Mortgage Free: The final countdown

savingholmes

Glad things are heading in the right direction despite the turmoil.

jennystarpepper

Your now in your 'Teen's, congratulations.   I'm hoping to have ours cleared in as near to 3 as I can get it. 

 Are the plans to chuck your extra money in the pension pot? (You don't have to answer if you don't want).  

mark55man

Yes, once I have my MN pot, I will likely reduce slightly the pension to free up a little cash for prepping the house, and/or taking advantage of the higher interest rates (in excess of fixed rate) to make sure I don't get a nasty sting in the tail for the last year (the only one not on fixed rate).

Possibly as well now I have decided I am about a 20 month count down from work, that is 20 more normal payments which will put my MN pot as excess to the remaining mortgage.  so realistically my MN pot will prove to be over stuffed - mmmm will need to think a bit harder about that although its not a big deal as its all my decision how to allocate the assets 

thanks for the support SH and Jenny - that's an interesting thought I really should have spotted

jennystarpepper

We are trying to clear the mortgage and are increasing pensions with a pay increase so if 5% increase 3% of which will be added to pension.  

20 Months to possible retirement is great.  Once our mortgage is gone, we plan on chucking money in the pension pot and savings....( bridge until SP kicks in).   I thought life was supposed to get easy!

Good luck with your plans.

mark55man

Reporting back as of start of November 2022 

• My 06/04/22 OP Mortgage Neutral Pot was £41.1 k, and I have added an additional £18.4K OPs (Pension Savings) this tax year

With the result that 

• My MN Saving pot is £59.5K and my Repayment Mortgage Balance was £72.6K
• I am now £13.1K away from being Mortgage Neutral

So still looking like Feb 23 / March 23 if I proceed on current basis.  Now that I have (see my diary) started my retirement countdown, I will move emphasis from building the pot to match the current balance, to match my mortgage at the date I retire in Mid 24.  I suspect I may already be there.  Until I decided the date I wanted to know what I had to do, but I don't want to do more than I have to.

In addition now that interest rates have rocketed (thanks Tories) I will also derisk my investments into something earning more than my 2.1% mortgage.  I will not be making actual overpayments to the building society which I had considered earlier in this thread, as that would be less efficient.  

savingholmes

Gotta love efficiency. I am enjoying getting higher savings rates but need them to sort their act out by the time I come to remortgage in about 4 years time LOL. 

Love that you are nearly there on the mortgage neutral equation.

mark55man

Thanks SH.  Will not think about it this month, but gut reaction is if I stopped allocating my pension into the MN pot, and moved it into an absolute return (ie savings like account) - I have enough now with my regular payments decrease the loan outstanding to be neutral in 1Q24.  I will then focus on the balance between accelerating retirement but not taking pensions too early as there is always no going back when you do - and (hopefully) a lot of water still to go under the bridge  

savingholmes

You can retire and go back - but yes there are huge pension impacts. Interestingly enough if you get another DB pension it's unlimited what you can put in - unlike if you take a DC pension but think from what you've said you're DB and if you went back more casually than might not be an option.

savingholmes

Not literally unlimited - but not limited to the £4K is what I mean

mark55man

Reporting back for the start of December 2022 

• My 06/04/22 OP Mortgage Neutral Pot was £41.1 k, and I have added an additional £23.4K OPs (Pension Savings) this tax year

With the result that 

• My MN Saving pot is £64.5K and my Repayment Mortgage Balance was £71.2K
• I am now £6.8K away from being Mortgage Neutral

As per my DF diary, I now know that my target retirement date is well beyond the timeframe that I need to build up to MN.  However, as I have been told that my Dec pay check will include some additional commission (yay me!) I think I might be able to get to my original target on end of december payday.  That would be sweet and meet my 2022 target. 

I will almost certainly then pivot this diary into building up a cash savings fund to use for repayments once I have stopped working.  What is sweet is I should be able to get to nearly 5% interest on them rather than the 2.1% mortgage.