Staying on track to be MF and ready to support my daughter at 18

ElmoR

Thanks for the suggestion ladysumerisle We have friends nearby too so it can be a road trip to see them too. Currently waiting (in vain?) for universities to arrange some in person open days in the late summer/autumn.

Finances. My head hurts. Really,really hurts

In still trying to get a grip on everything, particularly the spreadsheeting, I've spotted that the monthly additional payments to the DC part of the pension are disappearing into the ether, and have been since February

How can a scheme do that? That's quite a ****up. No wonder I can't make the maths work. Their website isn't fit for purpose. It shows a transactions history and that has no resemblance to what I've been punting across and evidenced on the payslip. I've sent them an enquiry, which usually takes a week or so for them to reply to.

It didn't even occur to me that a pension scheme could make a mistake of this seriousness, I've just trusted them for 20+ years to get it right. I feel like such an idiot. How many more mistakes have they made in that time??

Cheery_Daff

Oh no! That does indeed sound like a mess. Hope they can sort it out (and give you extra interest if you should have earned it!) Don't blame you for not trusting them though. 😕

ElmoR

Mid week conundrum.

Do any of you MFWs have experience /tips on life insurance terms?

I have a policy that was with Legal and Corporal that was due to expire at 61 years old. That is hopefully after retirement and no major financial challenges left to hurdle (you have to hope).

There was a letter and several phone calls from Top Quote who say they are now administrating the policy but L&G still cover it?! I hadn't bothered interacting with them before until yesterday. They said they needed to check details, so I obviously got sucked in. Then somehow it went to discussion a longer term to age 81. At this point I was thinking, that's a bit insane, surely people don't typically have policies til then? Each time I questioned, he would say "oh yes, we can change that, what would you like?". To end the call, which reached over 45 mins by this point) I asked for all the various scenarios he ran through to come as an email so I could think it through in my own time. He agreed and said I would get a follow up call today. I hadn't received that info by email so I didn't answer their call. After sleeping on it, I think I was being hard sold? He also checked my bank details too? If they take any additional payments from me I will definitely go thermal nuclear.

I actually woke up at 1am and couldn't sleep for several hours. It upset me.

Has anyone else experienced this? I'm 6 years into the policy and am now thinking of changing provider. What ages do you each cover up to?

many thanks (from a bleary eyed) ElmoR xx

listoflists

I can’t specifically help with that company, but as to people insuring until older thing, we’ve taken out life insurance on my OH up until 75 as he has the much better DB pensions and the reduction if he dies is fairly hefty. So it was weighing up how much it was worth us paying each month in premiums for my peace of mind if he dies first.  I’m sure he’s pleased that he’s still worth far more to me alive than dead 😊. 

Cheery_Daff

I confess I don't actually know! 😮 We don't have life insurance for Mr Cheery at all, and I think mine was just 25 years (the original length of the mortgage) which would end when I was 63. Maybe. Should probably check...

I hate it when people start trying to sell you stuff over the phone before you've had a chance to think about it properly, grrr!

taka

I don't know either. I've cancelled mine! I'm now mortgage free, single with no kids or other dependants so it seemed rather suplerfluous for my needs these days. My brother will inherit everything as it stands (and if it is before I retire 3x my salary as death in service payout through USS too).

I only really got it so if I died early my parents would inherit a paid off flat plus a little on top. (They lent me the deposit and were guarantors for my 1st flat. Had they not done so I would not have had such a decent deposit (thanks to rising prices) and would not have been able to afford to buy my current flat, or most likely any flat in my city on my own.) They are sadly not with us anymore. Mine was only £5/month and was for slightly more than my mortgage amount as £5 was the minimum payment. 😆 It was also for a fixed amount not decreasing along with my mortgage for similar reasons!

I guess what insurance you do or do not wish to take out depends on how things would be financially for those left behind if you died and their ages / own financial provisions etc. Defienitely one to ponder... just not in a sales call! 😉

edinburgher

@ElmoR - Glasgow has its problems, but I agree it's a fantastic place to study. If I had my time again it would be a hard choice between Glasgow/Edinburgh/London, depending on the course 

ElmoR

Thanks @listoflists @Cheery_Daff and @taka for your replies on the life insurance question

As usual it came down to doing some research. Reading around the MSE site, the forums and chatting with DH. The small age gap between us (he's a toy boy ) creates one additional time period where the life insurance would need to be there as cover in case I'm hit by a meteorite. That means another 10 years beyond what I had set up. So a change of policy term is needed. I've looked into the discount platforms because I don't really need advice on type of policy or amount. Low and behold, the quotes I'm getting back are significantly lower than what the person on the phone was quoting. Chancers. Will do a bit more research, try the third of the suggested platforms and then make a decision. I'm not going back to the same lot again and haggling though, they've blown it after using the hard sell on me.

