u/Cool-Archer5085

Hi all

As background, my girlfriend and I have been spending on the BAPP to reach the £15k spend. We are at around £14k until January but have stopped spending to make sure we do not trigger the voucher before we are prepared for it.

Our wish: we would love to use the Companion Voucher to book return business class flights to Japan in either October or November 2027 or 2028. We hear those are great times to travel to Japan. We have enough Avios for this.

Given this - is there a best strategy? I hear the voucher is valid for 2 years, so should we hit the £15k spend at around December 2026, so that we could book Oct/Nov 2027 or Oct/Nov 2028?

It is likely we would be able to get those Japan tickets? Or do we have to do something special?

Thanks so much!!

I already have a PW which I’m happy with but would like a commutable Kindle which is smaller.

I noticed there hasn’t been an updated Kindle Basic in quite a while - are there rumours it will come out this year? Or best to just buy it now?

Thanks!

I want to start by saying I am fully aware of how advantageous this position is and how fortunate I am, in comparison to many people. That said, I still want to make sure I maximise this position I am in and would appreciate some guidance.

Before I get into the numbers, some background:

• My girlfriend and I are in our mid-20s, been going out for many years
• Plan to buy a house once we are married, let's say in around 4 years. There is no hard and fast rule on the house buying part - we could remain renting until the time is right
• Plan to start renting soon, so the amount we will be saving will drop significantly (as both live with respective parents atm). But will not need to access any of the S&S ISA
• We are big travellers and would love to retire earlier than the traditional age - late 50s would be good
• When it comes to the S&S ISA number below - I got VERY lucky riding some MAG7 individual stocks over the last few years. It is nearly 100% in a global index fund now (I consider this transition to global index fund my greatest achievement haha). My company has great benefits when it comes to pension too - hence that number being higher.

Numbers (combined, but the majority is from my side):

• S&S ISA : £280k
• CASH : £40k
• PENSION / RETIREMENT : £110k (contributing c. £1.5k per month but this will drop to around £1k once we start to rent)
• Potential mortgage (4.5x both salaries) : £500k

My ultimate concern:

Maybe by the time we end up buying, we will be late 20s / early 30. I understand the point of building up S&S ISA is the flexibility of using it for whatever you wish, and majority will use it for their home purchase. But the idea of depleting my S&S ISA and starting almost again at early 30s seems counterintuitive and scary, and I know the compound interest I will be missing out on. This would also impact the earlier retirement.

I do not know how much we should keep remaining in our S&S ISA once we buy the house, so that we are not running it dry. Does it make sense to have a larger mortgage and smaller deposit, given that the expected returns of equities is greater than the interest on the mortgage? Maybe I am overthinking everything and it was only until I put these numbers down on paper (Excel) that I started to freak out a bit!!

Appreciate all of your help and guidance!

Ultimately I am looking at what is the best way to have a centralised location where I can see all of the transactions across my different debit and credit cards(in real time). Ideally with some time frame (pay day cycle), but not necessarily in some budget format (i.e. dictating how much to spend on XYZ).

I don’t mind if this is something that HAS to be manual, i.e. some app where I input details per transaction I do (date, card, currency, description) and have some export feature. But ideally it would be an app that uses OpenBanking.

It’s really useful for me as I spend across different cards and I want to make sure I am not missing transactions (hence openbanking would be the better option), and I can search something like ‘dentist’ and see which transactions in the past I paid for at the dentist, regardless of what card. It’s also super valuable to catch loose standing orders or direct debits instead of manually going onto all of the different apps.

I feel this must be a common ‘problem’ people have, but interested to know what you guys do to solve it.

Last week my girlfriend and I watched our first MLB game at Oracle Park, as we came on holiday to San Fran from London. The Giants beat the Athletics 3-1.

We bought some J.H.Lee tops and so were super happy he got a HR!

Our thoughts:

I am a massive soccer (football where I'm from but this is an American sub!) fan (Liverpool) and so most of my sporting games live are different Premier League stadiums. That said, I LOVED the vibe and atmosphere at Oracle Park. I'd never really followed baseball (pls don't hate me, but if pushed, I would say I supported Red Sox just because they share the same owners as Liverpool), so spent time reading up on the rules.

