Improving all the time

savingholmes

I know what you mean about pensions - I am belatedly looking into what my options will be and which pensions I am tied into state pension age for and which I can take earlier. By 2021 I want to have started to invest into some kind of pension bridging fund to allow earlier retirement if we want to. Good luck with finding your info out too.

FloraandFauna

Cheers, Holmes. I did ask for information from previous pensions a while back - in a vague way - when I was looking at transferring them into the current pension within the time limit. Blood out of stones. Still waiting for a letter from one of them (said would send update out sometime this month), and the other is still trying to determine whether I'm really me or not.

FloraandFauna

Reporting in:

- improve something every day - yes, couple of books to the local charity, the cardboard box mountain to the local recycling, plus batch cooked lunches for the rest of the week, a load of washing, and tidied/binned some of the random stuff out of the bowl in the kitchen. All of which were avoidance activities for doing the hoovering. Which I have not done. Or paying attention to a cost benefit design analysis conference call. Which I did do.

- money situation improved - yes, couple of prolific surveys and some to-ing and fro-ing to the post office for Kantar. I've forgotten what the rewards were that tempted me to sign up, but so far I am a pile of first class stamps, and a roll of sellotape, up on the deal.

savingholmes

'working out whether I'm really me or not'

There's so many stories that could start with that one line. I was going to check on one of my pensions and my brain went blank on my NI number. I remember it now but in the moment my brain must stuttered...

LeighofMar

"Honestly, these sums are so small I make myself laugh. But they're MY tiny sums and I want them all in the optimum place for my circumstances. So I've given them an encouraging hug and sent them off."

This made me giggle. I totally relate. 500.00 a month goes into our retirement accts which to a lot of people is chump change but for me, I am always calculating how to best use that measly 500.00 and always excited if I can buy 10 shares of the US stock market that week. We do the best we can with what we've got. Cheers to you for taking the step.:beer:

StripeyTightsSpottySocks

Hi FloraandFauna :wave:

Just popped into your diary and have subscribed

Love your analysis of income and spends and your motivational posts about what you achieve each day.

Well done on getting on p!necone - is one i'm looking out for too :T

Hope it's a good long weekend for you

FloraandFauna

Garn. Internet died at home. No checking up on myself = more money spent. Apparently. Plus a lot of work travel causing food to be bought. Am a couple of hundred down. Stupid.

On plus side, large chunks of that went on stocking up on cat food, things for the freezer - stuff that will be reducing bills for the next couple of months. And if I'm very good this month I should be back to where I was with only a month lost.

Leigh, you're absolutely right! I bet I watch my £500 with much more interest than someone else gets out of their £50,000! : )

And hello to you, Stripey! I have achieved LOADS today. Shame it was all at work ; )

FloraandFauna

Reporting in:

- improve something every day - well, improved the broadband, that's a start. Lit the fire, poured a glass of wine, opened some crisps. All that's definitely an improvement, if not quite what I meant for this category.

- money situation improved - no, misplaced my season ticket so had to pay again for the train. Yes, all that work time has resulted in one of my managers nominating me for an award. No idea how much that is, but all welcome. Cashed out £7 from prolific, and some TCB finally paid, so will try and transfer that tomorrow.

FloraandFauna

It appears I'm not the daily update sort of personality!  Or at least, not for long.

But I've still been at it, and fiddling around with the plan. Am now down to (must update the signature):
£136,467 on the mortgage (was £151,000 September 2018), ending March 2038 (was October 2038) - due to a steady £100 OP each month, with extras where manageable - total OPs £2,958. Not so bad for under two years, and very little disposable income.

So that's £2,300 of avoided interest, and 7 months off, over the lifetime of the mortgage so far, even if I do nothing else. Which - naturally - I am! 

All my dithering last August culminated in setting up a Vanguard ISA, SIPP, and general account, where I now save regular amounts, with £1,000 in my TSB 1.5% account for immediate emergencies, as opposed to the slowly unfolding ones.
The biggest change is that I'm now looking at pension planning as well as paying the mortgage off. I'm 48 now and already thinking about it - I'd like to be in a position where (at 55) I can start to make choices rather than feel weepy at having to work yet another 12 years...

So the current plan is rebalanced somewhat:
- monthly payments of £150 (up from £100) to OP mortgage (cancellable but not retrievable)
- monthly payments of £200 (up from £50) to ISA (cancellable and retrievable)
- monthly payments of £200 (up from £50) to SIPP (cancellable but not retrievable)
... alongside a very generous employment pension which - between me and them - puts about £1,000 a month into a pension.

This change is only possible at present due to lack of commuting (and related) costs now I'm working from home full time. But my employer is making noises about this being fairly long-term, if not permanent, so the payment plans should hold OK for a while.
Lastly, the cats are fine, getting older, still love them every day, the annoying !!!!!!. Covid, not so great, miss my parents, lost my uncle. Work, thankful as !!!!!! to have the job I have - yes it's keyworker, but I am so grateful to have been able to carry on working full time from home.  

ETA: September, not July 2018! Not quite two years yet.

FloraandFauna

Feeling a bit of a fraud on this board! I am still OP'ing the mortgage - by £100pm as a direct debit, and spare pounds and pence picked up wherever - but moved the rest over to monthly payments into the SIPP and the ISA.

Still OP'ing because my 5 year fix runs out in 2023 and I have no idea where mortgage rates will be at that point - I'd like to bring down the LTV a little faster than it would run normally, as a bit of insurance against painful monthly repayments if rates are up to 5 or 6% by then.

BUT. I have heard a lot on various forums about it being financially blinkered to pay a mortgage rather than invest. And I kept thinking how on earth can it ever be bad to pay off your debt! All this 'use debt to muck about in the market' sounded risky, dodgy, and all too likely to blow up in my face. I didn't believe it - I didn't believe that continuing to pay interest on over £130k could be outweighed by gaining interest on the measly £3k I have kicking about. Having shut my ears for most of this year, I finally ran the maths on my spreadsheet to prove to myself one way or the other...

Well. F****** h***. They not only have a point, they have about £60,000's worth of point.

Roughly. If I have £400 a month to put 'somewhere' each month, and I put all of that against the mortgage, I'll pay it off in 2031 and have no savings at all. If I OP that £100 and put the other £300 into an ISA, I'll pay it off 3 years later but have £64,000 of savings <shocked face>. 

Of course - interest rates, SIPP tax back, additional mortgage interest paid, compounding etc etc make this an estimate, but the principle remains. 

And why is this important to me, other than the general amazing feeling of potentially having more savings than I have ever had in my life? Because it means that - alongside a DB pension I have starting in 2032 - I can afford to retire at 60 on a surprisingly comfortable amount until the second DB pension kicks in, and then the state pension (if it exists then!)

If I just OP the mortgage, I am still working until 67. This has blown my mind a little, so this current 100/300 split may change again - and there's probably going to be more spare come October. I think I will always need the psychological satisfaction of OP'ing though, so am not kicking myself off this board just yet.