Thirty something dreaming of not paying mortgage

South_coast

kaycastle said:

I have occasionally popped in to read other diaries like south_coast to keep me inspired. 

Blimey, you were inspired 😳??? I must go back and re-read - I obviously missed something 🤣!

kaycastle

South_coast said:

kaycastle said:

I have occasionally popped in to read other diaries like south_coast to keep me inspired. 

Blimey, you were inspired 😳??? I must go back and re-read - I obviously missed something 🤣!

You are being very humble!! you've done brilliant and always so busy!!

debtfreeoneday

Well done on mortgage and pension progress!

kaycastle

Thank you so much.

Busy day today. Been upping my data science skills at the weekend to help with my work and future work prospects.

My veg and herb growing is well under way although I'm in a war with my kitten and daily battles to defend them.

I have lots of basil and parsley seedlings. Hoping to use some as gifts. Kitten killed one parsley seedling today...

Courgettes and tomatoes coming along as well...and randomly lots of mustard.

Last few weeks I've been digging up an area of the garden and its really coming along.

Finally settling down to relax a bit and trying out "the durrells"

debtfreeoneday

Good veg progress there. 

kaycastle

hehe thank you debtfreeone day

I've fallen in love with the "The Durrells" and have daydreams about running away to some Greek island.... and I'm only 2 episodes in haha

Had to get some greek food last night as a result - was so tasty. Don't often have takeaways but I love how in the small place we live we can get more restaurant level/normal food stuff now because of pandemic. There is lots of variety now - realise that it will come to an end when restaurants re-open but I really hope some of them keep doing this - its nice to have good food cooked for you without having to sit in a restaurant sometimes.

I've saved £18,000 for maternity leave as we want to start a family at some point in the next couple of years and I really want to keep up overpayments during my maternity leave

I keep looking more at retirement/financial freedom - I'll be 30 in just a few months and the mortgage seems very much on track - the current age my spreadsheet is telling me is 38 for mortgage freedom if I keep at the same level of overpayments /interest rates etc.

I'm trying to understand more about the vanguard stocks and shares ISA and how I can use that and what sort of returns I might get and whether I want to start it now or later. How is everyone else's retirement planning coming?

I took a look at the retirement/pensions forum and they all are very serious haha not that its a bad thing but I couldn't understand half of it.

South_coast

Have a read of this thread if you've got a bit of time this weekend, it's got a lot of people thinking and is on MFW so everyone is friendly and supportive 😀
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6255918/fireside-chats/p1

This might also interest you - I lose hours on it 🤣!
https://theescapeartist.me/about/

Well done on saving the maternity leave fund already, much better organisation than hastily thinking about it once you realise you're pregnant!

South_coast

Aah, I'm too late - I see you've already found the FIREside chats 🤣!

kaycastle

South_coast said:

Aah, I'm too late - I see you've already found the FIREside chats 🤣!

hehehe Yes is perfect for me!

ooooh thank you for the escape artist share - looks right up my street and I can tell will be spending a long time on here

The maternity fund seemed like a no brainer - even though my current company is very good and I get full pay for almost half a year. Just felt better to get it sorted now so I don't have to worry about it when I am actually pregnant.

kaycastle

Hiya All

I realised something very exciting yesterday after hanging out in the fireside chats. There is nothing stopping me "testing" what different retirement incomes work now. 

I'll have to take my mortgage payments out of the equation as that won't be there in retirement. 

I guess one of the first things I can do is download and see my actual spending - I never really do that, I have a rough budget and know all my bills and have it tracked out but I don't check how well I've stuck to it - I'm presuming I do pretty well as money generally keeps increasing but I should check what food spending actually is.

Need to do my retirement planning spreadsheet stuff as well...

My OH works bank holidays ( ) so I can spend lots of time on this today..inbetween watching The Durrells of course.