Drop LISA in favour of ISA

ian1246

I'll throw my 2 cents in - I m in a similar boat as the OP - I'm 31, Wife is 28. I've been contributing to a Police Pension for the last 5 & 1/2 years - accessible at 55, Default Age 60, whilst Wife has accumulated a £1000 deferred Council (Teaching) Pension accessible at 68. Since leaving as a Teaching Assistant and starting work as a Nursery Assistant, Wife has accumulated a £5,400ish NEST Fund. Current amount invested by Wife into NEST - £170 per month. My pension cost is currently £332.30 per month.

We brought our house 5 years ago and have had various expenses (Wedding, House Costs, New 2nd hand car etc...) to meet - meaning we haven't really contributed enough towards our Pension. We've have, however, built up a £7000 Emergency Fund. Now that our expenses are out of the way and emergency fund sorted - we're hoping to increase Wife's NEST Pension fund contributions to £250 per month & open an LISA each (£75 per month into mine & £175 per month into wife's). 

We're thinking LISA in order to allow the money to top up my pension when we retire when I turn 60, hopefully lasting till we are both 68+ years old & state pension kicks in (Wife's NEST Fund will be left alone until one of us die's - at which point it will supplement the lost State Pension/Police Pension from my or wife's death. Worth adding if I die, Wife will get 50% of my pension until her death).

That said, depending on how the future holds.... retiring at 55 (& 52 for Wife) with a reduced Police Pension sounds rather appealing - just don't know if it is feasible at this point (We're trying for Children & want to move/upgrade house in the next 5 years). If we ever do look at retiring before 60 - then ISA's would take priority over LISA's. 

JustAnotherSaver

That’s another point I didn’t make. 

The house issues we had wiped out any emergency fund we were going to have so we had to delay it a few years and then start from scratch. 
Took me a couple years of dripping it in but I hit 3 months wages. I toned the monthly dripping down and I’m currently working my way towards 6 months wages. 
Once I do that I’ll tone it down quite a bit and drip towards 12 months quietly. 

Every time it gets toned down that money that was going into the emergency pot then goes into a savings account. I don’t drink but it doesn’t go in to a pee it down the drain account so to speak. 

frugalandsave

Slightly different scenario but similar Age. 
I am 32 and my wife is 34. We both contribute to a DC pension. 
I am a higher earner and am sacrificing 18 % + 4 % employer contribution (total about £795 a month). Total in Pot £25 k , this takes me out of the 40 % tax bracket (i increase my contributions as i get pay increases). I am contributing just £50 into Sipp (3K), £50 into Lisa (2k) & £100 into S&S Isa (4k).  We bought a house about 1 1/2 yrs ago (complete depleted savings) and are just paying the normal monthly mortgage fee. I save about £300 a month in cash. Currently just got back up to 3 months emergency funds for my wife and me. 
Wife is 20 % tax bracket and contributes 10 % + 5 % employer contribution (total about £200 a month and £3k total). At the moment we save her salary by nearly 80 %, and will be using those to buy a property in her home country in about 2 yrs time. This we will use as a holiday home for ourselves and her family. We may also move there in a few yrs time, depending how financially stable we are. She also has an old DB with a previous employer which will pay £700 a month from age 55. Once we have bought the property, we will increase her contribution to 30 %. 

We are on course to have enough cash flow from age 55. We will have the property abroad or the one at home we can use to rent out for cash flow or sell if we need to raise capital.
S&S Isa will bridge the gap from 55-58 if access to private pension gets increased. 
Sipp will top up what we need from age 55 or 58 depending on the situation when we get there. 
Lisa will help us between age 60 and state pension.