*sigh* this may take a while

savingholmes

Good progress last year. You've been reducing your mortgage and building equity. You've had more time to spend with the kids and changing jobs. Sounds good to me.

DancingInTheRain

Great year end summary, all the best for 2021 x

ohdearhowdidthathappen

mark55man said:

That's a good list - you mentioned pensions on my thread - generally working for NHS you are fine - not quite sure if you still are or private.  But even if the latter you can always move back if this topic is of interest:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6226916/nhs-additional-payments-is-it-worth-it/p1 

Hope you enjoy the rest of your break - I'm still off for a week myself catching up from 2020 although my long list of chores is not an attractive proposition I have to say

I'm still working in the NHS 2 days and then 1 day private.  Thanks for the link, I didn't even know additional pension was a thing, so I'll look into it thanks.  I get very confused with the pension threads when they start talking about tax relief and lump sums etc, I really need to educate myself!  Hope you enjoy the rest of your time off

savingholmes said:

Good progress last year. You've been reducing your mortgage and building equity. You've had more time to spend with the kids and changing jobs. Sounds good to me.

Thank you Yes, I always forget that paying down the mortgage is happening in the background, it works out at about £13k off the capital each year, which is decent.  It was nice paying back the last chunk of money to my FIL too.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

DancingInTheRain said:

Great year end summary, all the best for 2021 x

Thanks DITR, you too

mark55man

It does seem to very much be a thing.  I'll dig up another link, was from a person who had finally late in life settled into an NHS role and was exploring options.  Your new option now is to explore what provision the private company does.  The advantage of a money purchase scheme (as opposed to defined benefit which is what the NHS is) is you can be more flexible about taking it earlier as its just money.  Whereas although the NHS DB is couched in terms of contributions etc, you are not building up a pot of money for your use, you are building up an entitlement to a specific (defined) benefit - and you have no risk in converting the cash into income (which is not impossible but more difficult and precarious than you might think)

mark55man

Here you go https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6158909/pensions-baptism-of-fire/p3 

Lots of stuff on added/additional pension in NHS.  Plus some general stuff - literally you could just search on NHS Pension in the Pensions section and you would get hundreds of posts that would help you fill in the gap

ohdearhowdidthathappen

mark55man said:

Here you go https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6158909/pensions-baptism-of-fire/p3 

Lots of stuff on added/additional pension in NHS.  Plus some general stuff - literally you could just search on NHS Pension in the Pensions section and you would get hundreds of posts that would help you fill in the gap

Brilliant, thank you.
I work in the NHS all 3 days, but 2 days are on a permanent contract and the 3rd day is on an agency contract.  They call it private as the salary comes from a different pot.  I like it as I have flexibility not to work that day if I don't want to (school hols for instance) and the salary uplift on that day is significant.  I get holiday pay for that contract, but no sick pay or pension (understandably).
It's tricky to know what to prioritise.... house renovations (adds value to home and makes life more comfy too), long term savings (security), mortgage OPs (decreasing term and interest) or pension OPs (sooner I start, the better the gains).

ohdearhowdidthathappen

All this school stuff is very annoying.... just make a decision and stick to it!  

mark55man

My gut feeling (don't take guidance from internet strangers) is that you would be best served by taking some of the income from your private day and using it to buy added pension from your core NHS scheme.  I think its slightly less expensive to do as a lump sum. 

As a part time working woman you need to be careful that you don't short change yourself and that you and your OH don't become unbalanced from a tax perspective in retirement.  It feels like you would both already be in the BR range in retirement, but if your OH could be a higher rate tax payer in retirement (and therefore not getting as much tax advantages from retirement) then you should think about topping yours up with his money

Another option (assuming you do want to build some up) would be to save the money into a personal pension (of some type) and then try and build a pot which you can use when you retire.  You can then use the pot to buy an annuity (guaranteed income stream) or form your own drawdown strategy (risk is market fluctuations and drawing down too much too early).  However the pot will give you more flexibility to retire earlier by allowing you to withdraw from 55

If the NHS added pension scheme is still running at that point it is likely to be (Much) better value than an annuity, and I don't think you lose tax advantages but you would need to check with an expert.

Sorry for getting into so much detail on your diary - I just can't help it !! 

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Thanks Mark, really excellent advice and loads of food for thought