Half way there and a slight change of direction

elantan

So today I took on the credit card that had decided to charge me £12 for overspending, now I had checked to see if I had the money to spend on the card and I had, it showed a positive balance, however, the money that I had paid whilst showing as available wasn't in fact paid off for me. Will probably take the amount I can spend down to £500

So I phoned and got it sorted, £12 saved

Also returned a present that was no good for the recipient, so £26 returned there as well, and paid back onto the card.

Used a couple of vouchers ( already mentioned in post above) for shopping so managed to save £7.20 off the shopping, and the shopping came to £136.24 instead of the £140 I suspected.

Now should I pay this money off the mortgage? or should I just swallow it up with the other things ?


edited to add: I managed to get £3.50 refunded from Vodafine as well, I used my texting service to contact my sister during the time of my mother dying, she lives in Australia, i was being charged for sending texts to Australia when we were both in Wales ... its not alot but £3.50 is better in my pocket

edinburgher

I have started paying money to its intended home as soon as I make it (whether that's the mortgage, P2P, pension or ISA). It's that, or watch it swirl down the plughole with the rest of our annual expenses! :eek: :rotfl:

elantan

Thats what i decided to do Ed, need to make the money work harder

Right scores on the doors

DEBT


Mortgage debt

Mortgage 1 : £3,592.11 4.69% ( fixed rate ends April)
Mortgage 2 : £8,915.43 3.29% ( fixed rate ends April)


credit card debt : £3200 0% apr

SAVINGS

Approx £5 k in a S&S ISA
£2k in a TSB account 5% interest tax free ( filled in r85 form)
£250 pm being drip fed into savings account with TSB 5% (filled in r85 form)
approx £10k Endowment, hopefully should pay out £15 k atleast in August 2018 ( £10k of which will go straight to pension)

RETIREMENT PLAN

Mr El final salary golden pension ( I would so love to have his pension)

Me : approx £50k in various accounts also currently paying into a NHS pension an extra £197 a month ( as well as normal payments) which should give me an extra £250 a year when I retire, not sure if this is worth it or not tbh... so may need to re-think this.

Also currently paying in £580 a month net of tax towards pension

elantan

pension funds are in Vanguard 60% and 80% with a smattering of RBS shares and some woodford equity fund

elantan

Plan is to pay tilly tidies and wee bits of interest ( TSB/ Halifax etc) to the mortgage, keep paying as much as I can into pensions, maybe transfer the £197 currently being paid into the work pension into increasing the personal pension.

The aim is to have £200k in a pension lift £50k to help me get to SP age from early retirement ...

draw down £150k at a rate of 3.5% per annum

not to touch NHS pension till SP kicks in.

Have a property that should bring in £500 a month to help us reach early retirement.

Once £200k has been hit or looks like it is inevitable to start paying money into a S&S ISA to try and get that as close to £100k as I can ( dont expect to make it tbh) ... that should help bridge the gap between ER and SP kicking in.

Continue to reduce outgoings as possible.

Consider moving abroad.

Sell house ( possibly)

elantan

Todays tilly tidies managed to net me a whole £1.50 for the mortgage, might not sound like much but I think that's more than I pay per day in interest so I am happy


plans for the rest of the day ... visit son to try and get a handle on a better way of studying for myself, go to aunties that needs help just now and dentist, not looking forward to that one as I know it will involve money.


Whilst in Wales one of my teeth cracked and fell apart ( I was eating millions) so I need to get the tooth fixed, that's gonna cost.


nothing else planned, but will hopefully manage to get the arseability to make a pot of soup so that we can have some healthy food in the house.

edinburgher

Also facing dental woes for Mrs E, at least it will be a few months until she can get the final treatment and bill!

