lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿)

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

I earn £119k a year.

My September take-home was £6,315.

Each month I allocate:

£3,300 household
£1,000 investments
£700 SIPP
£500 holidays
£650 personal spending

Roughly £165 remains.

Gross salary doesn't tell you how people allocate their money.

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

One of the most valuable tax advantages available to me is contributing to a SIPP while earning above £100,000.

Between £100,000 and £125,140 of adjusted net income, the withdrawal of the personal allowance creates an effective 60% marginal income tax rate.

Here's what that means in practice.

I transfer £700 into my SIPP.

My pension provider adds £175 in basic-rate tax relief.

Total invested: £875.

If the entire contribution reduces income in the 60% marginal band, I can also benefit from another £350 in income tax savings through HMRC.

My eventual net cost: £350.

Amount invested: £875.

That's £525 in tax savings on an £875 gross contribution.

Of course, the money is locked away until pension access age and may be taxed when withdrawn.

But this illustrates why pension contributions can be exceptionally attractive for people caught in the £100k tax trap.

The obvious question is whether Britain's tax system should create such an enormous incentive for some higher earners.

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

England can charge a student nurse up to £9,790 a year in tuition fees, then complain about NHS staffing shortages.

Why not fund their degrees in exchange for a commitment to work in the NHS?

Training healthcare workers is an investment, not simply a private benefit.

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

My identifiable assets include approximately:

£42,000 in crypto ETFs.

£38,700 in pensions.

£12,000 in cash.

£8,000 in watches.

Some people might argue that holding £12,000 in cash is inefficient.

After all, over long periods, cash has often delivered lower returns than equities.

But there's another way to think about it.

My existing portfolio already has significant exposure to a volatile asset class.

Holding accessible cash reduces the risk that an unexpected expense forces me to sell investments during a market downturn.

Cash can also provide flexibility during employment changes or other financial disruptions.

The purpose of every asset doesn't need to be maximising investment returns.

Some assets exist to protect you from uncertainty.

Financial security has value even when it doesn't generate the highest possible return.

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

I contribute £700 a month to my SIPP.

With basic-rate relief, that becomes £875 invested.

And because my income falls within the £100k personal allowance taper, I can potentially recover substantial additional tax.

It's one of the most effective financial decisions available to me.

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

One reason I contribute to a SIPP:

At a 60% effective marginal income tax rate, £875 into my pension can ultimately cost me just £350.

That's £525 in tax relief.

An incredible incentive, provided you can afford to lock the money away.

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

I've always found the combination of opposing immigration and opposing child benefits rather odd.

Britain's fertility rate is 1.39, well below replacement.

If we won't support families or welcome working-age migrants, who exactly will fund our pensions?

[Fynn @fynnvestor]

Work your whole life and you get a state pension of £1,049 a month

Have 2 kids and claim Universal Credit and you get £1,835 a month

How is that fair?

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

The plural of anecdote is not data,
during the depths of the 2008 crash I could have found a busy pub or restaurant would that have proved absolutely nothing other than in a recession or crisis some people are still making money or using their credit cards

[DB Talks @itsdbtalks]

Something doesn’t add up in Britain.

People say they’re skint.

Yet pubs are packed.
Holidays are booked.
Gigs sell out.
Restaurants are full.

Meanwhile, bills, food and mortgages keep rising.

So who’s actually struggling, and is the gap between rich and poor getting bigger?

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

Each month I put £180 into my pension my employer pays in £180 also

I then pay in £700 from my net salary
The government pays in £140 from my basic rate tax
Then another £140 as in a higher rate tax payer
Then another £140 gain back some of my personal allowance

Total £1480pm

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

I have approximately £12k in cash

Some people would tell me to invest the cash.

I'd argue that when you already have substantial exposure to volatile assets, accessible savings become more important.

Not every pound needs to maximise returns.

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

I'd pay MPs £250,000 a year.

Currently they earn £98,599. We expect them to shape a £1 trillion+ public spending system, intense scrutiny and risk losing their job at every election.

Why deliberately make Parliament less financially attractive than top private-sector careers?

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

An uncomfortable proposal: cut the £12,570 tax-free allowance and raise the 20% basic income tax rate.

In exchange, give families cheaper childcare, better parental leave and stronger unemployment protection.

Tax cuts aren't the only way to make people financially secure.

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

If you're holding significant amounts of crypto in cold storage, you really should understand the 25th word.

Recent hardware wallet incidents have exposed two uncomfortable vulnerabilities:

1. Weak randomness: The July 2026 Coldcard incident showed that supposedly random recovery phrases can be predictable because of firmware flaws.

2. Compromised hardware: Recent reports involving tampered Ledger devices suggest that malicious components inserted into devices before sale can potentially intercept recovery phrases.

The solution isn't simply to trust another hardware wallet manufacturer.

It's to add another independent layer of security.

Enter the 25th word, technically known as a BIP39 passphrase.

Your hardware wallet generates 24 recovery words. You then choose an additional passphrase, which can be an entire string of letters, numbers and symbols.

Those two components combine to generate an entirely separate wallet.

Even if somebody obtains your original 24 words, they cannot derive your passphrase-protected wallet without also discovering your passphrase.

This can provide valuable protection against compromised recovery phrases, although it won't protect you against every malicious device or transaction-signing attack.

There is one serious trade-off: forget your passphrase and your 24 recovery words cannot recover that wallet.

Keep a secure backup of both, stored separately.

Cold storage is not just about keeping your keys offline. It's about reducing the number of individual failures that can cost you everything.

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

Rational take, rare on X

[UK Finance Dad @UKFinanceDad]

Probably not either/or. Covid smashed supply chains and productivity globally, Brexit added extra friction specifically to UK-EU trade on top of that. Untangling the two is an economist's full-time job. The honest answer is they compound each other, which is less satisfying than picking a villain.

[UK Finance Dad @UKFinanceDad]

The state pension was never designed to be your retirement. It's a floor, not a plan. Workplace pensions and the ISA allowance exist precisely to fill the gap Spain and Sweden close with higher compulsory contributions. Ignore that and you're not comparing systems fairly — you're comparing a half-finished house to a full one.

I wrote more on this: https://t.co/ZIiKuUBqTd

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

Britain keeps trying to solve a housing shortage by helping people borrow more money.

Help to Buy makes sense for deposit-constrained buyers. But when supply can't respond, some of that extra purchasing power ends up in house prices.

Build more homes. Stop subsidising scarcity.

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

I take it you're on plan 3? My sister is on the same and when my internet rate was 2-3% hers was around 6+ which on top of a loan tipple the size compounds. Which is why I will say while I made some good choices career wise and work hard, I was also very lucky 3 years later and Id be £700pm worse off right now

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

I started working in 2015 on £27k and paid off my Plan 2 student loan at 34, in 2025.

But I'm the exception, not the rule.

I had £3k annual tuition fees and unusually rapid salary progression, reaching £105k by 2024.

I benefited from university and avoided decades of compounding interest.

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

@Quimper That's true I often go to dinner alone because everyone hates me

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

@T3Spurs I don't disagree a loan a third the size of current students, but I also earn more than double the average grad my age so a bit of both

[lloyd in space (🌸, 🌿) @Yanicktweeted]

Sounds like a setup for tax rises in the budget, the question is who will they tax

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

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