Best tactic to reduce debt and climb property ladder

ManyWays

I echo what other people have said; clear your debts, stop using BNPL completely, build an emergency fund.

Andyjflet

I would work on pausing any other repayments and clearing the car off before saving any more money, you have enough for a basic emergency fund, throw everything at the car first, then start saving 3-6 months outgoings as an emergency fund, then look and study investing before you get to that stage. basic savings will get swamped with inflation so you need to make your money work for you in a stocks and shares ISA, depending on your risk appetite you can use a global mutual fund and probably get 8% return over time. 

enthusiasticsaver

I personally would start off by increasing emergency savings to 6 months outgoings ( in case one of you loses your job) and focus on the car overpayments. You might also like to look at isas and increasing pension repayments. Those are the most tax efficient way of saving/investing. 

in_need_of_direction

is there a cap on what you can pay off your mortgage each year without penalties? if so, what is it?

RAS

It depends on the T&Cs of your mortgage deal. It may not even be the same for different deals with the same provider.

And even then, I once heard of an account that allowed overpayment, but only once a year. 

dylmoney

in_need_of_direction said:

is there a cap on what you can pay off your mortgage each year without penalties? if so, what is it?

I need to look at it properly, but I'm sure it's the standard 10% allowed annually. We have a mortgage with Lloyds which allows you to see how much of that allowance is left over, since it applies from 1st Jan every year, so I'm confident I can avoid penalties.

enthusiasticsaver said:

I personally would start off by increasing emergency savings to 6 months outgoings ( in case one of you loses your job) and focus on the car overpayments. You might also like to look at isas and increasing pension repayments. Those are the most tax efficient way of saving/investing. 

Thanks! That is actually my first instinct, putting more into a pension to try and make the most of my tax bracket, especially given this is the first time I have earned over 60k a year.

Andyjflet said:

I would work on pausing any other repayments and clearing the car off before saving any more money, you have enough for a basic emergency fund, throw everything at the car first, then start saving 3-6 months outgoings as an emergency fund, then look and study investing before you get to that stage. basic savings will get swamped with inflation so you need to make your money work for you in a stocks and shares ISA, depending on your risk appetite you can use a global mutual fund and probably get 8% return over time. 

These are the sorts of things I definitely don't understand... I mean, on a basic level I understand risk, investment and return, but I am quite risk averse generally speaking and if I have little success early on I probably wouldn't be inclined to do it again! Luckily I will have time to look into all of this before I'm in a position to act on it, so at least for now I can store some of this advice for later on. Thanks!