> Besides, don't they just throw you in jail indefinitely if you have no 
> money? These are banks we're talking about here; they *always* get their 
> money back.

No they don't, that's why they only lend money to people who they think will 
actually be able to pay it back.

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> £300,000 divided by 30 years = £10,000 per year. So, a third of the 
> highest income available. And that's neglecting the fact that they 
> presumably charge you 80% APR or so on the loan...

Obviously you don't actually have a mortgage at the moment, otherwise you'd 
know roughly what the interest rate was, and that it's nowhere near 80%.

I thought you said you lived near Milton Keynes?

I searched on rightmove.co.uk for *detached* houses within 20 miles of MK, 
priced between 100 and 150 thousand pounds.  There were 178 results.  I 
assume you could find one you like, let's say for 125K.  DO NOT expect to be 
able to suddenly afford the same house your parents can, they have been 
working for several decades longer than you!  I see lots of young people 
falsely believe they somehow deserve the same value house as their parents!

Next I went to nationwide.co.uk to their "quick quote" page on mortgages. 
It seems they want a 20k deposit, followed by 20 years of paying about 700 a 
month.

Now I don't know about you, but saving up a 20K deposit, especially while 
living with your mum, shouldn't be too hard over a few years (that's what, 
300-400 a month).  I know my parents basically never went out or spent any 
money while living with their respective parents for several years before 
they could afford to get their house.

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>> Maybe I'm just bitter. I paid £900 for a moped. When it was stolen, 
>> they gave me £25. Later I paid $1,200 for a car. When it was crashed, 
>> they gave me £75.
> 
> You didn't haggle with them?

Why? It's not like they're going to change their mind.

> They are meant to give 
> you an amount necessary to replace the item that was stolen/written off, 
> it's up to you to prove to them how much you need for that.

How many cars have you seen on sale for £75 recently?

>> I mean, seriously, it was *so* worth paying £700 per year in insurance 
>> premiums for that.
> 
> Your 700 per year is because you are more likely (as a young male) to 
> smash into someones $100k Audi or BMW (or force the driver to need years 
> of medical care), not because your car might get stolen or you crash it.

Heh. Yeah. As if somebody who can afford a $100k Audi needs the money...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> But consulting work does pay well; generally, it pays very well.

Presumably because it's extremely high-stress work with no job security?

> But one other thing that's fairly common is to buy a house and let the 
> value increase - and then sell it for the increased value and roll that 
> over into another house.  If one is smart about it, one can make a pretty 
> decent amount of money doing that through "trading up" like that.  It's 
> rare at least here for anyone to live in the same house long enough to 
> pay off a 30 year mortgage.

...which brings us back to my point of "if your house burns down, you 
now have an extremely serious financial problem". ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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scott wrote:
>> Besides, don't they just throw you in jail indefinitely if you have no 
>> money? These are banks we're talking about here; they *always* get 
>> their money back.
> 
> No they don't, that's why they only lend money to people who they think 
> will actually be able to pay it back.

On that basis, nobody would ever loan me any money, ever. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>>>> The backup scan ran as an AT job.
>>>
>>> I'm assuming you mean it ran at the server to pull files, rather than 
>>> at the client to push files. Might be better to switch that around.
>>
>> Yeah, that would mean that all the directory scanning would be local 
>> rather than remote. Probably a lot faster that way.
> 
> You'd still have to compare against the server, so that part is likely 
> the same either way. Unless you're going to trust the last time it ran.

You could keep a local cache of what was successfully sent to the 
server. But I was actually thinking more of having a component running 
at both ends and a custom communications protocol rather than SMB...

>> Because that's the only way to specify the logon credentials for the 
>> remote system.
> 
> net use \\xyz\pdq hispassword /user:xyz\hisusername

...that does something?

>>>> mapped under the system account which runs AT jobs, 
>>>
>>> Why? Tell AT to run it as a different user.
>>
>> There are other AT jobs running, of course...
> 
> Tell "at" to run *your* job under a different user ID. Not "at" itself.

As far as I know, this is impossible.

>> Robocopy can't copy a file, it says "I can't copy this file" and exits. 
> 
> Uh, no. Do a "robocopy /?" and look at the retry options section. What 
> would you have it do if the files it's backing up are on a PC that 
> someone turns off?

All you can really do is exit, and log the fact that something went wrong.

And then there are other issues, like file access permissions or files 
being locked. (Real backup software can get around these - although 
whether you want to backup locked files is another matter...)

>> Now the script has to do something about this.
> 
> There isn't a lot it can do except look at the exit status of robocopy 
> and send you a message if it failed.

Heh, yeah, I never did get as far as figuring out how to send alerts 
when it fails...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> Obviously you don't actually have a mortgage at the moment

Well, yeah, it would be kind of silly to own a morgage when I don't own 
a house to go with it. ;-)

> I thought you said you lived near Milton Keynes?

