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Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) - Travel (405) - Nairaland

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Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 3) / Living In Canada/Life As A Canadian Immigrant Part 2 / Living In The Uk/life As A UK Immigrant (2) (3) (4)

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Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by mex551(m): 2:48pm On Apr 29, 2022
You can actually respond to someone without copying or quoting the whole thread. This makes reading boring

3 Likes 1 Share

Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by midasfx(m): 3:39pm On Apr 29, 2022
Ticha:
.

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.

Hi Ticha,

Many thanks for taking the time out to share.

Can you please explain a bit further on the highlighted part? Are there particular shares/funds/stocks you’ve in?
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by obalala: 3:42pm On Apr 29, 2022
I was just screaming Omo in my head... this is amazing
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.

4 Likes

Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by aminlove(m): 3:57pm On Apr 29, 2022
Hi guys, apart from Lemonade, who knows any other app I can use to convert my naira to pounds ?
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Santa2: 4:10pm 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.

Thats why someone wants to buy it for tanchere 150M (naira oh..e no even talk Canadian dollars self).lol
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by dustydee: 5:05pm On Apr 29, 2022
mex551:
You can actually respond to someone without copying or quoting the whole thread. This makes reading boring
True but some people do it for genuine reasons. I quoted her because I wanted to keep it for future reference for myself. Funny enough before I posted it, I wanted to add my reason for quoting it but decided otherwise.
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Gloriouscrown: 5:42pm On Apr 29, 2022
Lexusgs430:


It's a virtual network, piggybacking of the 02 network..... So 20000% reliable. ........

thank you sir.
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Lexusgs430: 6:12pm On Apr 29, 2022
aminlove:
Hi guys, apart from Lemonade, who knows any other app I can use to convert my naira to pounds ?

Must it be an app or person is equally good ........... cheesy
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by aminlove(m): 6:30pm On Apr 29, 2022
Lexusgs430:


Must be an app or person is equally good ........... cheesy

I only know of the Lemonade app, and I haven't gotten my BRP yet, not ready. As of person, am not sure........
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Lexusgs430: 6:32pm On Apr 29, 2022
aminlove:


I only know of the Lemonade app, and I haven't gotten my BRP yet, not ready. As of person, am not sure........


Do you have a UK bank account......
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by ayo84(m): 6:38pm On Apr 29, 2022
is there anyone living in he uk legitimately who can look for freelance opportunities in the digital marketing, business consultancy industry , none hybrids but freelance working from home
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ticha: 6:41pm On Apr 29, 2022
midasfx:


Hi Ticha,

Many thanks for taking the time out to share.

Can you please explain a bit further on the highlighted part? Are there particular shares/funds/stocks you’ve in?

We went the easy route and picked one of the multi manager funds but a mid risk one rather than an accelerated growth/high risk fund. We really don't want to be managing the funds/ portfolios ourselves. We'd rather invest and forget till the children access it.

3 Likes 2 Shares

Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by aminlove(m): 7:20pm On Apr 29, 2022
Lexusgs430:



Do you have a UK bank account......


Yes, I do have it now. Revolut.
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by midasfx(m): 7:57pm On Apr 29, 2022
Ticha:


We went the easy route and picked one of the multi manager funds but a mid risk one rather than an accelerated growth/high risk fund. We really don't want to be managing the funds/ portfolios ourselves. We'd rather invest and forget till the children access it.

Alright. Many thanks.
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by seunoj: 8:09pm On Apr 29, 2022
aminlove:
Hi guys, apart from Lemonade, who knows any other app I can use to convert my naira to pounds ?

How much u wan convert? Do u have a Uk acc?
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by sirabbey(m): 9:25pm 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.


Wow, This is a lot of healthy juices. You need to organize a zoom meeting to teach investing and planning for retirements for immigrants family. Thank you and God bless you Ticha.

1 Like

Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by tushqueen(f): 10:22pm On Apr 29, 2022
Amazing! Very insightful be Ticha. This is investment and finance 101 lessons taken for free.
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by specialenvoy: 12:42am On Apr 30, 2022
I support this, if possible even at a token fee

sirabbey:



Wow, This is a lot of healthy juices. You need to organize a zoom meeting to teach investing and planning for retirements for immigrants family. Thank you and God bless you Ticha.
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by ybahrbz91: 9:42am On Apr 30, 2022
Good Morning Everyone

People in Glasgow, which mobile network contract will you advise oooo.

