Beating Lifestyle Inflation and Staying Mortgage Free!

beanielou

A good wee day then!!

Cornish_mum

A tilly tidy😆 well done! 

Amazing to be MF!

I am saving into an S&S ISA for my pension bridge for early retirement, plus AVCs (which is an ok option for my scheme USS). 

earthgirl2

apple_muncher said:

Tilly would be proud of you and honoured to be of use!

This is lovely!

earthgirl2

Cornish_mum said:

A tilly tidy😆 well done! 

Amazing to be MF!

I am saving into an S&S ISA for my pension bridge for early retirement, plus AVCs (which is an ok option for my scheme USS). 

Yes I think that is where my research is leading me.

earthgirl2

So I think I will look more into making my pension pay out early, and getting a diversified stocks and shares ISA. I will probably need to put quite a bit into it, to be able to draw down in 8 or 9 years. But I am not planning to totally retire in 8 or 9 years - just semi-retire if I want.

I also want to get the balance right - spending time, money and energy with the kids now.

To be able to save more in a financial crisis,  I need to up my income and save more.

Up my income 
I'd like to do this passively, i.e. I don't want to work many more hours. I need more ideas for this.
Passive income
Cashback sites/cards
free trade 
coinbase
airtime rewards
?

Active income / side hustles
I could get a couple more hours tutoring with little impact to my week (I currently have 6 hours).
prolific surveys
shopandscan
market research

Save
Hiring the electric cars at work (free to me) has not worked, as they are all out of order, every week. I'll keep trying. 
As this just isn't working, cut my face to face meetings etc to minimise driving.
Continue to cut electricity use
slash phone contracts if possible - phone up and ask
more meat free days
MS for meals out for OH and I, after vouchers are used.
See if packaged bank account is providing benefit.
see if I can get union membership cheaper
Still allocate a fun budget of £25/week, but see how creative I can be about not needing it.

apple_muncher

Does your fun budget include things like clubs the kids do? Or is it extra things like a cafe trip?

Alchemilla

Where is Tilly? 

Mrs_Money_Penny

I miss Tilly often wonder what she’s up to. Living a good life I hope x

EssexHebridean

Wait WHAT - you paid off the mortgage?! Absolutely awesome work - well done! (I hope you've posted on the achievement thread on MFW!)  When we paid ours off I did the main bit via bank transfer but had an odd final bit to clear as well so I rang up and did it using my debit card - it was the first time the chap who took the payment had encountered that before, I think he was more delighted by it than I was!  

Sounds like some good information you're getting together on the pension front. I'm still being a bit "head in the sand" over it but know I need to take a proper look/analysis at some stage (no lectures from anyone please - I know, I'm just currently actively choosing not to deal for various personal reasons)

South_coast

Well done on clearing the mortgage, that's something to be celebrated no matter how you do it 😀! 

Have you seen the FIREside chats thread? There's lot of different ideas on there about ways to go about early retirement, it might help you with forming your ideas:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6255918/fireside-chats/p1