Changing digs and coming out of my cave... for a wee while atleast :)

beanielou

Sounds like a happy Sunday.
Blimey, I do hope that you dident look in my garden :eek:

elantan

Oh it was wonderful and such a dim distant memory now lol

Have been sanding the floor all week, will still be sanding the floor all weekend as well, I think it's going to take us much longer than we expected tbh, but slowly we will get there

Money wise everything is ticking over, more money paid to the mortgage again this week so that's good

Habibiboo

:wave:

It will all be worth it, El, once it's looking the way you want it and, as for cost, well it's all investment into your home and happiness.

Well done for listening to your brains and bodies and taking a day out of it all though, it's so much more productive to take a timely day off rather than slogging on regardless.

Best of luck with getting finished!

elantan

Thanks Habiboo can't wait till I'm back to normal and can do a real catch up with everyone diaries, I'm kinda skim reading and missing a lot just now

With the new changes for the pensions brought about by the budget the other day my mind is wandering back to pensions again, it does this every so often, am I on the right track? Should I be doing something else/ extra? Can I squeeze another £10 a month ? I'm sure those of you that deal with your pension etc know where I'm coming from here, just now I'm not so sure to be honest, I have a SIPP with H&L which is going to start charging me 0.45% AMC per year, so I should see about changing it, but the funds etc I've looked at are charging 0.75% per year ( ok that's including their TER which isn't included with H&L) and I have to pay a financial advisor 3% for transferring for me, or I can do it myself through Cavendish online but I don't think at this stage I would be any better off tbh so I think I am just gonna leave it there for now

I am however going to open up a new ISA with Charles Stanley Direct as there AMC is 0.25% so a 0.2% saving, I will slowly empty my H&L and transfer that over as well, I'm not worried about losing the whole interest free thing as I will be lucky I I manage to save £3k this year so if I transfer over the amount I have in H&L it's still below the years threshold

elantan

I also was hoping to start saving loads into the ISA when we are mortgage free but I am starting to become a bit reticent about that as well you never know what's ahead, if one of us lost our job we may not be entitled to any means tested benefits if we have savings, where as if it was in a pension it ain't counted, that sounds like a horrible way to think, I should be more interested in providing for ourselves, but I am concerned as we don't have loads of spare pennies, we need to make every one do the work of four in order to get by, so it is silly in a way to have loads of savings that can be taken into account if the worst was to happen, when if I put it into a different account it can't be touched ( by anyone including me) till I retire

Anyone else have that quandary ?

Karmacat

Definitely! For me, its my stupid French apartment - even though it drains me to the tune of thousands of pounds a year, and I'm living on a pittance, it means I can never claim benefits I'm otherwise entitled to - and I can't sell it or I have to pay about E20,000 charges. Its for my pension, so same diff, sort of thing.

Focus on getting tax free, and on actual levels of interest paid to you, El, and don't worry too much about the ins and outs of the schemes - like I've just mentioned on f/b, the schemes will probably change again before *I* retire, let alone *you* retire!!!

And check out the monevator, recommended by edinburgher - I love the concept of going tax dark

elantan

Kc thanks ( and for the Facebook post as well) it does make a lot of sense, I certainly don't want to be jumping up and knee jerk reacting, but I do think it's good to think about it every now and then ... Although tbh I se to think about it a lot

Are u planning on retiring to France ?

elantan

Ps do u have a link to the monevator dark tax thing ? I so need to catch up with diaries


http://monevator.com/financially-independent-in-10-years-a-plan/

This it ?

gallygirl

El not sure if I'm reading you right? You can't transfer out of your SIPP into an ISA until you can access the pension at 55.

elantan

Sorry GG I'm confusing you

I was talking about the ISA and the SIPP I should've seperated them

I have a SIPP I'm thinking of converting to a PP but it wasn't working out a great deal so I will leave it for now

I am however going to move my ISA to a new one, I'm opening a new one when I can and will put my monthly contributions Into that and slowly as my other ISA (H&L)starts to make money ( it's currently losing money) I will transfer that money over by cashing it in then reinvesting it till I am left with my SIPP with H&L and my ISA with Charles Stanley Direct, eventually I will probably move the SIPP to a PP as well but not till it is worth my while

Sorry that's me was wondering round the houses and thinking out loud