Oracle Park itself is beautiful - such a fun stadium and the whole ticket purchasing experience was great. Everyone was really nice too and it's cool to see a sport where home and away fans sit together (similar in cricket, which I also attend).

My research was telling me that the Giants are not the 'best' team but they are one of the wealthiest / have a massive following. Interesting concept.

Overall - it was such a fun and great experience and my girlfriend who does not really care too much for sports, loveddd it. She was proudly reppin her J.H.Lee top too.

My questions:

I'm generally a massive sports fan and like to go down rabbit holes on particular sports or teams. I have this affiliation with Giants now and would love to learn more about their current situation and future outlook.

So I guess my question is...are the Giants in a bad spot or is there hope for them to get back on top?

Appreciate all of your info and thanks again for welcoming us!

Hi all

We’re currently in Madeira and attempting to go on the PR1.2, PR6-25 and PR8.

We’ve managed to get bookings for PR1.2 and PR8 but PR6-25 on the website looks fully booked for tourists for absolute ages. But for residents it’s 100% available.

Is this normal? We want to go tomorrow ideally!

Side question - our timing for PR8 is not ideal (afternoon), are we able to go earlier or is that a no go? Thanks!

Hi all

I’m looking at potentially contacting an IFA and I was wondering what accounts do you need to share with them?

For example if they charge an ongoing fee of 0.5% of assets, would I need to share with them every investment account and bank account?

Let’s say I have a 3 year cash reserve in saving accounts and then some S&S ISA accounts with smaller amounts which I want to just use for fun (the “fun” part, not core) - does these need to be shared?

I think the cash accounts may be a bit tricky to ignore if we would use a waterfall approach with 3 years of spending in cash.

And also, at what level do they typically go to? Do they have your accounts at a transaction level or just number level?

Thanks!!

Hi guys

I have recently started to get into matcha making and bought on Etsy a Chawan which looks and feels really nice.

The dimensions of the Chawan are: 13.5*7.0cm 500ml

Judging from recipes online, they say a 3grams matcha to 30ml hot water ratio is good - but when I use this on the bowl, because of how wide it is, the water height is minimal. This means when using the chasen, it's always scraping the bottom and the bristles start to go all over the place. I also find it a little tricky to make sure the matcha is fully mixed in.

Based on the above dimensions, is this Chawan typically for making more than one serving of matcha? Or am I doing something wrong and someon has some advice?

Thanks a lot!!

Edit: I like to have an iced matcha latte

I’ve been using Emma for a few years now and during my time it’s done a lot to push investing and other features which I’m not interested in. The price is also quite hefty per year for the plan I have (the entry level plan doesn’t cut it for me due to the account limitations).

My main reason for using it is a place to have all of my transactions coming in and out from all of my different accounts - seeing how much I spend (able to categorise and exclude) and then seeing how much I have left to spend per month.

An understated feature is the ability to search transactions. Eg I had to find some dentist transactions but didn’t remember which account I used - so I just go on Emma and type the dentist name in search and it came up with the transaction from last year.

My biggest issue is the price of the app and whether I can justify that as a ROI. I was wondering if any of you had alternatives that fit the above requirements? Thanks a lot!!

Hey - would love your thoughts on the above tablet.

I am UK based and noticed Xiaomi sell on their website here, which is great.

My usage:

• Mostly a media device tbh (Netflix, YouTube etc.) - good display required
• I travel a lot so will be used a lot on airplanes / trains - good battery required
• Minimal gaming
• Potentially some manga reading

Caveat: I am entirely an Apple person in the Apple ecosystem (phone, macbook, airpods etc.). So naturally I had been looking at the iPads but given their price, I am not sure if it is worth it given what my usage will be. I already have a Macbook and so for any productive tasks, I just use that.

For those of you plugged into the Apple ecosystem but with an Android tablet, how is the experience? Do you regret not getting an iPad?

I feel the price of the Pad 8 / 8 Pro seems really good, but interested to know what your thoughts are. Thanks alot!!