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

ElmoR

Thanks Kat you've given several ideas that'll I'll try out on my daughter...she tends to have a knee jerk standard teenage response to pretty much everything and it is tricky finding a way to interest her. Did buy her a book on money aimed at her age group but I notice that it is collecting dust on the bookshelf


School holidays for the next 2 weeks and I've taken annual leave for the coming week so will track down some ML clips to watch with her.


The past week has been uneventful. I did spend a whopping £6 on work coffee/cake but that was to say thanks to a colleague who kindly gave me feedback on a manuscript. Packed lunches all week though.:D


We are going on a holiday in the latter part of the week but rather than stay in hotels we accepted the inlaws offer to their guest room. A couple of hundred pounds saved :T I hope we don't get too much under each others feet but it's only for a few nights...



ElmoR

ElmoR

:eek:Actually the week wasn't totally uneventful now that I think about it...I took some of the earlier advice and comments on board from a few of you and tried to get an idea of what my pension situation is. In particular, when could I retire and thinking about setting an age to aim for.


In digging around on my pension provider website, I found that we can make an appointment with PensionWise at the Citizens Advice Bureau. so I went ahead and booked one for a few weeks time. The salary scheme through my work involved a massive (and dire) change recently, closing the final salary scheme and reverting to a 1/75th scheme. So I have about 10 years in the first scheme and the rest will be in the new one and substantially less than it would have been. I'm also a bit short on NI contributions because I worked in the USA for a bit and the time has passed when I could have bought those years, so another frown . Wish school had explained such things to us when we were kids.



Hopefully this appointment will help understand the lay of the land and what I need to do to retire a bit earlier than aged 67, which is the current work pension scheme default :eek:

ElmoR

Kat78MFW

Your schools must break up the week before ours. My two still have another week to go. Enjoy your annual leave and I hope the weather is good to you when you go to stay with your in-laws.

The Pensionwise appointment sounds interesting - hope they give you some useful information. I think DH and I could do with booking something similar.

ElmoR

Yes, Kat78MFW, they stagger the school holidays in this region - the nearby city starts next week, the surrounding county region schools go this week. I feel sorry for teachers who have their own kids in a different school and get caught out by that.
Looked up the PWise govt website - you have to be aged 50 or over. I just qualify! Wish I'd thought about such things a long time ago though. Will report back once I've attended the appointment on whether it was useful or not...I have a feeling that it's going to be very complicated with years in one scheme, then years in a different type of scheme, years abroad and possibly more years abroad...

ElmoR

:cool: Back from our holidays down South. The weather was so good that we accidentally had a little bit of sun burn. Not too bad on the bank balance because we stayed with relatives and saved on hotel costs. Certainly much cheaper than any previous easter break trips we've made each year. If I can keep spending low for the rest of the month then a relatively biggish O/P would be possible...



Started to look into retirement further. The pensions appointment is tomorrow and in preparation for that I had to find out the current state of affairs. It seems very complicated due to the employer pension scheme changing from a final salary to DC scheme 2 years ago. Still, will wait and see what the advice is. Not sure I want to divert extra money into that scheme either, I've lost trust in it. I pay 9% of my salary into it at the minute, matched by employer contributions. That now sounds low compared to some posts. After reading some of your posts about S&S ISAs, how they can be very low cost and not silly risk, I am wondering about those for the next 10+years as part of a retirement pot alongside the now woeful pension pot. Nuking the mortgage was such a simple concept compared to retirement planning :eek:

ElmoR

:eek:The pensions appointment at the CAB wasn't what I had been hoping for/expecting at all. It was helpful in that I now fully understand the difference between my original employer final salary scheme (a rare unicorn) and the new contribution scheme (a lame nag) that replaced it. I understand the NI and state pensions part too. It didn't really go any further than that though. I had my budgets and information ready to do some maths but it wasn't part of the discussion. So no further forwards on working out what I need to do if I want to retire before 67 really.


Better start reading around I suppose...


On the MFW front, still eating my own packed lunches (I think that habit is ingrained now), taking a flask of coffee in each day too. Just need to buy an egg for the OH given that the DD has already received a couple from relatives. Should be a low spend few days coming up...gardening and exercise.

Kat78MFW

Sorry to hear that the pension appointment didn't make things all that much clearer for you.

I've got a long day at work tomorrow - you have reminded me that a flask of coffee will be just what I need to get me through!

ElmoR

Made it to payday :j:j
Have carried out a money sweep of everything that was left in the current account across to the mortgage as an additional o/p. So far, I've been working at this since the New Year and already chopped 3 months of the end of the payment plan speadsheet, provided we keep it up...:j
It helped that this month there was only one vets trip, no car troubles and no dentists. Long may that continue...:D

ElmoR

:TEnd of the week round up. A slightly spendy week in that I joined slimming universe and that will now set me back £5 a week plus the extra on food to eat better. Had to do something about the weight gradually going up and up. Looking through the recipes, there are plenty that will be amenable to batch cooking. Friday was disappointing in that I shelled out for baked tattie at work, going against my new habit/grain, and it was so over cooked that I couldn't even eat the skin. Will have to get myself organised with slimming lunch alternatives now. Adapt.


Seeing a few people announce the end of their mortgage payments on other threads has really given me a boost this week.



ElmoR

ElmoR

:j:j:TSeriously glad this working week is over. An interview in another country has meant that I have spent virtually nothing all week but my stress levels have gone through the roof. The fitness tracker I wear recorded heart rates up at 150 bpm range at several points during the interview process. It has been very useful for helping to see that I probably don't want to move to another country and mess up the amazing progress made on the MFW front or our family life.