Mortgage Free now aiming for FIRE

TallGirl

Morning really feeling the Winter and work blues this morning I did not get that project done yesterday so today will really have to do it today as Weds I am in back to back meetings. Nothing like a tight deadline. 

I have the call with the expensive financial adviser at 4.30pm so will be interesting. The person I had my other call with has now left so this one has taken over. When I originally booked in they said the person who has now left was the only one who deals with abroad so not sure if I really like the idea of this other one. It is a more detailed called where they will (I quote) " tell give their recommendations, which are designed to help improve your outcomes and retire on your own terms.

We will cover:

1. Strengths and Weaknesses in your current arrangements
2. Investment Performance
3. Current Charges
4. My Recommendations
5. Next Steps

Does sound interesting and will certainly help but I am not making any decisions as the other guy did say I should check out if I could get advice from a Danish firm. I have a feeling I shall be stopping putting into my ISA and top up my pension instead to get the 20% tax free as they do not have ISA's in Denmark. I also know from what he told me last time that I will need a european pension instead of the one I have now. That does not sound too complicated to be honest. The costs for this firm is likely to be a one of £10K and then double what I pay now as I am currently not paying for advice on my pension. 

DG keeps asking if I am going to propose and I just say it will be a surprise. I think she thought I would do it when I suggested we went to the beach Sunday. She is definitely petrified I will do it in public which I wont obviously. Still on track to do it Friday.

Got an email from the insurance company after sending the quotes over. Surprise surprise they will cover the wall but not the fence panels. It is a wall with 3 fence panels in it. So I have now had to ask the contractor to quote again which just slows it all down. Hopefully they will accept it this time so we can get it done. 

We are both feeling the winter blues even with the trip booked to Spain so the plan is to book the Moroccan holiday as soon as the credit card arrives. DG can pay off the £1000 she owes me very soon and I can use my savings to clear the Irish holiday. Then we will pay me back for that and when we get to May she will clear the Irish trip and then we will stick the golf club memberships on there. I said we could pay the card back by sticking it in the high interest savings account we have and she is not keen as it feels like we are building up debt. I am a lot better with money than her but she has gotten so much better since she started earning decent money. She hardly spends anything on herself other than holidays. She does not buy clothes (hates shopping) does love gadgets but her phone is 2 years old which is good for her. Anyway we will decide when we come to book it. 

Work is waiting and I have a meeting in 15 min. My headphones were left on last night and are dead so not a good start to the meeting. 

 

savingholmes

Sorry about the headphones. Hope your project work went better today. 

Hope DG's £ comes through soon. 

On the pension that sounds expensive. They say you are better paying for one off advice than on-going but your call.

TallGirl

Yes paying for one off advice could work. It was a really good meeting and I was really impressed with the work they had done for me for free. 

He explained that I would need to move my pension to an international provider in order for it to be recognised in Denmark (I assume that is to avoid paying tax on any increases which you would do if it was just an investment. The international pension charges are higher so you would not move over until just before you move. That means you would not need to pay their fee for setting this up (would be £9K) then they would hand you over to a partner of theirs in Denmark to do the ongoing financial advice but they would not charge any fees other than the ongoing fee. 

When I move I would not get the benefit of an ISA so any dividends would be taxable. It is therefor better to move the money from the ISA over to the Pension before I move. This then gets 20% added on by the government which will get taxed when I draw it out but at least I will have had to 20%. 

I could do the same for the final salary scheme I have as well (after paying for advice) and get the 20% on that but then you lose the automatic uplift each year. I think I would prefer to have some money guaranteed to come in each year than mess with that. It is not a huge sum anyway. 

They are happy to keep in touch with me but essentially I should move the max into my pension each year from the ISA and then when I know I am moving get the advice from them to set up the pension and then if I want ongoing advice they can move me over to a Danish adviser. 

They looked at my current pension and ISA providers and they are ok in terms of performance, risks and charges. I could change my occupational pension to a more risky position which I think I will as it is quite small and that would perform better according to them. They could not currently save me any money by moving so that was a massive reassurance as well.

Quite a bit to think about. My retired IFA said he would get in touch with me and do an overview if I wanted it this year but he has not so far. The moving of the pension needs to be done before the start of the next tax year in April so there is time anyway. I could potentially move my pension to an international pension myself or ask my current provider if they have one. Obviously they do not give any advice and I am not paying the other firm to advice me as I got that taken off saving my £1200 if you remember. 

DG is really depressed about her money situation as she really does not want to keep working forever (her mum worked right to the end and died at 75 without any pensions). There is a lot to look into regarding a Danish State pension as I think it is a lot more than the UK one but again something to look into another time. We will have money left over from the sale of this property as well which I could put into a pension for DG and get the 20% uplift which would be very nice obviously especially if she a 40% tax payer at that point when we pay into it. Again not something to do lightly as I am giving her money and is mine and you never know. It does not help either that she does not really understand pensions she just thinks they are not worth the hassle as they will never pay out enough if you start late. That is because she looks at the annuity figures which is not always the way to go. This is complex and not a decision to be taken lightly. 

I have spoken to the fence guy and he is not reducing the quote to take out the fence panels as he would have to secure the wall bits if not panel is to be put in. I am going to send it off and see what they say. I am getting a bit fed up with it by now. 

DG has realised she can check how her passport application is progressing. Turnaround times are 20 working days and on the portal that is spot on as it estimates it will be another week before they issue it. That is really good news we should have it in time for Spain. 

Other than that my big piece of work is pretty much done and I have 2 meetings about it today which is good news. So 5 more meetings to come today the joys. Need a holiday. 

savingholmes

Good that you are getting clearer on what needs to happen for you to move. 

I wouldn't rush on the pension re DG. I tend to have a philosophy on not working harder on a problem than they do. I don't always manage to follow it with people close to me but I've got better.

TallGirl

Thanks savingholmes I know what you mean at least she is working really hard on getting more money together before we retire so that is a good thing. You cannot change the past and we have to respect that sadly.

Just done two classes back to back they were so hard that is 6 this week gone every day. At 5.30 I have the freebie session with the PT at the post gym I just want to learn how to use the app better to set up programmes and also get weighed using their fancy scales. I did it last a month ago I would hope my fitness age has come down since then I think it was 68. Once that one is done that is 7 this week which I am very pleased about. 

My M&S card came today so we can now book the holiday which is exciting. I am just going to check why you cannot book pre November as October would also be nice. Staying on M&S our local one still has not got the dine in for 2 Valentines stuff in so we might have to go for the gourmet one which is fine as we are not planning on drinking due to golf Saturday. I am still planning on doing the proposal Friday but I am also see it being postponed to Monday if we end up doing nothing Friday lets wait and see it is difficult to plan when DG is feeling so low. I am now quite sure what is causing it other than stress of work. She is still grieving her mum but is planning to have the bells rung on her mums birthday at the Abbey in the town her mum lived and she grew up. We will meet her friends (well one of them at least) and hopefully her cousin. Her family is so !!!!!! its unbelievable. Her cousin moved to the UK from the States last September. We last saw him in June where he spent the week with us sleeping most of it. Now we never hear from him but he says how lonely he feels. I have given him a heads up about the date for her mums bell ringing (he was close to his aunt) but he hasn't bothered replying. The guy is 30 so you would think he had some sense. 

Moving on work is still busy and I now have a training session to run next week on the big frog project so it really needs to be in a better shape.  

TallGirl

Dinner in the pool bar tomorrow with M&S meal is cancelled. It does make sense as we are both on the diet and we cannot drink ( and should not) because of golf the next day. So proposal is off for now.

We are going to the cinema to see Bob Marley on Monday which is the day of our actual anniversary so that is still an option I just cannot see how I can do it not in public unless I get her to go in the pool bar beforehand. Show is for 5.30.  I did try to use the OctoP code but I just could not get it to work so missed out on a £5 saving but sometimes life is just too short. 

There is also an option of the 29th which could be quite sweet I could arrange something for the pool bar for that day as she will not be expecting it.

And to cheer ourselves up we have booked a holiday to Morocco in early Nov the hotel has been closed for refurb since Jan and will only reopen in Nov so hope it will all be finished. It is just over £600 each all inclusive so lots of weight  will need to come off before that. I could have paid it in stages but decided to just pay it all cone the new credit card. Went via Quidco for 4% and also got a £20 bonus voucher for booking a holiday around Valentines so that was a nice bonus. 

Right back to work. 

savingholmes

Disappointing for you on the cancelled plans. Hope you find your idea of the perfect moment for the proposal.

TallGirl

Thanks Savingholmes she did also comment that it is tacky to propose on your anniversary that is news to me but I do agree doing it on the screen in the cinema is really not my style so would never have dreamed of that. Currently thinking the 29th might be nice even if it is a Wednesday. I will stop boring you all with this soon especially if it now 2 weeks away. 

The short freebie session with PT was good I got some more plans to do and he showed me how to use the complex scales they have. I have not lost weight but my muscle mass has increased so that is great news. Diet still going ok we are going on the driving range tonight and then 9 holes tomorrow. 

We had a chat about pensions last night. As you know she really does not have much and her original plan when we got together was to buy a property and rent it out as a pension. She nearly did but they would not give her a mortgage as she does not own her own home. She then went self employed and had she had a mortgage she could not really have risked that. So here we are the plan is for her to save the money from her big cases and live off the smaller one off work. She told me she will not get a pension as she will never have enough money. I did not twig why that was and it is because she thought you had to have an annuity she had not heard of draw down or the uplift you get from the tax man. Quite scary really that she did not know (or more likely had not paid any attention to). She is now much more in favour of putting any excess into pension than any other saving vehicle. Well she has nothing to put in yet but it is coming so fingers crossed. It also cheered her up that she does not have to work until she is 75 like her mum.

Hope you all have a lovely Friday it is sunny here 

savingholmes

Good that you have been able to educate her.

TallGirl

Morning breaking news we are engaged!!!! 

We had a lovely chilled Friday night no gym no golf just binging on One Day on Netflix with some snacks. Saturday we played in the golf competition and we actually came second as a team. We played with the winners and was a really nice game. Back home we just chilled the rest of the day and had some nice food, hot tub cuddles in bed etc. 

Then Sunday morning we had a special breakfast prepared so I popped the question after breakfast and before we headed out to our lesson and practise at our old golf course and range near London. She was really touched and it was just perfect. We sent photos to friends and family and then headed out to the lesson. 

Golf was great we both got some good tips and put it into practise on the range afterwards. We just love the pro and that range so a really nice day. We had brought food with us ourselves but did get a couple of cakes from Costa. (I did not buy any coffees brought one with me). Lots of messages during the day and when we got back we had a bottle of proper champagne with a lovely card from our local friends (the one we lived with and I want to be my witness). 

Finished the One Day series and went to bed early so a really lovely weekend. Today is our actual 9th anniversary and we are going to the pictures to see Bob Marley. DG is really happy and it was definitely the right thing to do it like this. 

Back to work which I am slightly behind with as I decided to nominated one of my projects for an award. Also have to prep for some training on Wednesday so this will be a full on week.

Happy Monday everyone and thanks for reading money saving will continue next week. Big news I did look at golf bags and golf trolleys but the sales person was really poor and basically said buy them in our online store.