Got myself Comfortable - Now Increasing the Pace

mark55man

getmore4less wrote: »

Analyse the mobile use, there should be cheaper options.

Need to be looked at as a set, and making the phones last longer, most of the contract cost are jut buying new phones.

A target of £100 for 5 would not be unreasonable and more savings by offloading the costs to the kid.

GM4L - yes noted your observations.

DS1 is now paying 25% of his bill and DD1 will be going to Sim Only (+ will take on the contract and pay for it out of Uni money - which is a separate pot from this SOA)

DS2 is on £15 orange contract which works fro him and OH and DD1 have 12 months left so will revisit then

edinburgher

I understand (some press about this over the weeked) that if I take money out of the pension - it won't be there as income later

I was flabbergasted to discover that so many people weren't aware of this!

mark55man

Indeed.

To be fair one of the examples looked like they were sold a complex income product not realising it consumed capital when investment returns were poor (+ an element of return of capital tax planning)

But generally - I suspect there will be a lot of unhappy bunnies in about 10 years time - not that the freedoms aren;t great but with great freedom comes great responsibility

I don't trust the politicians not to be bailing people out - as they will get in trouble as per Australia

Goldiegirl

mark88man wrote: »

The plan is OH does 6K miles a year - and by the time her car needs replacing (was new as in 15 plate Apr 2015) we will be retired and we should be able to go down to one car - so to be more accurate I should say the last car that is dedicated to OH alone rather than the last car that will sit on the driveway

Yes, that makes sense. We went down to one car at the start of the year when we retired. We got rid of my husband's newer, larger, more expensive to run car, leaving us with my trusty old Yaris. I'd be happy to keep it another few years as it is reliable, but it regularly needs things doing to keep it tip top.


Therefore, I pick up my new Yaris on the 30th


We honestly haven't missed having two cars, so it does seem to be a good retirement strategy.

mark88man wrote: »

But generally - I suspect there will be a lot of unhappy bunnies in about 10 years time - not that the freedoms aren;t great but with great freedom comes great responsibility

I predict that in 10 years time all the unhappy bunnies will be on MSE, claiming that they were misinformed / misadvised

getmore4less

I think 1 car can work when you stop having regular individual commitments like work.

You need to start weaning off the independence of a car each.

mark55man

Agreed - (but not just yet !)

jodles16

Hello! Think you sound like your on top of things and seem pretty savvy money wise!

Best of luck, will bob in again!

Jodles

mark55man

Hi Jodles. Thanks for commenting.

I am not actively updating this thread, as I have a bit of work to do in other areas before I can realistically make much MFW progress. On balance I am more a DFW until I pay off a couple of car HP deals.

mark55man

Despite post above, I have done some jiggling and have now taken a loan at 3.6% which I will use to settle the HP. Repayment over 4 years versus the HP which had 4.5 years at 5.25% . That means

* I have gained 6 months on my DFD
* The differential between paying off the loan and OPing mortgage is less so I might start earlier

However, in general posters above are correct, in that I can't really be a MFW without being DF so will not be posting too often - only if something major happens, or if I need to stop the thread getting mothballed !!!!

mark55man

So been a good few months, lots of ebay, more opportunities for extra work. Keeping the spending under control - getting through Christmas intact!!

However, now we have to do some major house refurbishments and had a tax bill that was £800 more than expected.

A great feeling to be able to cover from net savings, without stressing the CC - however not such a good feeling to know my savings totaliser will get almost zeroed

Ho hum