@edinburgher No need to convince me!! I was a student in both Edinburgh and Glasgow (and Aberdeen), the lesser universities, not the posh ones though. I loved my time there.

The first property I bought was a tiny flat in Musselburgh - my boyfriend and I could afford it because he worked full time and I worked part time around my studies and the mortgage was cheaper than renting. Apart from that month or two when interest rates rocketted up towards 15%?! We were cacking it then.

DD is still set on pilot school but has agreed to look at degrees/universities and apply for courses that way too, as plan B. I found flight school scholarships that she can apply for and suggested she print these off and start drafting applications. She hasn't. This is what I find a little frustrating - if you have a dream and want something to happen - make it happen. Not that we can say anything, you have to be supportive and keep smiling - these young people have been hit hard by covid/lockdown and they don't need any further pressure lumped on.

@Karmacat Thanks for your interest in the work side. I'm most certainly a bunny hugger, ecowarrier but have hidden it. You put a lab coat on, and state facts. This chemical causes this harmful effect in these animals at this dose and under these conditions...etc. You publish it and then do press release. Sometimes the daily fail etc pick it up (and occasionally twist it) and often it's not news at all. The regulators are powerless, especially after Brexit. The majority of politicians don't care unless it wins them votes / makes them look green - eg plastics outcry. My favourite all time daft headline from our work was 'you are eating your underpants' with a bowl of cooked mussels as their image. The worst ever press coverage was from work on cancer in fish (while in the US, though we have fish in the North Sea with liver tumours) where it was completely misrepresented and people panicked about "catching cancer" and property prices were very temporarily affected.

I used to totally love my work, it was wonderful for the most part. Before DD came along (very late in life) I was happily doing 12 hour work days and some weekend work too. Apart from the gym and insane traveling adventures, it was all I wanted to do. Never watched telly from age 18 till my 40s. But the further I climbed up the greasy pole, the more discriminatory it became and the more aggressive/competitive too. I'm a tiny data point within the statistics (I like calling myself a rare Pokemon card) - a mixed ethnic origin, first gen to do A levels (never mind Uni), female, with a child (one female mentor said she decided not to have children because she wanted to be considered as a serious researcher) who made it through the sausage grinder of academia to the lofty height of prof. I suspect I just snuck through undetected (classic imposter syndrome there) because there's been nothing special about me, just worked a lot and had loads of productive collaborations. I'm at a middling uni doing applied research, the poor cousin of blue skies research. The loss of certain EU funding and the fact that I never was able to break into the UK research council funding monopolies means that the future of funding for me looks very grim now. There is the chance to do contract work for the various industries (which I call going over to the dark side), and I have done some, but it frustrates me because you have to sign a non disclosure agreement and cannot publish the results. Not all companies gag you, but the majority do. I suppose I am just becoming jaded? I rarely feel that I make a difference now. There is the teaching side and you do fire up a small army of new graduates each year, who hopefully go off and make small differences too, but the past year of teaching has been *extremely* hard work. Ok, it'll improve hopefully post lockdown/covid...?!

The cool projects - sampling round the UK on fisheries research vessels, capturing fish from nuclear power station intake screens, sampling entire coastlines in China, across the EU, in lakes/rivers in Colombia, sabbaticals in Hawaii, a resident alien (!) in Maryland for many years. So, so fortunate!! But the flip side - funding monopolies, equal pay claim (lost), marginilisation, bullying...

If you'd asked 20 years ago, I probably would have said I'll be one of those academics who becomes an emeritus staff member and bumbles around the campus forever, but now I want to do a runner as fast as I possibly can.

That's enough waffling, greenhouse and a zillion tomato seedlings are calling...

Have a good sunday all,

ElmoR xx

South_coast

Love the idea of you being a rare Pokemon card 😀😀😀!

Your career sounds fascinating, and with the bulk of that time having been spent fighting the good fight against a not very receptive audience you've done fabulously well to stay motivated until now. Now that societies have woken up a bit more to the human impact on our world, there's no harm in passing on the baton to those that are hungrier for the challenge and focusing on your own future instead x

Cheery_Daff

ElmoR said:

I suspect I just snuck through undetected (classic imposter syndrome there) because there's been nothing special about me, just worked a lot and had loads of productive collaborations. 

Er, from one 'imposter' to another... there's rarely anything special about profs 😋 The good ones work hard and build networks by being a good colleague and have lots of productive collaborations (like you, and hopefully eventually also me), and the lucky ones are in the right place at the right time and get by with less of the working hard  There's an occasional genius, but I think they're pretty rare....

Sounds like you've had an exciting and interesting and worthwhile career, and I'm sorry you've become jaded, although I quite understand why. Trying to hold off too much on that myself til I'm closer to retirement else it'll be a long and tedious road! 🙄