Lebara dey chop my £25 unlimited monthly. Any cheaper one I can port to?
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ralphlauren(m): 10:00am On Apr 30, 2022
Lexusgs430:


It's a virtual network, piggybacking of the 02 network..... So 20000% reliable. ........

Please I need your help. I created a thread on the phones section. . . . Please have a read through embarassed
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Titi99875: 10:07am On Apr 30, 2022
Hello,
If you coming in with a student visa to UK, can you get car loan?
I mean having £3,000 deposit for a £6000 car, is it possible to get monthly payment loan ?

1 Like

Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by LagosismyHome(f): 10:16am On Apr 30, 2022
Titi99875:
Hello,
If you coming in with a student visa to UK, can you get car loan?
I mean having £3,000 deposit for a £6000 car, is it possible to get monthly payment loan ?

Why such an expensive car self.... a student can manage with a less than £3000 car

5 Likes 1 Share

Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by gistbite(f): 10:19am On Apr 30, 2022
Titi99875:
Hello,
If you coming in with a student visa to UK, can you get car loan?
I mean having £3,000 deposit for a £6000 car, is it possible to get monthly payment loan ?

Why do you want an expensive car when you just landed? There are used cars between 1-1500

2 Likes

Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by MJ01: 10:23am On Apr 30, 2022
..
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Widall: 10:29am On Apr 30, 2022
Good morning Gurus,

Pls those who have used Egyptair, was yellow card required?...and how is it gotten?


And how do I package my kilishi, so it won't be seized
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Titi99875: 10:34am On Apr 30, 2022
LagosismyHome:


Why such an expensive car self.... a student can manage with a less than £3000 car

I know. Is it possible to get car financing?

2 Likes

Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Titi99875: 10:34am On Apr 30, 2022
gistbite:


Why do you want an expensive when you just landed? There are used cars between 1-1500

I know. Is it possible to get car financing?

2 Likes

Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by gistbite(f): 10:42am On Apr 30, 2022
MJ01:
Please what are the affordable ways to furnish a home in London? Just coming in from LOS

Only Cooker and refrigerator in the apartment currently.
Facebook marketplace. You can get cheap and free stuff there

4 Likes

Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by gistbite(f): 10:42am On Apr 30, 2022
Titi99875:


I know. Is it possible to get car financing?

I don't know.
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by MJ01: 10:50am On Apr 30, 2022
..
Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by icon8: 11:31am On Apr 30, 2022
Our people and their penchant for telling people how to live their lives. Someone asked a very specific question about car financing and people would rather advise them of buying a dead car, while ignoring the question asked. If they wanted your advice on what type of car to buy, they would have asked just that.

By the way, not every newcomer or foreign student is poor. Someone planning to buy a £6k car certainly knows why they want just that, and the type/model/age of car they want to own. Quit being sanctimonious and answer the question if you can, or simply ignore/look away if you don’t have an answer. Your unsolicited advice is not always welcome.

@OP, access to credit is based on your credit profile/records/score, and that, more often than not, is dependent on how long you have been in the country. While it is not impossible to get a car finance as a student, especially with 50% equity contribution in your case, it will certainly be expensive. In a nutshell, give it a shot.

18 Likes

Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Lexusgs430: 11:38am On Apr 30, 2022
icon8:
Our people and their penchant for telling people how to live their lives. Someone asked a very specific question about car financing and people would rather advise them of buying a dead car, while ignoring the question asked. If they wanted your advice on what type of car to buy, they would have asked just that.

By the way, not every newcomer or foreign student is poor. Someone planning to buy a £6k car certainly knows why they want just that, and the type/model/age of car they want to own. Quit being sanctimonious and answer the question if you can, or simply ignore/look away if you don’t have an answer. Your unsolicited advice is not always welcome.

@OP, access to credit is based on your credit profile/records/score, and that, more often than not, is dependent on how long you have been in the country. While it is not impossible to get a car finance as a student, especially with 50% equity contribution in your case, it will certainly be expensive. In a nutshell, give it a shot.


What side of the bed, did you wake up on ........ grin

5 Likes

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