Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by tshoboy(m): 7:25pm On Apr 28, 2022 |
Solumtoya:
That makes sense because they work minimum of 32 hours weekly so a Student's 20 hours weekly won't suffice. I checked and was finding it difficult to see other roles. Is it only CX roles they have? |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Suzam: 8:44pm On Apr 28, 2022 |
Viruses: A colleague from Iran asked me to send him some Nigerian music to listen to. Dude really seems to like Nigeria.
I gave him Peru by Fireboy, Time to party by Flavour and No one like you by PSquare. Baba saw me this morning and said he was hearing Peru Peru, that what is Peru. I just weak. How do I answer this kind of question. Around last year, Tekno's Shayo is always blaring in every store inside Dubai mall..... 1 faithful day, My colleague came to ask me, What is Dum kele dum kele dum kele dum dum dum dum..... I jusz confuse, how do I answer? I told him, that it is not a Nigeria language. He started making jest of me, that I don't even understand my language |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by bayocanny: 10:47pm On Apr 28, 2022 |
@Lexusgs430
Hello, pls I urgently need 49pounds to pay for my app fee and am running out of time cus of deadlines. Pls what's your rates? I need it ASAP, wouldn't to get it done tonight abeg.
I sent you a PM already. |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Lexusgs430: 10:53pm On Apr 28, 2022 |
bayocanny: @Lexusgs430
Hello, pls I urgently need 49pounds to pay for my app fee and am running out of time cus of deadlines. Pls what's your rates? I need it ASAP, wouldn't to get it done tonight abeg.
I sent you a PM already. We are already chatting.......... |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Lexusgs430: 11:04pm On Apr 28, 2022 |
Suzam:
Around last year, Tekno's Shayo is always blaring in every store inside Dubai mall.....
1 faithful day, My colleague came to ask me, What is Dum kele dum kele dum kele dum dum dum dum.....
I jusz confuse, how do I answer?
I told him, that it is not a Nigeria language. He started making jest of me, that I don't even understand my language You know we have talking drums........ We also have mouth drums ........... ![cheesy](https://www.nairaland.com/faces/cheesy.png) |
|
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Macaulay10(m): 11:38pm On Apr 28, 2022 |
. |
|
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Poanan: 1:10am On Apr 29, 2022 |
IamE: If you are getting so much unfortunately mails whenever you apply go and review your CV (Also be sure you are applying for the right job)
If recruiters respond to you mail or cv, you are on the next path.
If after interview, nobody gets back to you work on your communication, be sure you know and can explain the much your CV claims, watch how to answer interview questions
If you cross these 2stages, you may advance to the 2nd Interview stage or just get the job straight.
Also avoid mentioning to recruiters that you are new in the country I think they have this biased thinking of african migrants. But wont they get to know? That was part of the reson j stayed long before getting a job. Everybody uk experience uk experience. Somethjng will guve u out. Euther brp or proof of NI. I thjnk it comes with date. 1 Like |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Hwy9: 4:30am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Lexusgs430:
Send me a WA message............
I need naira sir. |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Lexusgs430: 4:36am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Hwy9:
I need naira sir. Send a WhatsApp message when the real world is awake .............. ![cheesy](https://www.nairaland.com/faces/cheesy.png) 1 Like |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ticha: 6:24am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Pension and wealth planning for the future - very long read.
To access full pensions, we have to pay 35 years of national insurance to access the full state pension in the UK and in New Zealand, a naturalised Kiwi aka us has to pay at least 10 years of income tax. It means we can't access the full state pension in both countries. In both places, I doubt if we could live on the pension anyway even if we qualified for it. The full UK pension is about £7k a year so £14k for both of us. Yes, you could potentially access other benefits, but it means from age 65 for women and 67 for men, you’ll be living on approx. £1k a month unless you have savings to draw on. If you have savings of more than £16k, you also can’t access any state benefits either. So we have been planning for retirement.
