Reply to: Bankruptcy

[MarillionFan]

If you were young enough to buy a house when it was cheap.

BTW you can live on less than that if you got a house when it was cheap. One of my siblings' mortgage is something like £60 a month.

I believe if you get knocked up at 15 and leave home, you can in fact get a free house, council tax, income support, child care and lots of other benefits. In fact, you don't even need a job!

Jobs are over rated.

[SueEllen]

40 to 50k is more than manageable if you bought a house when houses were cheap.

If you were young enough to buy a house when it was cheap.

BTW you can live on less than that if you got a house when it was cheap. One of my siblings' mortgage is something like £60 a month.

[milanbenes]

i see

thanks

Milan.

[sasguru]

and your point is ?

you agree with the wisdom or disagree ?

Milan.

Well my point is that it depends on what you think life is for.
Doodab has had a great time in his youth with the women, wine and song.
Your youth has been spent changing tapes in some dingy basement in some central European tulipe hole.
So when your life flashes before you in your final momements, your index-linked pension plan will not figure highly on it.

HTH

[milanbenes]

and your point is ?

you agree with the wisdom or disagree ?

Milan.

[sasguru]

ok,

I accept life does not always work out that way,

but the argument that everyone has different priorities I don't accept,

because those don't make it their priority in their 20s and 30s and 40s to
work hard and put some security behind them, because perhaps their priority
is to do other things, should not subsequently complain when they find themselves
moving into middle age skint

Milan.

You're quite mouthy and patronising for some hick from the sticks who lives in the arse end of nowhere, does mind-bendingly dull stuff for a living and thinks a Passat is the height of sophistication, eh?

[Old Greg]

Because one of them works in the public sector or similar with a decent final salary pension?

To be fair the main thing that is killing you is your accommodation costs.

40 to 50k is more than manageable if you bought a house when houses were cheap.

[SueEllen]

I know lots of 2-parent middle-class families who manage to raise 2,3 or even 4 children on a combined income of £40-50k. So 12 years on ~£400/day is still a lot. If a well-heeled contractor can't raise a family and savings at the same time, how does anyone make it to retirement?

Because one of them works in the public sector or similar with a decent final salary pension?

To be fair the main thing that is killing you is your accommodation costs.

[BlasterBates]

If you are working in Germany make sure it is above board and you are declaring all your income. There are no tax loopholes. Schemes that split your income are illegal.

You should be a "Freiberufler", could be through a managed co.

If you are claiming expenses you need to check how long you can do this if you're working in the same place all the time. I'm not sure on this one. One contractor I knew couldn't claim but maybe it is different if you have a family.

[milanbenes]

I know lots of 2-parent middle-class families who manage to raise 2,3 or even 4 children on a combined income of £40-50k. So 12 years on ~£400/day is still a lot. If a well-heeled contractor can't raise a family and savings at the same time, how does anyone make it to retirement?

Quite

my point exactly

it's cos, when they was younger, they had all the toyz

and now, they're scratching their heads saying, eh, what happened

Milan.

[d000hg]

Well duh! No wonder you can save so much.

I have two (almost grown up now) kids and zilch in savings. If I had a choice between healthy kids or a healthy bank balance, I'd choose the kids any time.

I know lots of 2-parent middle-class families who manage to raise 2,3 or even 4 children on a combined income of £40-50k. So 12 years on ~£400/day is still a lot. If a well-heeled contractor can't raise a family and savings at the same time, how does anyone make it to retirement?

[milanbenes]

doobab,

thank you for clarifying

ok, £450 in de against £300 in UK

now it makes sense

what to do ?

you got to work it out :-)

i would say, get the Mrs to come to Germany for a few years, she might even enjoy it

otherwise, come home more often

rent a hole in Germany as digs

keep costs down in the UK

build some cash and then buy

good luck

Milan.

[doodab]

doobab,

please, with the greatest of respect, if you have to go to Germany and take all the inherent costs to get £300 / day as an IT contractor then perhaps you should look to get into a higher value area of IT or do something else

If you have to go to Germany to get £300 / day, what is your rate in the UK ?


You need to move into a better paying area of technology, or move into something like Project Management, or move out of IT

or perhaps take one step back to go two steps forward, ie, go for a permie role which will get you the skills to go into higher value contracting, do that role for a couple of years and then back to contracting

either way, it seems where you are now is not sustainable

after thirteen years as a contract I still don't understand why you didn't have some property substantially paid for

oh well

Milan.

Hi Milan,

Thanks for the high quality patronising and rather impressive demonstration of why one should read before replying.

My current rate in DE works out to around £500 but it was more like £450 before I decided to leave. My rate in the UK is likely to be £300-350 at best, down from £450 a few years ago. That is part of the reason why I want to stay here, if we got rid of the place in the UK I could be out of debt in < 2 years and buying a family house in 5.

I didn't buy a house because by the time I had been contracting a few years and felt comfortable with the idea of buying a house I couldn't afford somewhere I wanted to live without borrowing more than I was comfortable with. In retrospect I do sometimes wish I had gone down the self cert massive mortgage route because if I had I would be quite ridiculously wealthy, but then who knows what else might have happened or where I'd be?

[Churchill]

ok,

I accept life does not always work out that way,

but the argument that everyone has different priorities I don't accept,

because those don't make it their priority in their 20s and 30s and 40s to
work hard and put some security behind them, because perhaps their priority
is to do other things, should not subsequently complain when they find themselves
moving into middle age skint

Milan.

Well, you self-righteous, smug arsehole.

You've got a point though.

[milanbenes]

ok,

I accept life does not always work out that way,

but the argument that everyone has different priorities I don't accept,

because those don't make it their priority in their 20s and 30s and 40s to
work hard and put some security behind them, because perhaps their priority
is to do other things, should not subsequently complain when they find themselves
moving into middle age skint

Milan.