Investing in things to reduce outgoings in retirement

squirrelpie

We did. We built a Passivhaus that we now live in so we have very low outgoings. It also has PV on the roof (4 kW as was then de rigeur). Both have proved their worth. I also recently bought an EV - time will tell whether that was wise financially but at least I'm helping to save the planet in the meantime. Oh, and I bought a membership in Ripple (wind turbine part ownership).

BPL

squirrelpie said:

We did. We built a Passivhaus that we now live in so we have very low outgoings. It also has PV on the roof (4 kW as was then de rigeur). Both have proved their worth. I also recently bought an EV - time will tell whether that was wise financially but at least I'm helping to save the planet in the meantime. Oh, and I bought a membership in Ripple (wind turbine part ownership).

So do you think you were better off than investing that money in SIPP ISA gia cash?

Albermarle

SouthCoastBoy said:

In anticipation of inflation I had the a new kitchen, updated en suite and new garage door last year. I imagine that saved me a few thousand. Wanted to re carpet but didn't get round to that, I will now wait for the recession.

On the back of today's announcements, and yesterday's boe announcement i imagine we will have high interest rates for longer and a labour govt in 2024.

Building products in particular were badly affected by supply chain issues, strong demand and huge price rises already during late 2020 and throughout 2021. From what I understand a lot of these issues are subsiding, and costs are coming down against the general inflationary trend. 

daveyjp

MallyGirl said:

I have asked our council planning department about their thoughts on solar panels in a conservation area. Nearly 2 months on and I haven't even had an acknowledgement of the query. Apart from wearing more jumpers there is little more we can do in the current house. The cost of changing the sash windows to double glazed versions would take many years to payback and we have no cavities in the walls to fill. We have installed a monitor on the electric usage and been around with a plug in meter checking all the appliances looking for power vampires.

The usual way to 'ask' about a planning matter is to submit a pre application enquiry.  This will have to be dealt with within a couple of weeks.

SouthCoastBoy

I don't see costs coming down, energy feeds into everything so think we have inflation for a while, the govt cap will help, both businesses and domestic users but there will still be increases and as the pound is so low this will start feeding into to additional import costs.

As a matter of interest I just checked the cost of a relatively expensive radiator I bought last October around £200, cost today is 10% higher.

Got a mail today on my projected annual gas cost post oct 1st price cap. Previous annual cost was £713 based on April prices, it will be going up to £973

pensionpawn

In order of savings, for us:
1.Solar panels (£1100 tax free FiT pa with a 25% reduction in electricity bills)
2. ...with a solar divert. (gas boiler switched off May - October)
3. New windows (25% - 33% reduction in energy demand)
4. New gas boiler (next week. 45% reduction in gas usage compared to our 26 year old boiler)
5. Powerwall (next Spring, at present, although it was supposed to be next week. No electrical import March - Oct inc, E7 rate throughout Nov & Feb)

No EV because we don't do the mileage to recover the additional cost, let alone save on an ICE vehicle.

Everyone is different however so go for your 'low hanging fruit'. Good luck.

Scrudgy

Saw a very interesting video recently where a company were stripping CO2 out of the atmosphere, and had found a way to chemically bind the carbon with hydrogen obtained from sea water, the resulting hydrocarbon can fuel engines but without the impurities present in crude oil products. The surplus oxygen I am sure can be found a home somewhere.

Who knows, EV and hydrogen vehicles might be a failed experiment if synthetic hydrocarbon fuels with carbon capture schemes are scalable and cost effective.

BPL

pensionpawn said:

In order of savings, for us:
1.Solar panels (£1100 tax free FiT pa with a 25% reduction in electricity bills)
2. ...with a solar divert. (gas boiler switched off May - October)
3. New windows (25% - 33% reduction in energy demand)
4. New gas boiler (next week. 45% reduction in gas usage compared to our 26 year old boiler)
5. Powerwall (next Spring, at present, although it was supposed to be next week. No electrical import March - Oct inc, E7 rate throughout Nov & Feb)

No EV because we don't do the mileage to recover the additional cost, let alone save on an ICE vehicle.

Everyone is different however so go for your 'low hanging fruit'. Good luck.

Did you compare your ROI with just investing in SIPP isa gia?

Krakkkers

You are saving over 100%, well done.

pensionpawn

BPL said:

pensionpawn said:

In order of savings, for us:
1.Solar panels (£1100 tax free FiT pa with a 25% reduction in electricity bills)
2. ...with a solar divert. (gas boiler switched off May - October)
3. New windows (25% - 33% reduction in energy demand)
4. New gas boiler (next week. 45% reduction in gas usage compared to our 26 year old boiler)
5. Powerwall (next Spring, at present, although it was supposed to be next week. No electrical import March - Oct inc, E7 rate throughout Nov & Feb)

No EV because we don't do the mileage to recover the additional cost, let alone save on an ICE vehicle.

Everyone is different however so go for your 'low hanging fruit'. Good luck.

Did you compare your ROI with just investing in SIPP isa gia?

That's a good point and yes I did. Throwing the cost of my solar installation into my pension would have netted me £2k straight away and then that would grow, along with the original capital I thus didn't spend, over the RoI period (7.5 years) for the solar instal. Now what swung me toward solar were four issues.
1. First, my pension pot was already doing well without the extra investment meaning that besides the TFLS, I would be paying tax on the way out on the extra investment. So the real gain is effectively the 25% TFLS after 7.5 years. Around £4k - £4k5 depending on the rate of growth.
2. Which leads to the second issue, the rate of investment growth is not guaranteed whereas the FiT is guaranteed for 20 (25 for early adoptors) and rises each year in line with the CPI. Those early adoptors are now getting around 60p / kWhrs on around 3500 kWhrs pa. That's around £2k pa tax free, which for them is about 20% each year for 25 years, which means it becomes a tax free cashpoint after 5 years.
3. Point three being that not only is investment growth not guaranteed, I had a sneaking suspicion all those years ago that with the drive (no pun intended) to a greener economy energy prices would rise on the back of not enough generating capacity. Thus the benefits of solar, and I installed a much larger array than most, with consequently a lower FiT (playing the long game), were going to give me a 20 year indexed link "annuity" plus a reduction in bills and plenty of spare Mwhrs for when batteries become fiscally viable.
4. Finally, although not an eco warrior I'll do my bit for the planet when I can, and this felt the right thing to do.