Rate my finances

dwtmahdc

Really open to learn here. Any thoughts, suggestions, input & criticism welcome! Want to take your combined knowledge to ensure I'm as financially healthy as possible

Age: 32

Salary- £26,260 + £4,000 secondment (unknown end date)
Aiming to be made permanent soon, which would take me to around £31,000 after Aprils upcoming 2.4% rise from the company.

Cash- £26,000 (Santander 123 & other monthly saving schemes @5%). Know that's a lot of cash, I'm just very nervous of investing more- contemplating piling it into the mortgage to clear it off as quickly as possible to enable outright ownership, or upping AVCs. This is probably an area I need to focus on the most.

Pension- DC: me 8%, employer 10%

S&SISA- £3,500 (£50/m) in Vanguard LS 80. This is really just some 'spare' cash that I wanted to put away medium-long term (planned for it to be wedding or kids fund, but that's not looking as likely anymore haha)

Mortgage- (54,990) 3.24% fixed for another 8 years, overpaying £600pm.

Company Shares: £425pm into the Sharesave scheme, plus £1,080 of shares owned outright.

Matched betting- c.£4,000. Used to be more active with this, ticking over between £50-100 a month profit when I can be bothered. Should really put more time in on this...


Football Index- £1,500. Similar to normal stock markets, but with football. Sounds stupid, but it's looking solid and standing at 16.1% growth in portfolio, with 14.2% dividends in the last 13 months.

jennyjj

dwtmahdc wrote: »

Really open to learn here. Any thoughts, suggestions, input & criticism welcome! Want to take your combined knowledge to ensure I'm as financially healthy as possible

Hi,
Well, for your age, those finances are pretty sound, and about on par with where I was at about that age ( and I'm now more than comfortable in early retirement )
Kudos for embracing your company sharesave scheme. I made much of my wealth from BT sharesaves and monthly share purchase from pretax salary (directshare) What I learned from that was that some years the scheme would be a duffer and being locked in to one scheme for the max amount could be hit and miss. So, by occasionally taking 3 year plans for about a 5th of the max allowed, I got in a position where I was investing broadly equally into 4 or five schemes with one maturing every year. With the proceeds of those, I'd frequently take huge bites out of my mortgage. Don't get overweight in the shares of your own employer. Use some proceeds to diversify.
Having one or a few tracker funds in your ISA would be a sound start.
Also, outside of your main employment, try to get a self employment sideline going. With maybe an evening a week, you could develop a tasty residual income and eventually the day job would be trivial. Of course, keep the day job for all it's perks.
If you have a significant other, try to have them fully onboard with your savings and possibly frugal/modest lifestyle.
Most importantly, reject any debt which is bearing interest beyond the yield of your investments. And realise that with your existing life, you may have too many eggs in one basket ( your employer's shares/salary/pension scheme )
Apart from that... good on yer.

dwtmahdc

Thanks @jennyjj- appreciate the input!
I only have the £1k of shares in them, and it's proven a wise choice (tanked over the last 3 years, from c.380p to c.130p). The sharesave is just something I'm doing so I can possibly take advantage if there's any profit, otherwise I just take the cash saved. Seeing as there's barely any interest out there at the moment I'm not really missing out.
As for paying off debt, I only have the mortgage- frustratingly realised I can only overpay £6780 a year before ERCs, so I'm going to have to look elsewhere for the rest of the money. I might have to bite the bullet and stock up in more S&SISA's- I'm on Cavendish right now as their fees are nice and low so I'll browse around for some Short/Medium term options.
Any thoughts on other baskets I might be able to move some eggs to?

Alexland

Is all of the 8% employee pension contribution required to get the 10% employer contribution or is some of it additional voluntary contribution and you would still get the 10% from your employer?

As a basic rate taxpayer, if your employer does not offer salary sacrifice to save national insurance, you might be better putting any additional contributions into a S&S Lifetime ISA? You would get the same 25% bonus / tax relief but with a LISA there would be no tax on withdrawal from age 60.

Alex.

takesyourchances

Well done reaching those levels :) out of it all, if it were me I would be adding a bit heavier into the S&S ISA from the cash if no short term need for that amount of cash, or from wages. Just some ideas, others will be able to help more I am sure

dwtmahdc

Alexland wrote: »

Is all of the 8% employee pension contribution required to get the 10% employer contribution or is some of it additional voluntary contribution and you would still get the 10% from your employer?

As a basic rate taxpayer, if your employer does not offer salary sacrifice to save national insurance, you might be better putting any additional contributions into a S&S Lifetime ISA? You would get the same 25% bonus / tax relief but with a LISA there would be no tax on withdrawal from age 60.

Alex.

Hey Alex- 5%, and they add double to it. I then do 3% through AVCs / salary sacrifice. Do you still think it's better off in a LISA? These are the areas I get a little foggy on!

dwtmahdc

takesyourchances wrote: »

Well done reaching those levels :) out of it all, if it were me I would be adding a bit heavier into the S&S ISA from the cash if no short term need for that amount of cash, or from wages. Just some ideas, others will be able to help more I am sure

Kind of you to say Thanks.
Yeah, it looks like this may have to be the next step. Any thoughts on funds or general approaches? I know it's always dependent on attitude to risk etc, but I like to hear how people would approach these sorts of things so I can adapt my own style.

jennyjj

dwtmahdc wrote: »

Kind of you to say Thanks.
Yeah, it looks like this may have to be the next step. Any thoughts on funds or general approaches? I know it's always dependent on attitude to risk etc, but I like to hear how people would approach these sorts of things so I can adapt my own style.

There's a slightly obscure fund manager Lindsell Train. I personally like their global and UK equity funds for the mid to long term.
Obviously, that is a statement of my unqualified opinion and does not constitute advice.

dwtmahdc

jennyjj wrote: »

Obviously, that is a statement of my unqualified opinion and does not constitute advice.

:rotfl: I'll be sure to not hunt you down when I lose everything and they come for my TV.

takesyourchances

dwtmahdc wrote: »

Kind of you to say Thanks.
Yeah, it looks like this may have to be the next step. Any thoughts on funds or general approaches? I know it's always dependent on attitude to risk etc, but I like to hear how people would approach these sorts of things so I can adapt my own style.

Your doing well I was cash heavy as well I had the 123 maxed out too until they cut the 3% rate, that tipped it a bit for me with that account. I now keep enough cash for emergency fund and short term needs.

With your age and if you are prepared for the longer term, you already have the Vanguard 80% and it stood out to me you were investing quite low per month at £50 compared to other areas, personally I would up that if it was me. I hold the 80% portfolio also along with other investments, I am 38 so not much older.

Maybe one area to think about but if increasing into your S&S ISA look at it for the longer term.

dwtmahdc

takesyourchances wrote: »

With your age and if you are prepared for the longer term, you already have the Vanguard 80% and it stood out to me you were investing quite low per month at £50 compared to other areas, personally I would up that if it was me. I hold the 80% portfolio also along with other investments, I am 38 so not much older.

Maybe one area to think about but if increasing into your S&S ISA look at it for the longer term.

Much appreciated! Tomorrow's job is definitely about looking into spreading more of it into other S&SISAs, and maybe up the investment in the current one.
Fundsmith has caught my eye, but I might dabble with 60% or even 40% as more cautious, shorter term options.