It must be nice for your tidies to have some meaningful affect. I think my 89p from this morning covers approximately 1/18 of today's interest :eek:

Ps. Do you think that Mr El is so laissez faire because he has an ace pension, or is it just his temperament? I have worked with quite a few people in the public sector who were cool as cucumbers as they had 30 years service, no realistic chance of losing their job and knew that they were getting to retire on £20k or so in a few short years.

elantan

edinburgher wrote: »

Also facing dental woes for Mrs E, at least it will be a few months until she can get the final treatment and bill!

It must be nice for your tidies to have some meaningful affect. I think my 89p from this morning covers approximately 1/18 of today's interest :eek:

Ps. Do you think that Mr El is so laissez faire because he has an ace pension, or is it just his temperament? I have worked with quite a few people in the public sector who were cool as cucumbers as they had 30 years service, no realistic chance of losing their job and knew that they were getting to retire on £20k or so in a few short years.

Thats a very good q Ed and I saw it earlier on and have had a good think about it.

Mr El has had this golden pension for 25 years now, however we did not realise how golden this was till recently ( 3 or so years) when I started really looking into pensions.

Mr El's father Mr El snr worked at the same company and had a golden pension, however, Mr El snr decided to take the golden handshake that went with the golden pension at 50 and Mr El snr being the greedy person he is ( one in the hand is worth 2 in the bush etc) chose to take his golden pension at the same time, now he had 10 years or so worth of contributions but took it 10 years early at a commutation of 5% per year ... so got half his pension for 10 years contributions... Mrs El snr has been leaving Mr El ( my oh) and myself in the understanding for years that her pension is better than his ... and it is ( as his lost 50%) so for years we always thought Mr el ( oh) pension was not good ... till as I say 3 or so years ago till I looked into it and realised how good it actually is.


Now this whole attitude of Mr El dont worry we will find the money somehow has been going on for as long as I have known him ( nearly 30 years now) so no I dont think it is anything to do with the golden pension.

However, that left me to wonder what on earth it is ... and as of yet I havn't figured it out. Mr El suffers with anxiety and when we talk about money he does get into a panic when he realises i'm serious and need to talk, he does everything he can to not talk about it as if he thinks we are skint then oh my goodness life can become really hard ... dont put the heating on, we cant afford real food, turn the lights off, etc etc etc ... he becomes quite controlling and obsessed about it, not that he is trying to be nasty he is just in a huge panic and he becomes a tad obsessed. kinda like OCD about it... Now OCD is part of GAD ( general anxiety disorder) so it becomes a storm we ride through, incidentally he can be the same about a few things ...

He can turn into this very hard to live with person, when my son and his gf are visiting and his dad starts son will quickly go right i'm off and they disappear because they know how he can get, he gets very intense and they dont want to make him any worse ( husband cant go a lot of people either) so part of me was wondering... could the reason he is trying to be so laissezi faire a way of him trying not to get too stressed out? not to get to that hard to deal with stage? not to worry about it incase he becomes ill ( and he is ill when he gets like that... feels sick to the stomach and shakes etc)

I dont really know, but it is deff something worth trying to work through

so thanks very much for the q I appreciate it


in other news ... dentist went ok ,, i have to go back in Feb and they will try and sort this tooth out. dont have a price as of yet but I do know my dentist isnt out to rip me off so I am ok with it.

Exam today went ok, I think I have done enough to pass, maybe not a great mark but a pass, and right now I will happily take a pass.

elantan

Another example of this would be Mr El trying to loose weight... he became obsessed, to the point he ate 2 weetabix a day and ran around our village every night ( approx 6km) he got so skinny many people were commenting on it, he didnt care he wanted to be thin and healthy, he saw thin as being healthy, he was having dizzy spells and his mental health really suffered he became murder to live with but he was obsessed to the point I landed up having to loss the plot with him till he stopped

elantan

So today's plans ... bit of studying , start my next paper which is due in ( I think) March.

Make a pot of soup, see if I can find a bra expander from somewhere to try this thing with my fit bit, practise my next speech and go for a walk I think