How much to live on

Isarulesaretoocomplex

Organgrinder said:

louby40 said:

We went to a fantastic little restaurant in the Jewish area called Starka. It's very small so I'd recommend you book. Family run. 

Thank you. Just looked online. We're staying just around the corner!

Have had quite a nervous day. First had to wait for the last savings payment to be paid in. Then the mortgage direct debit had gone out so I will have paid more in than needed, but it will get repaid so no problems there.

Then the actual payment was to a generic account so it couldn't be verified!!! 

But I am now mortgage free. A very strange day. And far more stressful than it needed to be. But it's a great start to the year. :-)

Hi and strange that ive came across this post as I too have just paid off my nat west mortgage this morning after my 5 year fixed rate of 1.64% came to an end 31 December so id been investing my 20% excess payments into a ford flex isa currently 4.04%.
Had to ring santander as it refused to action the payment to nat west however its now sorted and mortgage free subject to confirmation from nat west. The stooze is a new concept to me and thats why ive decided to respond as I have 2 mbna cards and 2 barclay with great offers constantly of 0% so will have a look at the link you've posted to check to see how much I can make by using their money 💰...thanks for the link and congratulations on being mortgage free 😀 

Organgrinder

Isarulesaretoocomplex said:

Organgrinder said:

louby40 said:

We went to a fantastic little restaurant in the Jewish area called Starka. It's very small so I'd recommend you book. Family run. 

Thank you. Just looked online. We're staying just around the corner!

Have had quite a nervous day. First had to wait for the last savings payment to be paid in. Then the mortgage direct debit had gone out so I will have paid more in than needed, but it will get repaid so no problems there.

Then the actual payment was to a generic account so it couldn't be verified!!! 

But I am now mortgage free. A very strange day. And far more stressful than it needed to be. But it's a great start to the year. :-)

Hi and strange that ive came across this post as I too have just paid off my nat west mortgage this morning after my 5 year fixed rate of 1.64% came to an end 31 December so id been investing my 20% excess payments into a ford flex isa currently 4.04%.
Had to ring santander as it refused to action the payment to nat west however its now sorted and mortgage free subject to confirmation from nat west. The stooze is a new concept to me and thats why ive decided to respond as I have 2 mbna cards and 2 barclay with great offers constantly of 0% so will have a look at the link you've posted to check to see how much I can make by using their money 💰...thanks for the link and congratulations on being mortgage free 😀 

What a coincidence. Exact same fix rate, length of time and end date!!!

Excellent news.

Nebulous2

Savvy_Sue said:

louby40 said:

We're off to Amsterdam in February. 

I think we are too: I'm supposed to be planning a trip then, but it is (as always) complicated by the need to visit MiL on our way home. Warning: it may be VERY cold - we've been in March and had one particularly bitter day with hail and sleet. 

And then I hope we'll be going again in July, because I'M GOING TO BE A GRANDMA! And it's the ones all my hopes were pinned on, who live in Amsterdam, who have obliged. 

Nebulous2 said:

We are also negotiating travel insurance, which has jumped quite a bit in price, due to some health conditions to declare. I think I'm going to end up with a packaged bank account, which will be quite a bit cheaper, but as is always the case with buying a package, it doesn't completely match our needs. 

You're probably already aware that you'll need to phone up and declare your various ailments in order to ensure that you'll be covered. In my experience, if you're 'shopping around' or considering changing which bank you are packaged with, it's worth having a little list in front of you. Mine lists all DH's and my ailments, treatments, recent medical appointments etc. It just makes it easier for me to be sure I haven't forgotten anything. 

And then ... you may find one bank wants to charge you an additional fee, while another does not. I found that Nationwide would charge me £100+, but were happy to cover DH for just the monthly charge. And another couple of banks - I forget which - wanted extra for DH, and nothing for me. 

So when I'm investigating, I set aside a couple of hours for the process. 

Slightly concerned that we are currently packaged with Virgin (at no extra fee) and hope that the merger with Nationwide doesn't mean we end up with the Nationwide insurance. Well, I guess we can always switch again ... 

Also dreading when we 'age out' of packaged bank accounts!

Thanks - I narrowed it down to Nationwide or Coop. Both have quoted an additional premium for health conditions. Nationwide has a limit of 31 days at a time, which isn't enough for us. Coop allows 45 days which is better. Both have European recovery, but again the one from the Coop suits us better. 

