Author Topic: Advice for a UK mustachian  (Read 5969 times)

alcarm77

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Advice for a UK mustachian
« on: June 13, 2012, 11:18:50 AM »
Could any UK-based mustachians help with the following:

Are there any Uk-based equivalents to Craigslist apart from Gumtree and UK craigslist (which seems to be very sparsely populated)?
Can you recommend any internet beginners' guides to investing in the UK?
What is the UK equivalent to the Vanguard investing fund that MMM recommends?
Is a 401K similar to a pension?
How do ISAs fit into building up your 'stash? Are they worth using in MMM philosophy or not really?

Thank you:)

CuencaSolo

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Re: Advice for a UK mustachian
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2012, 11:36:51 AM »
I'll answer the US bit!  A 401K is a tax-deferred retirement plan.  Contributions while working come off the top of the member's income, and are not taxed then.  Some employers voluntarily supplement these contributions.  Interest, dividends, and capital gains accumulate tax-free.  When money is taken out, after about age 60, all of it is taxed as current income.  How much retirement income depends on the size and timing of the contributions, and market performance over the intervening years, so this type of pension is called Defined Contribution.  The old type of pension is Defined Benefit, where the employer or the government guarantees a specific pension amount, and takes the risk of poor performance (or neglecting to make reasonable contributions.)

Another piece of jargon, a 403b, is a similar plan aimed mostly at schoolteachers.

There are several more types of tax-advantaged retirement plans, all luxuriantly festooned with red tape and complex rules, and the UK has its own set. 

smorgasbord

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Re: Advice for a UK mustachian
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2012, 01:39:42 PM »
I have not found anything other than gumtree for the UK.

I would look to monevator.com for beginners investing advice in the UK probably the passive investment section. http://monevator.com/category/investing/passive-investing-investing/

A book that I would recommend is Tim Hale's Smarter Investing which is UK focussed.

The funds most similar to Vanguard funds in the UK are vanguard funds. :) Though they are a little harder to get hold of.
http://monevator.com/cheap-vanguard-index-funds/

ISA's are a godsend if you would rather not pay taxes on your investment. I put as much as I can into mine.
« Last Edit: June 13, 2012, 01:56:45 PM by smorgasbord »

catalana

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Re: Advice for a UK mustachian
« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2012, 03:22:40 AM »
Could any UK-based mustachians help with the following:

Are there any Uk-based equivalents to Craigslist apart from Gumtree and UK craigslist (which seems to be very sparsely populated)?
Can you recommend any internet beginners' guides to investing in the UK?
What is the UK equivalent to the Vanguard investing fund that MMM recommends?
Is a 401K similar to a pension?
How do ISAs fit into building up your 'stash? Are they worth using in MMM philosophy or not really?

Thank you:)
Not too sure what Craigslist is like, but I'm guessing somewhere close to Freecycle?  What are you trying to do specifically?  Get work, advertise stuff for sale, find free stuff?

For internet guides to investing, just google then read, read, read.  You could try Motley Fool for articles, or any of the Boards on investment sites like Interactive Investor.  I do second the recommendation for Monevator though, particularly if you're interested in passive investing.  There are some good explanations of vanguard funds, how to access them, and also alternatives such as ETFs and the HSBC funds.

I think Stocks & Shares ISAs are a cornerstone for stash building, particularly if you want to retire early.  I pay into a SIPP (seems to be similar to a 401K) to take my taxable income below the 40% tax threshold and then also max out my S&S ISA.  I plan to use the S&S ISA to fund the gap between when I want to retire and when the government thinks I should retire  ;-)

The SIPP and other deferred defined benefit schemes I have will fund my later years.  It does mean however that I have to do some pretty detailed calculations on how much I need in the S&S ISA, as the pensions kick in at 60, 65 and 67.  That is a bit off-topic though, and perhaps worthy of its own thread!

grantmeaname

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Re: Advice for a UK mustachian
« Reply #4 on: June 18, 2012, 06:22:32 AM »
Craigslist is a classified ad site with subsites for each regional market (example here). It's a nonprofit so it has a .org TLD and it's free to post on. Because of this, it's totally destroyed the newspaper classifieds in the States, and a similar site, Kijiji, has done more or less the same in Canada.

gooki

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Re: Advice for a UK mustachian
« Reply #5 on: June 18, 2012, 01:55:08 PM »
eBay.co.uk

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!