Getting FIREd up 😀

South_coast

First of the month round-up....

• Savings for retirement: +£6,475.96
• Average needed per month to retire in 9 years: £4,012.82
• Rolling 12-month average: £2,840.51
• Getting FIREd up starts: April 2027

I've decided to stop tracking the years to go, and just focus on how I'm doing against the target average.

Other than that, it's been a busy month for finances, so it's a bullet point summary this time!

• Transferred-out my oldest pension
• Moved 3x cash ISAs into one, for better rates and flexibility
• Transferred-out the Moneybox S&S
• Paid off car finance!
• Celebrated 5 years mortgage-free!
• Re-fixed my electricity. Every available offering included a 10p/day increase in the standing charge, and all had a higher unit rate - I went for the cheapest!
• Re-jigged my savings allocations so that getting FIREd up now starts in April next year instead of June
• The first increased pension contributions have been taken, with the net result not too awful
• Applied to transfer a good chunk of my current pension into the main one. It's not performing spectacularly enough against the benchmark to warrant the much larger fee of 0.55% (vs 0.22% - I suspect the fact that it's actively managed may account for much of the difference), so I'm going to take the employer contributions and salary sacrifice and cash out periodically

Am looking forward to June involving far less thinking about optimising money!!!

edinburgher

Agree re. transferring out chunks of current pension, no need to keep it where it is just because you're still at the job. Mrs E transfers out at £10,000, hopefully due her next move to Vanguard by the end of the year. Not sure what your offering is like but the choices for her pension and my AVCs are underwhelming, opaque and difficult to map % equities etc to our longer term financial goals. As such, transfers out lets her concentrate money somewhere where we understand what the money is doing.

julicorn

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82018427#Comment_82018427

I wish I could do that with my partner's pension, but NEST don't allow partial transfers. It's a shame.

South_coast

TBH, I'm not certain it's an option with this one, but I guess I'll find out in a few days! It's not doing badly, I just can't square paying more just because the fund manager's photo is on the factsheet!

edinburgher

Indeed - photo of the person managing my money right up there with a firm handshake as being things I don't care about when setting up my pension 😂

Merlin's_Beard

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82019111#Comment_82019111

NEST is very limited in everything!

South_coast

Not sure I can agree on the firm handshake point though, Ed - a limp handshake is a turn-off in any scenario 😬!

edinburgher

Just riffing on the olden days "man in a suit" spivvy finance guy concept SC 😉

South_coast

More importantly.…

Midsomer Murders stage adaptation to return for 2027 tour https://share.google/lZL3CI1FxAn4hu50f

South_coast

So much for June involving less money fiddling - now I've had an email saying the LISA rate is dropping 🤦‍♀️!