We have a Global Vanguard All Shares account (the name has changed over the years) - managed by Henderson Securities. We've had it jointly for more than 12 years (husbot for much longer) and have dipped into it sometimes (mainly to pay for IVF). We haven't touched it for years now and the funds have grown exponentially. If we continue paying into it consistently, we should have about £600k worth of shares (yay compound interest) by the time I'm 55 and husbot is 52. To give an idea, we've always paid a minimum of £150 each monthly into it since 2010. Henderson does the investing and taxes on our behalf. We haven't bothered to check what they invest it in, but we picked an aggressive growth fund for a long time and that really paid off (hence using the profits for IVF). Now it's in a mid-range growth fund and will remain there. We have upped our monthly minimum payments to £250 each a month now because we can afford to do so. The SOA comes every March, but we don’t check it or even look at it beyond seeing how much is there when the SOA comes.
In New Zealand - we pay into the government Kiwisaver scheme (pension scheme). I contribute 3% of my earnings and husbot contributes 5% of his earnings, the government contributes $521 every year. We can withdraw our Kiwisaver once we've been out of NZ for 12 months (6 years of payments), so we plan to withdraw it and dump it into Henderson when we leave. Onto tangible assets – We have property in both countries. I sold my house in 9ja once I realised it was an albatross and put all the funds into a UK purchase. Our UK family home although rented out is on a full repayment mortgage. Thanks to the current property boom (which can also go bust!) we have some substantial equity in it. We also have other BTLs on interest only mortgages. We can always sell one to clear off the mortgage on the family home if needed.
The move to New Zealand has been the best thing for us financially. I have no employer loyalty. No one goes into education to make money as the pay is poor compared to the level of work and qualifications involved. I often jump ship every 2 years because that's the only way I can increase my wages. Wages in education are much higher in NZ than in the UK which is weird (5m v 67m) but good for me! Anyhow, when we moved to NZ, we took opportunity of the higher wages and saved and saved and saved but buying a house seemed out of our reach. Then we met another couple who seemed to have the same values as us (family, financial, moral you name it). We pooled our resources and we bought a house in our name (we bought first because we had higher incomes and better credit). With property values going crazy, we within 6 months refinanced that property and gifted the cash to this family (basically paid them back their initial contribution and extra) so they bought one too in their name. They then refinanced and gifted us the cash and we bought another in our names. Because we want to exponentially grow the money, we are demolishing the first house to build 5 new ones and then leverage that to give them enough to buy a 2nd property for themselves. They can choose to develop or hold or sell but we will have both walked away with 2 initial properties each.
It does mean we're financially tight until we finish the build March/ April 2023 (build starts in Oct 2022) but it's for our future financial security so we're totally happy to have a few tight years. It also means I can't help my extended family as much as I used to and boy! am I hearing about it! I've thoroughly enjoyed the consent and planning process for the development. We now have land use consent ad have just applied for building consent. It has been stressful and a huge expenditure but also a big learning curve. I almost decided to retrain as surveyor last year when we got the engineering bill ��. When the houses are completed, it'll be leased to Housing New Zealand on a 5 year repairing lease. The income from the 5 after tax is about the same as my before tax income (imagine fa) so we know we can comfortably live on that should shit hit the fan workwise.
Our current NZ home was bought with retirement in mind. We went for the biggest house on a large land. We also deliberately bought in a medium density zone. Basically, we can build up to 6 four bedroom houses on the land if we demolish the existing house. If we decide not to retire in New Zealand, then that is what we would do in about 7 years’ time. If we choose to retire in NZ (I seriously doubt it) then we'll sell the UK family home and pay off the mortgage on the NZ one. It has bedrooms and a full bathroom downstairs and is disabled friendly – no stairs to access the whole of the ground floor. I have no intention of going into a nursing or care home.
Shareswise - we've now opened targeted growth fund accounts for the children with Lansdown Hargreaves. We pay £100 a month into each child's account. They will get full access at 18. Hopefully, they can use that to pay uni fees, supplement apprenticeship wages, down payment on a house or even go traveling before uni/ work starts.