I do.

> I searched on rightmove.co.uk for *detached* houses within 20 miles of 
> MK, priced between 100 and 150 thousand pounds.  There were 178 
> results.

Now that's interesting.

I visited the bank a while back (i.e., before the entire financial 
sector went into meltdown), and the guy there seemed to think that I 
could maybe afford a £90,000 morgage. Assuming I don't eat or use any 
heating. (In other words, on paper it would work, but it would be 
absurdly tight.) Since then I've looked around, and it seems that for 
slightly over £100,000 you can buy stuff, but for £90,000 there is 
basically nothing. You do occasionally see maybe one property at that 
price, but... Well, given that this is already breaking the bank, it's 
probably not a sensible idea.

> Next I went to nationwide.co.uk to their "quick quote" page on 
> mortgages. It seems they want a 20k deposit, followed by 20 years of 
> paying about 700 a month.

...so 70% of my income then?

> Now I don't know about you, but saving up a 20K deposit, especially 
> while living with your mum, shouldn't be too hard over a few years 
> (that's what, 300-400 a month).

Well, currently my bank balance is going down rather than up, because 
most months I spent a few hundred more than I actually earn. Saving up 
sounds pretty hard to me.

But then, maybe I'm just soft? Perhaps if I quit my dance classes, stop 
seeing my therapist, don't use my phone any more, stop driving to work, 
stop buying food and stop paying 20% of my income in rent, I'd have more 
money?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> You didn't haggle with them?
>
> Why? It's not like they're going to change their mind.

Yes they will, it's up for discussion, in fact I think in the letter they 
send it even says how to proceed if you want to dispute the amount.

>> They are meant to give you an amount necessary to replace the item that 
>> was stolen/written off, it's up to you to prove to them how much you need 
>> for that.
>
> How many cars have you seen on sale for £75 recently?

Exactly, so you just accepted it?  They offer stupidly low amounts like this 
because they know that some people will just accept it without arguing - 
they might as well at least try with everyone!  After you've sent them 
examples of similar cars with similar age and mileage and exerts from 
Parkers, they usually pretty much match the going rate to replace the car.

>> Your 700 per year is because you are more likely (as a young male) to 
>> smash into someones $100k Audi or BMW (or force the driver to need years 
>> of medical care), not because your car might get stolen or you crash it.
>
> Heh. Yeah. As if somebody who can afford a $100k Audi needs the money...

He needs it to replace his car that you have just smashed - I'd say *you* 
need that $100k more than he does seeing as you owe him $100k now!

Post a reply to this message

>>> You didn't haggle with them?
>>
>> Why? It's not like they're going to change their mind.
> 
> Yes they will, it's up for discussion, in fact I think in the letter 
> they send it even says how to proceed if you want to dispute the amount.

Obviously I no longer have the letter any more, but it basically said 
"as per our contract, we owe you £25, here's your cheque".

>> How many cars have you seen on sale for £75 recently?
> 
> Exactly, so you just accepted it?

We're talking about an insurance company. It's not as if they're 
reasonable people. I'm just some nobody teenager who can't afford to do 
anything about it.

> After you've 
> sent them examples of similar cars with similar age and mileage and 
> exerts from Parkers, they usually pretty much match the going rate to 
> replace the car.

Doubt it - but without a time machine, we can't really settle this one.

>> Heh. Yeah. As if somebody who can afford a $100k Audi needs the money...
> 
> He needs it to replace his car that you have just smashed - I'd say 
> *you* need that $100k more than he does seeing as you owe him $100k now!

I'm not disputing the logic of your claim. I'm just saying it seems 
rather unjust that I have to financially cripple myself to pay to fix 
somebody's property when they can easily afford many times over what I 
can afford - especially given that I haven't actually damaged it yet! 
(And, in fact, I never did in the end...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> I visited the bank a while back (i.e., before the entire financial sector 
> went into meltdown), and the guy there seemed to think that I could maybe 
> afford a £90,000 morgage. Assuming I don't eat or use any heating. (In 
> other words, on paper it would work, but it would be absurdly tight.)

Hmm, banks don't usually allow you to borrow that much that would make life 
that hard.  Usually it's capped to about 4x your annual salary to avoid 
exactly that problem.

> ...so 70% of my income then?

Yep, that's what happens if you want to get on the property ladder when 
you're not earning much as a single person.  That 300 you have left over 
basically then has to cover your utility bills and food.  Running a car? 
Forget it.

> Well, currently my bank balance is going down rather than up, because most 
> months I spent a few hundred more than I actually earn. Saving up sounds 
> pretty hard to me.

How the hell do you manage to spend over 1000 pounds per month if you are 
living with your mum?

Even if you rented somewhere small by yourself and had to run a car you 
should be able to save some per month.  If you *really* want to save up for 
a house you need to sacrifice some stuff.

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