now.

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85

That means no more pension schemes or ISAs which are both tax avoidance schemes.