We have also created a family trust. I look at the truly wealthy and what they have for going for them is generational wealth and good financial planning. In my family, I'm the first to be in a position to actually start building generational wealth. The trust will hopefully go on forever as it's for the direct progeny of my husbot and his siblings (both his siblings have no children and want none) and me and my siblings so it means my nephews and nieces will get payments annually out of it once they hit 21 but their parents can’t access any of the funds. We've currently set it so it can only be dissolved by a court and no beneficiaries can sell assets out of it including us once the asset has been placed in it.
2 reasons we have done this – divorce/ separation for us or our children. Even though we all hope to remain married till death, the truth is that divorce and remarriage happens. The trust is set up to protect the financial interests of all beneficiaries. If either of us divorces, we will continue to be paid out of it. Should any of us re-marry, the spouse will not be able to access any funds from the trust. Same with the children. Stats also show that first generation immigrants usually create the biggest wealth and subsequent generations waste the accumulated wealth. It is very likely that our children will not have the kind of drive we have because they have been born into or have lived in plenty enough to be happy with state handouts in the future. Therefore, they might actually see us as a burden as we grow older and infirm.
So hopefully at retirement, the trust can top up our pension but also ensure we remain at home till end of life and not be a burden on the children.
This is not financial advice. Just sharing what we have done. 115 Likes 70 Shares |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by AirBay: 6:43am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Ticha........ I just want to screammmmmm ![undecided](https://www.nairaland.com/faces/undecided.png) |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ticha: 6:46am On Apr 29, 2022 |
AirBay: Ticha........ I just want to screammmmmm ![undecided](https://www.nairaland.com/faces/undecided.png) Ha! Don't scream o. Wetin I do o? |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by mex551(m): 7:15am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Kai! You are just one in a million. Many lessons to learn. Thanks for your direction. I keep saying that Nairaland is under rated. 1 Like |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by deept(m): 7:19am On Apr 29, 2022 |
mex551: Kai! You are just one in a million. Many lessons to learn. Thanks for your direction. I keep saying that Nairaland is under rated. Nairaland's quality is as good as the quality of people on it. I have bookmarked, shared, copied and forwarded the post. I usually dont read long posts but that wasn't long enough. 2 Likes |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by semmyk(m): 7:49am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Interesting read. An err we all tend to make or a disciple we struggle to lash ourselves with. I can relate with the post. And the part of trust; hummmm, interesting approach. Anyways, when Ticha, I mean teacher teaches you, you've got to listen up. init. Ticha: Pension and wealth planning for the future - very long read. ... ... It does mean we're financially tight until we finish the build March/ April 2023 (build starts in Oct 2022) but it's for our future financial security so we're totally happy to have a few tight years. ... ... We have also created a family trust. ... We've currently set it so it can only be dissolved by a court and no beneficiaries can sell assets out of it including us once the asset has been placed in it. 2 reasons we have done this – divorce/ separation for us or our children. Even though we all hope to remain married till death, the truth is that divorce and remarriage happens. The trust is set up to protect the financial interests of all beneficiaries
This is not financial advice. Just sharing what we have done.
1 Like |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ibk2020: 7:59am On Apr 29, 2022 |
For someone coming as a student and student dependent, is it compulsory to do police report from Nigeria? Is the police report useful in UK? |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by AirBay: 8:07am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Ticha:
Ha! Don't scream o. Wetin I do o? That your analysis is AWESOME 1 Like |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by elisinho(m): 8:16am On Apr 29, 2022 |
deept:
Nairaland's quality is as good as the quality of people on it. I have bookmarked, shared, copied and forwarded the post. I usually dont read long posts but that wasn't long enough. I was reading for 10mins and it felt like 1min Actually good content is never long 3 Likes |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by NevaUgivup: 8:30am On Apr 29, 2022 |
elisinho:
I was reading for 10mins and it felt like 1min Actually good content is never long I even read it twice ![grin](https://www.nairaland.com/faces/grin.png) |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Rocktation(f): 8:34am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Interesting read, indeed. Well done Ticha!! |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Mellady(f): 8:56am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Ticha Nwanyi oma, I want to be like you when I grow up ooo ![smiley](https://www.nairaland.com/faces/smiley.png) 1 Like |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by IamE: 9:17am On Apr 29, 2022 |
My point is, just don't mention it during the interview. Poanan:
But wont they get to know? That was part of the reson j stayed long before getting a job. Everybody uk experience uk experience. Somethjng will guve u out. Euther brp or proof of NI. I thjnk it comes with date. |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Samadhii(m): 9:43am On Apr 29, 2022 |
MadeMen4Life:
Well, it could have been faster if you picked the branch you opened your account.
