Personal Finances - critical inputs invited please

Hello

Would like to solicit some critical inputs / suggestions to what further I can do on the personal finance front.

My current situation:

I am 42 and my wife is 40. Two gorgeous daughters, 10 and 7. I earn around £100k base per annum and have consistently been getting an annual bonus between £40k and £50k over the past five years (although I expect this to go down over the next couple of years due to market uncertainty, etc.). Wife works and takes home around £2k per month. I own an apartment jointly with my wife that is currently rented out, on which I get circa £1700 per month. We live in a house that is owned as well (with a mortgage).

Mortgage amounts outstanding are £265k on the BTL and £320k on the residential. Monthly mortgage payments are £475 (IOM) and £750 (part IOM, part repayment) respectively.

In the current environment, I firmly believe that cash is king at least for the next six months before the dust settles. Based on how things go, if interest rates rise exponentially, I want to bring down my mortgage outstandings. On the other hand, if house prices drop considerably, I want to buy a property or two as investment and monthly rental income avenues.

Existing savings:

I have around £90k in savings (including £33k in a Santander ISA). This is broadly divv-ied into:

First Direct Reg Saver @ 6% à 300
HSBC Reg Saver @ 6% à 500
Santander Reg Saver @ 5% à 400
TSB Reg Saver @ 5% à 500
TSB Curr Acc X 3 @ 5% à 6000
Club Lloyds @ 4% à 5000
Santander 123 Sole Ac @ 3% à 20000
Santander 123 Joint Ac @ 3% à 15300
Bank of Scotland X3 @ 3% à 9000
Santander ISA @ 1% à 33000

Currently, I make annual interest on the above accounts of circa £2250.

Steps I have recently taken to further optimize:

1. Have asked First Direct for an ISA opening and transfer form – this should make the return on my ISA a little more respectable from 1% to 1.3%
2. Wife has just opened an HSBC RS and will be opening a Santander RS over the weekend, with money to be sourced from monthly salaries or the lowest paying Santander 123 accounts
3. Have applied for two Money Transfer cards over the past two days and got accepted for both. Got a Virgin Money card limit of £10k and Tesco Bank card limit of £14,800. Will initiate 95% money transfer for both these cards once I receive them, interest-free for 35 and 40 months respectively.
4. Direct debits for the MT cards already set up on Santander 123 accounts. I am a stoozing veteran (cumulative credit limit available of £82.5k on cards held) and am mindful of the need to ensure due diligence on keeping up monthly payments.

Next steps I anticipate I will be initiating shortly:

• Open a sole Santander 123 account for the wife to “park” the money transfer of over £20k I will be effecting on my new MT cards
• Wife already has a Club Lloyds account – need to ensure we are making the most of the £5k to get the 4% interest
• Get the wife to apply for the two Money Transfer cards as well, and hopefully if approved, effect MT transactions on these cards
• Depending on credit scoring considerations, take baby steps for wife to open TSB current accounts, followed by First Direct among others (this is the reason for applying for the MT cards first, and then look at current accounts to house them).
• I have a workplace pension which I need to optimize – I will be doing some work on that over this weekend (but queries about that would need a separate dedicated post in itself).
• Get the Santander mortgage, which is currently 200k IOM and 120k repayment to convert to full IOM. This frees up some more cash on a monthly basis which can also be redirected towards savings (in keeping with my underlying view of “Cash is King” for the next 6-12 months).

Other details:

I am originally from India and have an apartment in Bombay and one in Kerala, both fully owned. Have some shares in India, which by current exchange rates would convert to circa GBP 75k. The reason I state this is that should my job, etc. go pear-shaped and if worst case the job prospects in the Banking industry in London aren’t bright given Brexit uncertainties, I have a fall-back in India although that would be the absolute last resort.

If you have been reading thus far, thanks for your patience. I think I have done reasonably ok in financial discipline, etc., but I firmly believe that there is always room for further optimization. In keeping with this, could you please provide your feedback, and more importantly, further suggestions on any other steps you believe I can take to further optimize?

Cheers
WW