Thought it was time to join

Upbeat_84

Hi all,

Long-time lurker, first time poster. Hope everyone is good!

I've just had my letter through from my mortgage lender confirming that I've now repaid it in full. So happy it's finally done - inspired by this thread; I decided about 6 years ago to focus on paying it off as I wanted to change career which would mean a large drop in my earnings. As the main breadwinner I felt I had to reduce our outgoings in order to make that happen so basically worked full time and also set up my own company so 6 years of LONG hours and it's finally done. Ours isn't a big house and we had a relatively small mortgage - property is probably worth about £120k. When I look at one of our old mortgage statements and see the total amount repayable over the term it's definitely a good feeling knowing we have saved so much in interest payments.

• Current position is joint household income from salaries circa £50k (30/20 split between me and my better half)
• Presently I earn an additional £2-3k-ish a month before tax from my side-gig
• The new career I've gone into comes with a much lower salary than I am used to but with a very good pension - 23% employer contribution, I put in 5% with the option to put more in if I want. Up to now I haven't had a very good pension - certainly not noteworthy
• Work are also going to pay for me to do another degree (costing about 25k) which will give me higher earning potential when done in 3 years
• No other debts - as well as paying the house off I run a 4 year old car with low miles that has been paid off in full - I do about 200 miles a month if that
• About £15k currently sat in the bank not doing anything - I've not put it somewhere more efficient because I'm planning to use this to build my studio in the garden and do some work on the house - new kitchen etc.
• Household bills excluding food shopping total about £500 a month now (gas, electricity, phone line, internet, council tax, fuel, car insurance, home insurance etc)
• I have a separate account where I deposit a monthly amount that covers car maintenance, birthdays, Christmas etc so when those things come up the money is already there and I don't need to touch the main account - it floats at about a 1k balance generally until one of those milestones comes up

Now I need to figure out what to do next.

I'm hoping now to start putting some robust plans in place for later in life. I'm 37 now, live with my partner and no children - no plans to have kids nor "retire" - I think I am the type of person that needs to keep busy so think I'll just do different things that I enjoy more to earn - i.e. I play an instrument and am currently in the process of building a studio I can teach from. Looking forward to reading all the threads about what the mortgage free members have done financially and planning for the future.

It's a great feeling being debt-free. We've toyed with the idea of renting this place out and getting another property to live in but with everything going on at the moment it feels like the wrong time to buy in some ways + it means taking on debt again. We've also thought about staying here and buying another property to rent out as we are quite happy here. Again, I'm not sure it's the right time to buy and I don't know much about being a property investor yet.

Looking forward to learning from this forum and getting to know people.

Thanks!

powerspowers

Congratulations Upbeat, that’s an achievement at 37!!
Employer pension conts and degree sound good as well. I think I’d look at investing and trying to learn more about that. Oh and holidaying more. Sounds like you’ll be busy with degree and teaching as well! 

South_coast

Very jealous of the 23% pension conts and 200 miles per month - maybe I need a career change as well 🤣! Well done on ditching the mortgage and good luck with the future plans x

Upbeat_84

powerspowers said:

Congratulations Upbeat, that’s an achievement at 37!!
Employer pension conts and degree sound good as well. I think I’d look at investing and trying to learn more about that. Oh and holidaying more. Sounds like you’ll be busy with degree and teaching as well! 

Cheers! Don't get me wrong, our house isn't that big. We got absolutely hammered in the 2007/2008 crisis so that knocked any ambition to "upsize" out of us and made us very financially cautious as a result. It's not a "never" but we have no desire to take on more debt just to do it - particularly in the current climate. Thanks for the tip - a friend of mine has referred me to an IFA he recommends and has used for a while so might as well do that given it's a free initial chat just to see what our options are for the most effective approach for future planning

Upbeat_84

South_coast said:

Very jealous of the 23% pension conts and 200 miles per month - maybe I need a career change as well 🤣! Well done on ditching the mortgage and good luck with the future plans x

Thank you! I need to look more into the pension as I think its 40 years before you get it (meaning I would be 77 if I get that far) - just been busy with other stuff but that's next on my list!!!

happymum37

Wow can I ask what career it is? I'm very jealous. I can only think of the police that earn anything near that pension. Or an MP!!

Upbeat_84

happymum37 said:

Wow can I ask what career it is? I'm very jealous. I can only think of the police that earn anything near that pension. Or an MP!!

I work for a local authority - the pension definitely helped make the decision as I took a 40% pay reduction changing from my old career!

L9XSS

Best of luck in your job change, I did something similar but far later in my career and age. At 53 I jumped off the career I had and moved to part time work with a 50% salary drop. Mortgage overpayments and a healthy private and company pension initiated this move. Yes it was the best thing I could have done. My glide path to MF is nearly there and I’m enjoying the extra time off I have and don’t miss the stress of long hours unpaid, working weekends, bank holidays, Christmas time etc etc. Becoming (nearly) MF 11 years earlier has helped facilitate this.