I WILL be mortgage free by 50!

jamesd

Why not change your target age to 55 so you can use a pension's 25% tax free lump sum to clear the mortgage? That lump sum would be pretty much entirely made up of the tax relief, so it's effectively free for you.

This does double duty since many of us have a need to both pay off a mortgage and provide for future pension income.

Skittle

Thanks jamesd, the only problem is that I have only a very small NHS pension and nothing else so no significant lump sums coming my way unfortunately. OH is in a similar position. This is one of the reasons for paying off the mortgage early, so that we can pile some money away either in savings or property for our retirement.

jamesd

You could take care of that by paying the overpayment money into a pension then taking it out at 55 to get the tax gain on the 25%. With the new rules expected next year you'd be able to take out the other 75% gradually as well, though that's taxable so there's no tax gain to be made on that part until you have unused personal income tax allowance.

Skittle

Thanks for that info jamesd, perhaps this is something I should look into. I have to say that my knowledge of how pensions work is woefully poor.

Just completed a Pinecone survey and will hopefully get another product to test too. Seem to have had loads from them lately. That's another £3 which I save up and have paid to me in £10 Amazon vouchers. I think I'm going to start using this to help with Xmas pressies instead of treating myself which is what I currently do

Skittle

Well I've woken up to a rather dreary and dull day. Bit of a let down after the last few glorious weeks. Meant to get up early to do an hour of job #2 before I go to real work but overslept. Never mind I'll get a bit done tonight.

My main goal for today is to phone Sky and cancel our package with them as it has become ridiculously expensive. Going to go freeview for a while and see how we get on. We are also giving up the land line which never gets used anyway, and will get a broadband package with a modem which doesn't need the land line. This should save us about £50 per month.

So second goal for the day will be to find a new broadband provider.

At the moment I have a quiet day after about 3pm so should have plenty of time to fit it all in.

Skittle

Yesterdays goal achieved. We will no longer have Sky from 31st August. OH is funny. Although we had agreed ages ago that this is what we would do he still had a minor sulk when I told him that I'd made the phone call.

Looks like it will be Virgin for the stand alone broadband so I need to set this up before we lose Sky.

Less positively my car broke down yesterday. Got in it to drive home from work and nothing - kaput - dead as a dodo. Luckily it is parked right outside a garage so I'll be popping in there this morning to see what they can do. Thankfully this will be a business expense.

So walking to work today which is good and something I want to do as often as possible. One of my other goals is that I'd really like to exercise a bit, not to lose weight but to tone up the wobbly bits which seem to be appearing and just generally get a bit fitter. I've tried running but I just get bored and it makes my poor ole knees ache. Maybe I'll dig out Davina and the 30 day Shred sometime.

Skittle

Forgot to say that in my bid to become super efficient I ended up paying my wages twice this week! Need to sort this out today as if the garage bill is as expensive as I suspect, my rapidly depleting business account may need some help!

Skittle

We've just come home from a shopping trip to purchase fabric for new sofa covers. We spent £92 on some really lovely material which is so much cheaper than a new suite! Just need to persuade Mum to help with the sewing bit now

There are delicious smells emanating from the kitchen thanks to OHs culinary skills - beef/mushroom/red wine pie concoction today. I see a nice glass of red on the cards to wash it down with

Skittle

Finally got my car back yesterday with a bill to the tune of £440 :eek:

I've been keeping proper track of my spending this week as although I think I don't do too bad money still seems to 'disappear' at an alarming rate if I'm not very careful. I spent £4 on Monday on a cool bag to keep my packed lunches cold when out seeing clients, and yesterday was a NSD apart from the car which was a business expense so doesn't really count. Aiming for another NSD today.

Current mortgage balance: £90,132
Current secured loan balance: £69,135

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

The cool bag is an investment if it keeps you out of the shops!