Mortgage cleared in 9 years

user15

penners324 said:

Definitely pension, rainy day fund, holiday and having fun fund

The having fun fund is an interesting one. Its a mind set shift I need to work on.

user15

ManekiNeko said:

Oh, and huge congrats on repaying your mortgage 🎉 that's huge

Thanks very much

user15

MovingForwards said:

Savings and pension.
It's worth reading through posts on the above boards to have a look, apply to your circumstances and ask further questions.

I am still in 2 minds about putting money into a pension, and making additional contributions. I don't like the thought of having money tied up for so long.

user15

ManekiNeko said:

Agreed, start with one month's salary as a rainy day fund and building up to 6 to 12 months. If you've not heard of it, this is sometimes termed an FU Fund, but essentially it's freedom to make all the ethical calls you like at work, to turn down a stressful project you don't want, to leave a bad boss, or to not worry during a round of redundancies. Freedom to travel or whatever you wish to do, on a whim.

After that, it depends - is your home what you'd consider your forever home? Any works need doing to it? If there's nothing obviously needing expenditure, then yes, I'd move on to retirement planning. This might be investments, a pension, or a mixture of the two.

You might enjoy the Mr Money Mustache blog for working out exactly how much you need for retirement (among other things). After that, it's set and forget until you're there, which should free you up mentally and emotionally to think about what you find meaningful in life and pursue that in your free time while waiting to hit your retirement number.

I've had good mileage thinking about what legacy I want to leave for the world - and that's much more than how much money I might leave someone, it's purpose and meaning stuff. What would you work on if you didn't need your job? What would you need to have done to look back at the end of your life and feel, yeah, I lived a great life?

Also, you might like to consider if you'd find it rewarding to give to others, or to charity, while working on retirement. For instance, to help a relative with a life goal like taking a gap year or buying a home. There's a lot of charities out there too. You know this already ofc - it's just something I've enjoyed (giving to charity) in the past when I had the financial position to do so regularly. It was meaningful to me because rather than feeling powerless about, say, an awful thing I heard about on the news, I could pop a charity dealing with that issue a chunk of change and feel I was playing a role in reducing pain and making change in the world.

Hope some of that's useful for you ☺️🙏

Very useful info, and thanks for taking the time to respond. I will have a proper read of this now. No rash decisions. I think I will take my time to decide. 

jd_money_saving_trying_to_be_expert

Congrats on paying off the mortgage! 🎉

I'd be going down the route of:

1. Build back your emergency fund back up to 3-6 months ASAP.  Something is always around the corner, so always be prepared for it
2. Contribute more/all of it into your pension/investments in the most tax efficient way.
3. Enjoy some of it!

dimbo61

Well done 👏  on clearing the biggest debt most people ever have and doing it in 9 years instead of 30 has saved you a huge amount of Interest.
Pay the max you can into your pension, stocks and  share ISA, maybe Premium  bonds.
Save 50/75% of what you earn and enjoy the rest 

pjcox2005

user15 said:

MovingForwards said:

Savings and pension.
It's worth reading through posts on the above boards to have a look, apply to your circumstances and ask further questions.

I am still in 2 minds about putting money into a pension, and making additional contributions. I don't like the thought of having money tied up for so long.

You don't say anything about your own position re employed/self-employed, higher tax earner etc, but this sentence to me suggests you may not have a pension and so I would definitely focus on that. Personally, whilst the saving and paying off mortgage is great, it may have actually cost you more money long term if you've missed out on employer contributions, tax savings and investment growth.

Obviously great you're in such a good position and that effort should be applauded but others shouldn't necessarily copy. If you have kept contributing to a pension whilst paying down mortgage then that's completely different.