Time to Face The Music

alt80

Glad to hear you're on the mend @RelievedSheff

You have a really good plan and with your workplace pensions building and working towards having your mortgage paid quickly you will have lots of options in the future. One of my now-retired staff, before he retired, reduced the number of days he worked and managed to negotiate additional holiday which he took unpaid but was more bothered about the time. At the time I never told him this as I had a lot of respect for him professionally but it annoyed me even though I know it was right for him and for me to retain him. I still speak to him from time to time now about work. My sister is only a couple of years older than me but she is looking to work two or three days a week by the time she turns 50 and be in a position to stop working altogether at 55. I learned they're mortgage free when I told her I was moving home !!!!!! alien concept to me the idea of being mortgage free mid-40s but she was shocked I was absolutely made up for her.

RelievedSheff

We have both said when we are mortgage free we will look to drop our working days down to four initially and then probably three. We want more free time for us while we are young enough and fit enough to enjoy it.

RelievedSheff

Back to another day at work. Glad the snow has stayed away so far.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be from stores today. Breakfast was toast, we have both taken our packed lunches to work and dinner tonight is jerk pork loin with rice and vegetables.

Tonight's jobs are:

• walking the dog
• vacuuming the house
• cleaning the bathrooms

Sun_Addict

That's a great plan you have to be mortgage free and drop your hours so you can enjoy life. We almost paid off our mortgage several years ago but ended up extending it to make some big improvements to the house. It's never been a big mortgage though so didn't make that much difference in the grand scheme of things and we don't regret it. Less than £8k to go now. 

RelievedSheff

Spoke too soon about the snow!!

alt80

You are in a fortunate position that your work isn't your whole life/ identity mate.

Is the snow bad your way?

RelievedSheff

alt80 said:

You are in a fortunate position that your work isn't your whole life/ identity mate.

Is the snow bad your way?

Snow was pretty bad yesterday morning into early afternoon. People who left early had journey's of four hours and more.

We waited until later on and had an alright journey home. Took a bit longer than normal but not massively so.

RelievedSheff

Friday at last.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be from stores today. Breakfast was cereals, we have both taken our packed lunches to work and dinner tonight is southern fried chicken, sweet potato chips and coleslaw.

Tonight's jobs are:

• walking the dog
• load of washing

Not going anywhere this weekend so it is a few beers on the sofa watching a film tonight.

RelievedSheff

We got up late for us this morning, it was 9am before we rolled out of bed. We must have needed the rest!

We seem to have been playing catch up so far all day.

We have been to the shop and the farm shop for this week's meat.

Just having a quick tidy round now. We have neighbours coming round this evening for a curry and I would say a few drinks but that would be a lie 🤣🤣🤣

Will take the dog out for a walk shortly and then stick the curry in the slow cooker. Chicken saag masala tonight i think.

enthusiasticsaver

RelievedSheff said:

EssexHebridean said:

Probably pensions, plus saving for the point where the big ticket things need replacement! It's a fabulous feeling when the creeping realisation that a car needs replacing for example isn't also accompanied with a faint echo of "how are we going to do that!" I think more than anything else, the thing I'm most pleased to have from my time on here is the mindswitch away from things like loans for cars etc just being a necessary part of life. 

We are both in the fortunate position that we have been saving into pensions schemes for a long time so we both already have decent pots built up. 

Spare funds will probably be lined up into accounts where we can get relatively easy access to them when we need them as we approach retirement rather than locking more money away in pension pots.

You might want to consider stocks and shares isas given you can access them at any time so if you retire earlier than 55 (increasing to 57 soon I think) that gives you an income stream to access before your pensions are accessible. I agree with @EssexHebridean that saving for bigger ticket items like new cars, home improvements etc etc is a good idea and can be done using fixed term or regular savers.