MarzipanCrumble

It is such a relief to be mortgage free - your home is your own and you have freed up money to put towards repairs, improvements etc.  (Or other treats.....)

Both my sons have mortgages and I have encouraged them to pay more so that the mortgages are reduced.  If anything happens to either (redundancy, health problems) I now can pay their mortgages off if need be.  Not told them that, but to me, that means I can secure their home.

LL_USS

A few of us on the forum already explained how using the money that we can overpay/ pay off our mortgage to leverage - for example investing when the mortgage rate is low whilst even cash ISAs can yield better.

But yes the feeling of no longer having to worry about the mortgage is quite special :-). @MarzipanCrumble it is great of you to quietly put aside the money to secure your sons' home if necessary.

I had a five year mortgage (1.94% with HSBC) ending just around the Truss-Kwangteng melt-down in 2022 so I rearranged my finance to pay if off then- though it meant I had to cut down to minimum on our spendings. The next year in 2023 I had to take a personal loan of 20K (at 6.9% with Nationwide) to make 25K for a family member who needed the money urgently, and I also rearranged things again to pay it off after a few months, costing only about £142 in interest. I couldn't bear the thought of having an unsecured loan, paying such high interest.

Careful money planning requires discipline and some difficult decisions, but it can help ease the bumps on our road in the long-run. 

Organgrinder

Indeed. If only I knew in my twenties what I know now.

But as Oscar Wilde once said "I am not young enough to know everything".

With regard to the mortgage, I wonder what impact, if any, there is is to credit ratings. (Not credit scores!) Do lenders (credit card ones in particular) view you any differently? 

My overall borrowing is much reduced albeit on 0% interest credit cards now earning about £1,500 a year in interest. I'd quite happily extend this stoozing for a few more years if possible as it's rather satisfying to take money off the banks. After all they've had plenty of mine over the years!

LL_USS

@Organgrinder Having no mortgage does have an impact, albeit "low" according to Clearscore. I have this issue to monitor because it has a negative impact on my account: 

Explanation:

Doing well list has the usual stuff we know 

Following your example I also tried stoozing. The total amount of money I put into fixed rate saving accounts to balance with my 0% interest purchase cards will yield £1780 over the 18 months period fixed, a couple of months before the purchase cards expire. 

Organgrinder

Thanks. I'm currently building up another £10k snooze. Hopefully come December I'll be able to transfer that. There appear to be quite a few 3 year 0% cards about at the moment. So possibly looking at pocketing another £600 or so from that.

I've a few things to tidy up in the next 19 months.

Private pension contributions. Currently got about £57k in total. Looking to get that up to approx £85k-£90k. Mrs O's pot is looking to be about £65k. These are not to purchase pensions btw, just to draw down on if need be. That said I am considering a guaranteed fixed term annuity to age 67 after taking tax free lump sums. It seems quite an attractive way of freeing up the funds with a guaranteed return. Will check the rates nearer the time. Currently though it looks like for £85k I can get a total of £97k out. Some taxable of course. 

Savings/ISAs. Currently around £35k nett. Again looking to get these to approx £60k.

DB pensions. Need to finalise the figures. Currently looking at being approx £24k for me, £7.5k for Mrs 0. 67 and state pension looks more than fine between us at approx £56k.

The whole plan since I went part time has been to ensure our disposable income is never lower than when in full time employment with a mortgage. It has thankfully worked out. In fact it's worked out better than planned. We'll take a hit between 60 and 67 but the whole point of taking done pensions early has been to build the buffer needed during that time.

The forum and the advice/ideas on it have been a huge part of my journey towards retirement. Martin Lewis's advice too.I remember not that long before I started thinking about retirement that I thought I'd be working a lot longer than planned. It's worked out rather well.

louby40

Never been so glad to be semi-retired and choose the days I work. I hate snow and not having to dig my car out and drive to work this morning was absolute heaven. 

Organgrinder

louby40 said:

Never been so glad to be semi-retired and choose the days I work. I hate snow and not having to dig my car out and drive to work this morning was absolute heaven. 

After reading this I might go super part time. 0.3 of a full time contract. I've run the figures through. It has minimal impact overall. About £50 a month pension wise and about £10k in capital. 

Yesterday was first day back in school. It suddenly struck me that while I'm not ready for full retirement, I'm ready to drastically cut. Had a chat with the head. Let's see.