Burning hole in my pockets

anonmoose

Oh and I think my partn er puts in 10% of his income.

P1Fanatic

anonmoose said:

Thanks P1. Yes I have already overpayed 10% for this Yr. My payment is reducing and not the term and I called them a while ago about this and they said they can't change it!! I am not sure this is true but it is only recalculated once a yr so shouldn't make much difference now. I have never bothered before as I have never been able to overpay at the max allowance so I just increased my overpayment direct debit by the corresponding amount everytime my mortgage payment reduced.

I also paid my max into pension for this Yr already.  I will need to look at my accounts end of march as I might be able to put a little extra in when finalised but not much.

Yes it's one of those things most of us never think to check or ask when taking out a mortgage. I'm in a similar position (without the inheritance lump sum) with a HSBC fixed rate mortgage and luckily their default (at least for this mortgage type) is to reduce the term so less of a faff. But that was more luck than my own judgement.

Albermarle

anonmoose said:

Oh and I think my partn er puts in 10% of his income.

10% + minimum from employer ( probably 5% or less ) is not bad but ideally should be more .Especially so if he is  a higher earner , paying 40% tax . Maybe with more cash sloshing around generally he could up his monthly contributions .

You made a couple of comments about pension 'tanking' . Markets at a peak etc .
For sure the future is unpredictable , especially in financial markets . However in the long term ( >10 years) historically the market trend has nearly always been up . In any case you should always be invested at a risk/volatility level you are comfortable with . For example a medium risk investment fund will not grow so quickly but the short terms ups and downs will be less dramatic. 

anonmoose

Yes I think we will up his contributions a bit on reflection. He is just under higher rate tax in his current job but has been in higher rate bracket before (we took advantage of putting more in pension then.)

I am happy with my risk profile which is higher end of medium if that makes sense  (eg most is medium risk with a few cheeky higher risk bits in for interest).  We are looking at 10yrs plus so happy with that.

I guess I feel much happier drip feeding than putting big chunks in at the moment.

enthusiasticsaver

I would hedge my bets and do a combination of things with the inheritance.  Overpay the mortgage as much as possible without penalty.  Open stocks and shares ISA, overpay into pension and keeping some back for home improvements.