I submitted my Form A this morning, picked the branch my friend is working as a cashier and I just got an email few minutes ago that my Form A has been Approved and waiting for Disbursement… That’s First Bank that people normally complain about their slow form A service. NB: I still got my maintenance fee from same First Bank few weeks ago and it was processed within 1 week….
These things can be at the speed of light if you know someone in the bank. Hi, is there a maximum for the maintenance fee. A friend here wants to get his accommodation and the bank told him the maximum he can get is £1300 |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Samadhii(m): 9:49am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Ibk2020: For someone coming as a student and student dependent, is it compulsory to do police report from Nigeria? Is the police report useful in UK? Some jobs request for it. Security and some care jobs. |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by dustydee: 9:58am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Ticha: Pension and wealth planning for the future - very long read.
To access full pensions, we have to pay 35 years of national insurance to access the full state pension in the UK and in New Zealand, a naturalised Kiwi aka us has to pay at least 10 years of income tax. It means we can't access the full state pension in both countries. In both places, I doubt if we could live on the pension anyway even if we qualified for it. The full UK pension is about £7k a year so £14k for both of us. Yes, you could potentially access other benefits, but it means from age 65 for women and 67 for men, you’ll be living on approx. £1k a month unless you have savings to draw on. If you have savings of more than £16k, you also can’t access any state benefits either. So we have been planning for retirement.
We have a Global Vanguard All Shares account (the name has changed over the years) - managed by Henderson Securities. We've had it jointly for more than 12 years (husbot for much longer) and have dipped into it sometimes (mainly to pay for IVF). We haven't touched it for years now and the funds have grown exponentially. If we continue paying into it consistently, we should have about £600k worth of shares (yay compound interest) by the time I'm 55 and husbot is 52. To give an idea, we've always paid a minimum of £150 each monthly into it since 2010. Henderson does the investing and taxes on our behalf. We haven't bothered to check what they invest it in, but we picked an aggressive growth fund for a long time and that really paid off (hence using the profits for IVF). Now it's in a mid-range growth fund and will remain there. We have upped our monthly minimum payments to £250 each a month now because we can afford to do so. The SOA comes every March, but we don’t check it or even look at it beyond seeing how much is there when the SOA comes.
In New Zealand - we pay into the government Kiwisaver scheme (pension scheme). I contribute 3% of my earnings and husbot contributes 5% of his earnings, the government contributes $521 every year. We can withdraw our Kiwisaver once we've been out of NZ for 12 months (6 years of payments), so we plan to withdraw it and dump it into Henderson when we leave. Onto tangible assets – We have property in both countries. I sold my house in 9ja once I realised it was an albatross and put all the funds into a UK purchase. Our UK family home although rented out is on a full repayment mortgage. Thanks to the current property boom (which can also go bust!) we have some substantial equity in it. We also have other BTLs on interest only mortgages. We can always sell one to clear off the mortgage on the family home if needed.
The move to New Zealand has been the best thing for us financially. I have no employer loyalty. No one goes into education to make money as the pay is poor compared to the level of work and qualifications involved. I often jump ship every 2 years because that's the only way I can increase my wages. Wages in education are much higher in NZ than in the UK which is weird (5m v 67m) but good for me! Anyhow, when we moved to NZ, we took opportunity of the higher wages and saved and saved and saved but buying a house seemed out of our reach. Then we met another couple who seemed to have the same values as us (family, financial, moral you name it). We pooled our resources and we bought a house in our name (we bought first because we had higher incomes and better credit). With property values going crazy, we within 6 months refinanced that property and gifted the cash to this family (basically paid them back their initial contribution and extra) so they bought one too in their name. They then refinanced and gifted us the cash and we bought another in our names. Because we want to exponentially grow the money, we are demolishing the first house to build 5 new ones and then leverage that to give them enough to buy a 2nd property for themselves. They can choose to develop or hold or sell but we will have both walked away with 2 initial properties each.
