The Edcawber Principle

edinburgher

Jings, was that only one day the forum was unavailable? Felt like a month!

Also, have we been reduced to 22 smileys? Not dodgy hug!

£124.40 paid off CC since yesterday.

Fairly relaxed day today. Haircut this morning, Super thorough hoover and tumble dryer filter clean, recycling out and healthy food for breakfast and lunch. Looking forward to a couple of beers and thrashing the pants off the English at rugby this afternoon!

greent

edinburgher said:

How do they attach a big slab of granite to a wall??

Suffolk_lass said:

I was wondering that (attaching granite to the wall). 

Effectively no more nails type stuff, from memory. And whilst the size is 1.1m x 0.8m, it is only as thick as the upstand at the back of the worktops (20mm)  Would make a heck of a mess when removed from the wall, I guess! However, the tiles we removed from the previous kitchen meant all the walls had to be replastered, anyway - so no real difference  

edinburgher

£56.43 paid off CC.

Today's challenge is using Mrs E's new workplace pension to create a clone of a Vanguard Target Retirement fund... without access to any Vanguard products

*Edit: Job done! In the end I copied the 2045 fund (79% equities/21% bonds) and used a mixed bag of 6 equity funds and 3 bond funds to clone to the best of my understanding of the underlying instruments. The "exit strategy" is to utilise partial transfers out to Vanguard each time the work pension gets to £10,000. At the current payment (£170/month) this is going to take a while, but her employer is improving their match to 6% from May, so this will add another 4% between employer and employee contributions.

Fun stuff. I have been enjoying the Monevator series on how to fund your retirement via a mix of ISAs and pensions. Our problem is slightly different in that we're unlikely to be able to retire before we can draw on our private pensions at 58+ As some of you might be aware, my two defined benefit (DB) pensions are likely to fund much of our retirement, but we still need to find £225,000 or so to stash into defined contribution (DC) pensions over the next 20 years! We need these just as much as we need the DB pensions and now that we've settled into our home and area, I'm not willing to take as much risk as I once was. This means lovely boring bonds need to make it into the mix.

While we're prioritising housing needs over DC pensions at the moment, Mrs E does have access to a salary sacrifice pension, so we are able to use the most efficient way of funding these once we can afford to up the contributions considerably. It's still a daunting challenge. Ignoring inflation and fund growth, we need to find nearly £900/month. Even being a bit more positive and allowing for growth, it's probably several hundred a month. It's fine, we can get there.

Edit the second: and have re-jigged my own DC pot. It's only £45,000, but it's worth de-risking. Also managed to lower my costs slightly. Feels grown up, but also feels a bit like quitting as I'm accepting the fact that I'm not going to be one of these cool FIRE folk retired by 42

Suffolk_lass

I have not read Monevator for ages - probably since I stopped work, but I still have the link bookmarked. I am going to spend a little time reading as DH and I have recently agreed we are rather equity-rich in our ISAs. My self-selected portfolio did slightly out-do the managed ISA (all in one fund) as a % return when their 2.75% total fees were removed from the equation. DH's has just about shown a positive return but he has two huge losers - Fevertree and the suspended Woodford fund. His is far too equity-rich and we must take some time to tone it down I think. His DC is managed and 60-80% bonds and gilts and gained over 10% last year which is good enough for us. Just taxable as we draw it down as we took the 25% to pay a lump off the mortgage.

edinburgher

Did you ever think about index funds SL? 2.75% fees sounds huge to me, 0.39%? On my "expensive'" single fund Vanguard ISA!

Suffolk_lass

We have some FTSE and global index linked funds eg a Vanguard Retirement fund based around UK FTSE but all on a platform (CSD who charge a platform fee £6.58 a month) with fees on top of the fund manager charges and they (Vanguard) pay relatively low dividends that are moved to a cash account rather than reinvested. So the growth is based on what the share price for the fund does, rather than an income per se. Is that what you mean?

edinburgher

Yes, that's what I meant SL.
I'm surprised you are willing to pay such high fees (the 2.75% you mentioned)

edinburgher

£55.31 paid off CC.
My coat is still wet from yesterday! 

Suffolk_lass

Is your Vanguard direct with them? My 2.75 is a total of the platform and management across the whole year (a Fidelity wholly managed thing that I put £10k in when I first thought I would try a S&S ISA , about 8-9 years ago I think). You have made me feel guilty. I am going to do more research (thank you, it's a good thing).

By the way, it is foul here in East Anglia. Cold, bitterly cold, with the sun this morning but no power all day Sunday after the power lines came down and the aga cooled from the middle because of the wind. The house is still not really up to normal cosy level. I have been out to take DH to the Station (no buses any more) and out again in an hour or two to walk other people's dogs

edinburgher

Vanguard ISA, they don't do a SIPP yet, but it's coming this year. Cutting fees are about the only "edge" available with index investing, so it's something I keep a tight grip of