Busy Mee's Last Leg

Suffolk_lass

themadvix said:

Ooh exciting!!! 😁

Cornish_mum said:

Ooh DD and a ring!!!! 😁

What they said!! Happy days...

savingholmes

Exciting re DD
Congrats on letting them know you plan to retire... I too am shocked at how few people have planned for their retirement / later years / financial freedom!! Sounds like you are both really well set up though pension wise.

Busy_Mee

Good Morning. Gosh over two weeks since my last post and quite a lot to report:

Financial Stuff

I got excited about the new Halifax switch offer, only for my hopes to be dashed when I realised we had both had a switching bonus in August 2020, so didn't qualify 😖 

I have switched our gas and electric to Green using MSE switching arrangements. Still means an increase from £140 to £175, which is quite a jump. I am hoping that we will use less electricity this year now we have an empty nest but I don't think it will make much difference to the gas as we still have to heat the whole house IYSWIM.

I claimed £21.91 from TopCashback and that has been sent to the odds and sods account.

I amended my self assessment form for 2019/20 to include £312 expenses for working from home, and completed my SA for 20/21 to include both £15k SIPP contribution and WFH. I have a refund of £1124.00 to come from HMRC   . I have shared the tax relief calculations on the Fireside chat thread, if anyone is interested.

This refund means that I WILL be able to chip another £500 off the interest only mortgage, so will end April with a nice round £150k outstanding   I have it in my mind to set myself a target of having the IO mortgage down to £140k by the end of 2021 but will need to see how the finances pan out over the next few months as we move into operation retirement. 

Our finances are going to be in a state of flux over the next month or two, as the regular savers come to an end and also some fixed rate savings products come to an end. This will largely be allocated to our fluid funds to sit in the mortgage offset pot or in a Marcus savings account.

I am going to pay £30k off our repayment mortgage, leaving a sum of around £4k outstanding. This should reduce our monthly mortgage repayment from £980 to £140, but maintaining a sum outstanding means we will not have to repay the interest only portion of the mortgage until the end of term in 2024.

I am not renewing the regular savers this year, so will have five accounts to either close or switch (2 x HSBC, 2x FD and 1 M&S). Although I would like to tidy these up by closing them, I might just see if there are any more switch deals that pop up first, I would be gutted if I missed out 

My retirement form has gone in, but been rejected (it's a conspiracy!) I have redone it and hopefully it will go through this time. I am just waiting for my pension details to come through, with my fingers crossed I got my calculations right 


Other Stuff

DD got engaged and we had such a lovely day. The celebration was obviously small, so I focussed on quality. I had a fabulous cake made, made a balloon arch ( 3 hours work and sore fingers) , did platters of meats, cheeses, prawns and breads and we drank champagne all afternoon ( Aldi champagne after some research and it was very nice).  DD was on Cloud 9. The happy couple were indeed very happy and said they didn't want the day to end. We are now on wedding planning   I have told them how much we are prepared to contribute and earmarked this on my spreadsheet !  They can then chose whether just to work to that as their budget or contribute themselves if they want something more expensive. I just didn't want DD thinking this was a bottomless pit 

My retirement is becoming real now. I have told my team and have starting telling other colleagues. There has been a fair amount of shock, but also envy and a surprising number of people who have told me confidentially they are also retiring in the next 12 month. It feels a bit like rats leaving a sinking ship, but most people have said that the last year has made them reevaluate their lives, life is too short and they don't want to have to go back to commuting and working in an office.

Interesting there was an article in the Times yesterday saying there is an increase in people retiring early, some because they have been made redundant, but lots of others just reevaluating life. So not just where I work then.


I think that is all my news apart from I got my hair done yesterday and feel like a new woman

The weather has been lovely here and I am hoping to get out into the garden today. Have a good Sunday x

South_coast

Sounds like a most excellent couple of weeks 😀! Congratulations to all of you!

greent

Congratulations to DD! 🥳💖🍾🥂

beanielou

Lots of lovely news 

savingholmes

Congrats to DD
Lucky on the hair cut - I have to wait until May for my hairdresser to fit me in.
Exciting on the retirement and payments front. 
Things sound like they are coming together for you.

Suffolk_lass

How lovely. Congratulations to your DD

Busy_Mee

Morning. A cheeky mid week post to update on operation retirement.

It was a  bit quiet yesterday at work ( is this a sign of things to come !)  Anyhoo I used the time productively and did a couple of jobs towards retirement.

I checked my state pension forecast ( thanks Suffolklass).  Although I have 40 years where I have paid NI I am currently 4 years short of the full SRP because of a period where I was contracted out. Because I am retiring mid year ( end of August) I will have paid another year of NI, so will be left with three years short of full state retirement pension. My SRP retirement date is 2031, so I have 10 years to decide how to make that up. I am hoping grandchildren may come along in that period and I can claim carers credits to make up the shortfall but we will see. I "think" you can pay back up to 6 years and the earlier years would be cheaper, so need to have another look in 6 years time.  None of this totally desperate because our SRP has always been additional income.

Deciding to retire mid year has been helpful in gaining another year's NI, has given me the opportunity to invest again in my SIPP and also given me the bulk of the bank holidays which fall in April and May   

I  also rang B@rclays mortgages to check my plan to repay £30k off our repayment mortgage. As I hoped this will reduce our contracted repayment amount from £980 to £136. We can then keep the IO part of the mortgage running to the end of term. Once I make the payment it takes 14 days to revise the contracted rate to change. So hopefully that will happen in time for the May payment. I intend to blast this money saved at the IO mortgage for the period I am on full salary.

I am bucking the normal trend of getting the mortgage paid off before retirement because our mortgage product is so good (.69% above base), currently 0.79%. The mortgage term ends in 2024, by which time the now small residual repayment mortgage will be finished and I will pay whatever is left of the IO mortgage. I am hoping to continue to chip chunks off the mortgage during the last three years of its term, so the final balance is not so scary. 

I think I am also going to divert my odds and sods account funds for the next year to a wedding dress fund for DD. This will buy her wedding dress and any other nonsense that might have Mr Mee asking "HOW MUCH ?" 

I am definitely going to be tussling with my MSE sensibilities with this wedding and using the odds and sods account means using essentially free money, so feels OK.

Suffolk_lass

You might find there is a really good (wedding) dress maker near you (my Mum's sister-in-law's sister-in-law used to make them for the Lincolnshire "county set") She made mine for a lot less than a shop-bought design - completely bespoke and all the buttons were covered in the silk of the dress with handmade loop button holes! Depends on what she wants really, but worth a bit of research