It does mean we're financially tight until we finish the build March/ April 2023 (build starts in Oct 2022) but it's for our future financial security so we're totally happy to have a few tight years. It also means I can't help my extended family as much as I used to and boy! am I hearing about it! I've thoroughly enjoyed the consent and planning process for the development. We now have land use consent ad have just applied for building consent. It has been stressful and a huge expenditure but also a big learning curve. I almost decided to retrain as surveyor last year when we got the engineering bill ��. When the houses are completed, it'll be leased to Housing New Zealand on a 5 year repairing lease. The income from the 5 after tax is about the same as my before tax income (imagine fa) so we know we can comfortably live on that should shit hit the fan workwise.
Our current NZ home was bought with retirement in mind. We went for the biggest house on a large land. We also deliberately bought in a medium density zone. Basically, we can build up to 6 four bedroom houses on the land if we demolish the existing house. If we decide not to retire in New Zealand, then that is what we would do in about 7 years’ time. If we choose to retire in NZ (I seriously doubt it) then we'll sell the UK family home and pay off the mortgage on the NZ one. It has bedrooms and a full bathroom downstairs and is disabled friendly – no stairs to access the whole of the ground floor. I have no intention of going into a nursing or care home.
Shareswise - we've now opened targeted growth fund accounts for the children with Lansdown Hargreaves. We pay £100 a month into each child's account. They will get full access at 18. Hopefully, they can use that to pay uni fees, supplement apprenticeship wages, down payment on a house or even go traveling before uni/ work starts.
We have also created a family trust. I look at the truly wealthy and what they have for going for them is generational wealth and good financial planning. In my family, I'm the first to be in a position to actually start building generational wealth. The trust will hopefully go on forever as it's for the direct progeny of my husbot and his siblings (both his siblings have no children and want none) and me and my siblings so it means my nephews and nieces will get payments annually out of it once they hit 21 but their parents can’t access any of the funds. We've currently set it so it can only be dissolved by a court and no beneficiaries can sell assets out of it including us once the asset has been placed in it.
2 reasons we have done this – divorce/ separation for us or our children. Even though we all hope to remain married till death, the truth is that divorce and remarriage happens. The trust is set up to protect the financial interests of all beneficiaries. If either of us divorces, we will continue to be paid out of it. Should any of us re-marry, the spouse will not be able to access any funds from the trust. Same with the children. Stats also show that first generation immigrants usually create the biggest wealth and subsequent generations waste the accumulated wealth. It is very likely that our children will not have the kind of drive we have because they have been born into or have lived in plenty enough to be happy with state handouts in the future. Therefore, they might actually see us as a burden as we grow older and infirm.
So hopefully at retirement, the trust can top up our pension but also ensure we remain at home till end of life and not be a burden on the children.
This is not financial advice. Just sharing what we have done.
Thank you very much for this insightful post. On the trust, is it something you setup with a lawyer or did it come with the investment you chose? My insurance offered me some kind of trust for my life insurance but it's not quite the same as what you described. Please do you have links I can read up on how to do this or can you share, if you don't mind. On a lighter note, why husbot? is it because your wish is his command? ![grin](https://www.nairaland.com/faces/grin.png) I am asking because I want to know if I am one too to madam ![grin](https://www.nairaland.com/faces/grin.png) 1 Like |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ticha: 10:17am On Apr 29, 2022 |
dustydee:
Thank you very much for this insightful post. On the trust, is it something you setup with a lawyer or did it come with the investment you chose? My insurance offered me some kind of trust for my life insurance but it's not quite the same as what you described. Please do you have links I can read up on how to do this or can you share, if you don't mind. On a lighter note, why husbot? is it because your wish is his command? I am asking because I want to know if I am one too to madam ![grin](https://www.nairaland.com/faces/grin.png) Haha he calls me the wifebot so he's husbot ![grin](https://www.nairaland.com/faces/grin.png) We specifically went to Financial Advisor and a tax accountant. The trust wasn't even something we considered until we started discussing the structure for the development (ie hold in own name, in a ltd co, trust etc). They were able to break down the tax implications (personal income tax, CGT, IHT, corporate income tax) and for future succession planning especially as we don't want the children falling out over who gets what. Then future planning re- divorce entered the matter. The tax accountant set up the trust, then a lawyer (with trust experience) drafted the deeds/clauses and the accountant registered the trust. The first question we were asked was if we wanted our assets to be dispersed at our deaths. The accountants will run the trust in perpetuity so they are corporate trustees of the trust. Because we will also be paying tax in 2 countries, we had to go for proper specialised advice that covers both countries. Tax in UK is a killer sha. Inheritance tax alone is 40% of your estate if your financial affairs are not properly set up. https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/family-and-care/death-and-bereavement/using-a-trust-to-cut-your-inheritance-tax#https://www.which.co.uk/money/tax/inheritance-tax/inheritance-tax-and-trusts-a8x4k7z0kspg#headline_4https://advisingfamilies.org/uk/category/information-portal/planning-ahead/ 24 Likes 17 Shares |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Gloriouscrown: 11:19am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Lexusgs430:
So we come back full circle....... All my children are on GiffGaff, only £10 pcm + 15GB worth of data and unlimited WiFi (when indoors)......... ![grin](https://www.nairaland.com/faces/grin.png) It's Lexusgs430 please is Giffgaff network always reliable? Thanks |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Lexusgs430: 11:23am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Gloriouscrown:
It's Lexusgs430 please is Giffgaff network always reliable? Thanks It's a virtual network, piggybacking of the 02 network..... So 20000% reliable. ........ 1 Like 1 Share |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by dubaiprince: 11:39am On Apr 29, 2022 |
Ticha: Pension and wealth planning for the future - very long read.
To access full pensions, we have to pay 35 years of national insurance to access the full state pension in the UK and in New Zealand, a naturalised Kiwi aka us has to pay at least 10 years of income tax. It means we can't access the full state pension in both countries. In both places, I doubt if we could live on the pension anyway even if we qualified for it. The full UK pension is about £7k a year so £14k for both of us. Yes, you could potentially access other benefits, but it means from age 65 for women and 67 for men, you’ll be living on approx. £1k a month unless you have savings to draw on. If you have savings of more than £16k, you also can’t access any state benefits either. So we have been planning for retirement.
We have a Global Vanguard All Shares account (the name has changed over the years) - managed by Henderson Securities. We've had it jointly for more than 12 years (husbot for much longer) and have dipped into it sometimes (mainly to pay for IVF). We haven't touched it for years now and the funds have grown exponentially. If we continue paying into it consistently, we should have about £600k worth of shares (yay compound interest) by the time I'm 55 and husbot is 52. To give an idea, we've always paid a minimum of £150 each monthly into it since 2010. Henderson does the investing and taxes on our behalf. We haven't bothered to check what they invest it in, but we picked an aggressive growth fund for a long time and that really paid off (hence using the profits for IVF). Now it's in a mid-range growth fund and will remain there. We have upped our monthly minimum payments to £250 each a month now because we can afford to do so. The SOA comes every March, but we don’t check it or even look at it beyond seeing how much is there when the SOA comes.
In New Zealand - we pay into the government Kiwisaver scheme (pension scheme). I contribute 3% of my earnings and husbot contributes 5% of his earnings, the government contributes $521 every year. We can withdraw our Kiwisaver once we've been out of NZ for 12 months (6 years of payments), so we plan to withdraw it and dump it into Henderson when we leave. Onto tangible assets – We have property in both countries. I sold my house in 9ja once I realised it was an albatross and put all the funds into a UK purchase. Our UK family home although rented out is on a full repayment mortgage. Thanks to the current property boom (which can also go bust!) we have some substantial equity in it. We also have other BTLs on interest only mortgages. We can always sell one to clear off the mortgage on the family home if needed.
