Busy Mee's Last Leg

beanielou

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

How lovely for you. Mr lass is relaxing into retirement - I have to keep saying "what's on your list for today?" when he is sitting, nose in tablet, two hours after he woke up (4 hours after me, this morning!), err still in this PJs! - Beware emergency stop syndrome! :rotfl:

:rotfl::rotfl:

beanielou

Looking good Busy Bee

Busy_Mee1

It has been a while since I last updated, but real life has been...um...very real.

We lost our lovely MIL. It actually all happened very quickly, she was taken into hospital and deteriorated very quickly and never actually made it to the Hospice. The hospital staff were amazing though, from the ladies on the tea trollies to the consultants. They were all so caring and compassionate. The end of life care was excellent and she died without pain and surrounded by everyone that loved her.

Mr Mee has been amazing, supporting his parents throughout and particularly helping his elderly Dad with all the admin involved.....and there is a lot. Some of the institutions we have dealt with have been brilliant, we used the DWP Tell Us Once service. This effectively told all the statutory services (Gov departments and local authority) and took away a lot of work.

The banks however have been useless. The N@t West have been completely incompetent, incorrectly closing the join account rather than transferring to FIL, and in the process rejecting every SO, DD and incoming pension payments :mad: They had Elderly FIL in tears and the normally mild Mr Mee in full complaint mode :mad: I know it was a simple mistake but the impact that had on the already fragile mental health of a recently bereaved elderly man was awful.

Work has also been really busy. We are amidst yet another reorganisation, which is a huge distraction and for no benefit. Anyway I am just watching and waiting to see what happens before making any decisions on my future. At the moment I think I might take partial early retirement next year and continue to work part time for a while but we will see.

Mr Mee's retirement is looming at the end of the month, although to be honest he hasn't been there much these last few weeks. He is ready to go and just doing a final tour of his teams and colleagues before he goes. We are both looking forward to his birthday and the big retirement trip next month.

Our finances have been a bit out of control. We haemorrhaged money whilst hospital visiting in petrol, car parking, vending machines and takeaways but that couldn't be helped and we can afford it. I did keep thinking about people on low incomes and how they would find it impossible to manage in that situation.

I have got a grip again but I have a lot of funeral expenses cycling through my credit card (FIL won't use his card so pays me with cash/cheque) This has meant I have had to try and keep a good handle on it all. The new pot system is working well and it has felt great to have money set aside for holidays/ car stuff to pay the credit card bills when they come in.

Mr Mee's pension offer has arrived, so we can calculate everything using actual figures now. We will be mortgage neutral once he received his lump sum :T:T:T I can't quite believe it

I had originally planned to pay of a chunk of the repayment mortgage and just keep the interest only part running until the end of term. This was to reduce our monthly outgoings. However I have decided not to pay any of it off and keep the money ring fenced and off set in savings that pay more than the mortgage interest rate. I will do this while ever I am still working and also I think I will start chipping away at mortgage like a proper MFW, so at the end the mortgage will be smaller than the ring fenced amount and any residual can be used for our forever money, along with my pension lump sum.

I think that is all the news, sorry for the absence and the long ramble.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Sorry for your loss Busy Mee.

beanielou

So sorry to read your news.

Cornish_mum

So sorry to hear your loss. CM

Moneyfordreams

best wishes to your family. Sorry to hear of your loss

Suffolk_lass

I echo the sentiments of others Busy Mee1 but it is good to see you back. So much admin to do, I really feel for Mr Mee and his Father

themadvix

So sorry to hear your news Busy Mee. And how awful about N@twest. My mum found the Tell Us Once service to be really helpful when my Nan passed away, but check that the local council are aware - they hadn't been told - and that would obviously affect FIL's single person's discount.

Expect that your retirement holiday will be the break you both really need.

Suffolk_lass

Busy_Mee1 wrote: »

Mr Mee's pension offer has arrived, so we can calculate everything using actual figures now. We will be mortgage neutral once he received his lump sum :T:T:T I can't quite believe it

I had originally planned to pay of a chunk of the repayment mortgage and just keep the interest only part running until the end of term. This was to reduce our monthly outgoings. However I have decided not to pay any of it off and keep the money ring fenced and off set in savings that pay more than the mortgage interest rate. I will do this while ever I am still working and also I think I will start chipping away at mortgage like a proper MFW, so at the end the mortgage will be smaller than the ring fenced amount and any residual can be used for our forever money, along with my pension lump sum.

I just re-read the end of your post and we did a similar thing but did half and half - used a nice round £10k of DH's lump sum to pay down the mortgage, allocated a few £k for his "I've always wanted..." or "I need..." pots (less than it might have been as he has already bought two Harley-Ds!) - and moved another few £k to savings options. Our interest is comfortably higher than the mortgage interest but it bugs me that it is still there.

Enjoy his retirement celebrations this week and don't work too hard :beer: