Getting FIREd up 😀

South_coast

First of the month round-up….

• Savings for retirement: +£1,550.37
• Average needed per month to retire in 9 years: £4,036.27
• Rolling 12-month average: £2,733.19
• Getting FIREd up starts: April 2027

Not the best month, but at least it's still a plus!

My annual interest bonus on the LISA has landed today, freeing me up to switch away (the rate dropped a couple of weeks ago). It's going from (now) 3.27% to 4.3%, so worth the small amount of faff.

I've also spent quite a lot of time spreadsheeting to see if I can make better use of having a salary sacrifice pension, then "pay back" the current plan once the NI cap begins in April 2029. The (very) long story is that I can't go too hard on it without impacting the non-pension things I want to be saving for alongside it, but the current thinking is that I will do a year of larger contributions starting from next April, then switch back to the current plan of putting more into the S&S instead. This will allow a bigger amount to get compounding for longer than if I had just continued to increase it incrementally as and when I felt I could afford it, and it still means getting FIREd up from April 2027 onwards (just via a different method). Still plenty of time between now and then for me to change my mind though 😅!

So much for June involving less thinking about optimising money 🤦‍♀️

South_coast

I've also just done a little sneaky mid-year check-in, and including ditching the car debt I'm over £45k better off than I was 6 months ago 😳! Anything to do with cars doesn't normally make it onto the spreadsheet, but I may include it this year for additional ta-da effect 😀!

julicorn

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82055093#Comment_82055093

That's absolutely amazing, well done!

South_coast

Thank you 🩷!

Jessy103

Great work as always! X

South_coast

Thank you lovely 🥰 The car is most of it, and that's actually a big minus number on (a different!) spreadsheet, so it's cheating a bit really, but still worth a hurrah!

South_coast

So the Govt are now consulting on ditching the LISA and replacing it with a First-Time Buyer ISA. The LISA will still exist if it goes ahead, but no-one would be able to open a new one. If it's a historic product, I suspect there will be little incentive for providers to offer a competitive interest rate for the ones which are still out there (17 years before I can access it!) 🤔, so if it happens then I may look to switch it to an S&S one - they may stop better interest rates, but they can't turn off the stock market!

julicorn

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82057246#Comment_82057246

Ooh thank you for mentioning that, I hadn't actually heard that yet. I might bite the bullet and open ones for Mr julicorn and me then finally, we haven't got them yet and it'd probably be good for keeping our options open down the line (we need to really prioritise the normal S&S ISAs for the moment, but that strategy might change in a few years time so better to have the option! Looks like Hargreaves Lansdown let you open a S&S LISA with just £100 so that seems worth it.)

edinburgher

I still struggle to see the point of the LISA Vs a pension 🤷🏻‍♂️ Could possibly have some value as a way of staging tax free cash, I suppose that's it?

South_coast

1. Guaranteed 25% uplift on cash deposits (zero risk)
2. Tax-free at the point of withdrawal (no lump sum from pension)
3. Capped at £4k per year (different eggs, different baskets)

I'm not putting anything new in any more, but there's £33k in there which I don't want to wither away because providers have lost interest in it