The move to New Zealand has been the best thing for us financially. I have no employer loyalty. No one goes into education to make money as the pay is poor compared to the level of work and qualifications involved. I often jump ship every 2 years because that's the only way I can increase my wages. Wages in education are much higher in NZ than in the UK which is weird (5m v 67m) but good for me! Anyhow, when we moved to NZ, we took opportunity of the higher wages and saved and saved and saved but buying a house seemed out of our reach. Then we met another couple who seemed to have the same values as us (family, financial, moral you name it). We pooled our resources and we bought a house in our name (we bought first because we had higher incomes and better credit). With property values going crazy, we within 6 months refinanced that property and gifted the cash to this family (basically paid them back their initial contribution and extra) so they bought one too in their name. They then refinanced and gifted us the cash and we bought another in our names. Because we want to exponentially grow the money, we are demolishing the first house to build 5 new ones and then leverage that to give them enough to buy a 2nd property for themselves. They can choose to develop or hold or sell but we will have both walked away with 2 initial properties each.
It does mean we're financially tight until we finish the build March/ April 2023 (build starts in Oct 2022) but it's for our future financial security so we're totally happy to have a few tight years. It also means I can't help my extended family as much as I used to and boy! am I hearing about it! I've thoroughly enjoyed the consent and planning process for the development. We now have land use consent ad have just applied for building consent. It has been stressful and a huge expenditure but also a big learning curve. I almost decided to retrain as surveyor last year when we got the engineering bill ��. When the houses are completed, it'll be leased to Housing New Zealand on a 5 year repairing lease. The income from the 5 after tax is about the same as my before tax income (imagine fa) so we know we can comfortably live on that should shit hit the fan workwise.
Our current NZ home was bought with retirement in mind. We went for the biggest house on a large land. We also deliberately bought in a medium density zone. Basically, we can build up to 6 four bedroom houses on the land if we demolish the existing house. If we decide not to retire in New Zealand, then that is what we would do in about 7 years’ time. If we choose to retire in NZ (I seriously doubt it) then we'll sell the UK family home and pay off the mortgage on the NZ one. It has bedrooms and a full bathroom downstairs and is disabled friendly – no stairs to access the whole of the ground floor. I have no intention of going into a nursing or care home.
Shareswise - we've now opened targeted growth fund accounts for the children with Lansdown Hargreaves. We pay £100 a month into each child's account. They will get full access at 18. Hopefully, they can use that to pay uni fees, supplement apprenticeship wages, down payment on a house or even go traveling before uni/ work starts.
We have also created a family trust. I look at the truly wealthy and what they have for going for them is generational wealth and good financial planning. In my family, I'm the first to be in a position to actually start building generational wealth. The trust will hopefully go on forever as it's for the direct progeny of my husbot and his siblings (both his siblings have no children and want none) and me and my siblings so it means my nephews and nieces will get payments annually out of it once they hit 21 but their parents can’t access any of the funds. We've currently set it so it can only be dissolved by a court and no beneficiaries can sell assets out of it including us once the asset has been placed in it.
2 reasons we have done this – divorce/ separation for us or our children. Even though we all hope to remain married till death, the truth is that divorce and remarriage happens. The trust is set up to protect the financial interests of all beneficiaries. If either of us divorces, we will continue to be paid out of it. Should any of us re-marry, the spouse will not be able to access any funds from the trust. Same with the children. Stats also show that first generation immigrants usually create the biggest wealth and subsequent generations waste the accumulated wealth. It is very likely that our children will not have the kind of drive we have because they have been born into or have lived in plenty enough to be happy with state handouts in the future. Therefore, they might actually see us as a burden as we grow older and infirm.
So hopefully at retirement, the trust can top up our pension but also ensure we remain at home till end of life and not be a burden on the children.
This is not financial advice. Just sharing what we have done.
This is wonderful, thanks a lot for this post, you just gave me comfort over my decision to open a investment ISA last which I currently put in £200 monthly for investment in aggresive funds and do not intend to touch. I have also been dilly dallying on opening a JISA for my kids not thinking that it can as well be a plan to fund their Uni fees. I am opening their JISAs right away. God bless you 7 Likes 4 Shares |
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by dustydee: 12:05pm On Apr 29, 2022 |
|