...unless acted on by an unbalanced force

WuLiao

Greetings! Long time lurker here. I read somewhere that people are more likely to succeed in something if they publicly announce what they're doing. I'm not much of a diarist and have an attention span that makes a certain cartoon blue fish seem like a Mensa candidate, so this might run forever, or might last three posts. 🤷

Brief intro, we're a family of four. The last 15 years or so have been pretty good to us, in part because I've had one of those jobs that involves long hours and lots of travel. OH has mostly stayed at home and covered all that entails. Meanwhile, the two teenagers occupy space and turn food into noise and dirt. Unfortunately, years of burning the candle at both ends have taken their toll and I'm forced into the position I will be taking a big step back in the near future, while I still can. The result is a significant drop in income, which will be an uncomfortable experience, to say the least, as we've become rather used to our unrestrained habits and comforts.

I think I've wasted enough time on text. Here are numbers (I like numbers), rounded as nobody needs to see it to last penny. How it works for us is all adult finances are pooled and treated as common. That makes for a few uncomfortable conversations and a few "outed" presents (oops) but is better than suddenly discovering a credit card that needs paying. The car value is shown, but is depreciated annually by 10% or AutoTrader value estimate, whichever value is the lowest. CC1 is a rewards card and gets cleared every month. The house values are the minimum range shown on Zoopla's house price estimator. Children have their own accounts and JISAs and are following along with our methods - hopefully they won't make the same mistakes their parents did in their twenties! (Fat chance! 🤣)

The Boring Status

Assets	Balance £		Liabilities	Balance £
House	575,000.00		Mortgage	347,000.00
BTL House	400,000.00		BTL Mortgage	222,000.00
Car	30,000.00		CC1	1275.00
Current Accounts	3,000.00		CC2	0.00
Savings (Cash)	34,500.00		CC3	0.00
Savings (Premium Bonds)	16,000.00
Savings (Investment)	2,400.00
Savings (Pension)	160,000.00

There's also some pocket change in crypto, which we won't talk about - I got it as a joke, and that's exactly how it's performed 😅

After my job change, I'm hoping for a household after tax annual income of £67,500 and expenses of £48,500 plus or minus a bit. I think I've got my maths right, but no idea what code those nice folk at HMRC are going to give me. I think we're just about at the point of not needing more cash savings, currently weighing up the pros and cons of what to do next. I'm leaning towards mortgage overpayments on principle, but the numbers indicate savings and investments would be more profitable. OH wants to explore expanding our property "empire," but I don't think the numbers stack. Is there a category for Mortgage Free Wobbly?

The plan, such as it is:

• Let the dust settle
• Get our expenses under control
• Update the wills
• Get healthy
• Get advice
• Revise the plan
• Figure out how to draw tables with borders

Something I've always wondered - why do people obfuscate company names in their posts, such as "bay of e" or "tesc@"? Do real names summon lawyers or something?

I guess that's it. First post. Yay.

MorningcoffeeIV

WuLiao said:

Something I've always wondered - why do people obfuscate company names in their posts, such as "bay of e" or "tesc@"? Do real names summon lawyers or something?

People are a bit simple and they believe all sorts of myths about libel and slander or think they're breaching some kind of Official Secrets Act.

WuLiao

MorningcoffeeIV said:

People are a bit simple and they believe all sorts of myths about libel and slander or think they're breaching some kind of Official Secrets Act.

Makes sense - I wasn't planning to follow suit. If a post fall foul of the rules, the mods can sort it out.

powerspowers

I think mortgage free wobbly is an excellent category, there are lots of people aiming for mortgage neutral rather than paying down the mortgage immediately. 

What age are your children? Are uni fees, cars, house deposits on the horizon?
Good luck with the new job 

WuLiao

powerspowers said:

I think mortgage free wobbly is an excellent category, there are lots of people aiming for mortgage neutral rather than paying down the mortgage immediately. 

What age are your children? Are uni fees, cars, house deposits on the horizon?
Good luck with the new job 

The numbers stack that way at the moment, with the larger mortgage at 1.94% and smaller mortgage at 2.04%, and cash savings at 3+% it's kinda hard to love overpayments even though the number in the right hand column makes me itch.

And you're right, K1 is preparing for GCSEs, so we've maybe 2 years before university becomes an issue. I've gotta say, I think a British degree is exceptionally poor value for money and have already started suggesting options with better funding plans. As for house deposits, if K1 stays off the booze and romance during their studies, their JISA should put them well on the way. I hadn't thought about cars... thanks for that

K2's only just a teenager, so not an urgent problem.

WuLiao

I got a call from 4000 miles away with OH in a panic. The utility company's engineer had turned up on an emergency call out due to our electricity supply failing. Except it hadn't.

A few days before, I'd reported a minor problem with their smart meters not delivering real time usage data for weeks at a time. One meter has given up sending statistics completely. They still work for billing, but the third party app I use for analysis was no longer much use. It's a shame, as I was planning to work out the payback period and ongoing savings of solar this summer. The utility company got my records crossed with someone else's, so we got the emergency call out and... whoever didn't, I hope you got it sorted in the end.

Anyway, apparently smart meters are like mobile phones. Apparently, like mobile phones they're constantly being upgraded. Apparently I have a second generation model, and they're onto something like the 4th or 5th gen, with the second gen models being known to be flaky. So it seems if I want to get ongoing functionality, I have to request upgrades, thus necessitating another call out and generating more e-waste. Doesn't seem very smart.

Money-wise, just 5 more regular payments to go out this month, total ~£90. I've turned a beady eye to HP Instant Ink, though. There's got to be a better way.

South_coast

Welcome 😀! That is a big mortgage total 😅 BUT you have a lot of equity in both properties, so not as scary as it might be! I just wanted to say well done for recognising that the job has to go, that must have been a big decision and it's one so many people don't make. I think letting the dust settle and getting healthy are excellent priorities for the first 6 months or so 👍

WuLiao

South_coast said:

Welcome 😀! That is a big mortgage total 😅 BUT you have a lot of equity in both properties, so not as scary as it might be!

Hi, yes it's a big number written in red ink with minus in front of it, and that's not a comfortable feeling. Thankfully we'd wargamed it pretty well with "what if" scenarios that seemed outlandish in 2020 (and probably gave our mortgage broker a few grey hairs in the process) so it should be manageable for the remaining duration of the fix. They're up for renewal (both of them) in December 2025, so we've got not quite 3 years of stability in the meantime.

South_coast said:

I just wanted to say well done for recognising that the job has to go, that must have been a big decision and it's one so many people don't make.

Truth is, it took a fairly strong telling off by OH before I would even consider it 🤣

WuLiao

Urgh, morning ☕

Now the decision to change has been made, I just want it over with. I'm so done with getting up every morning at fart-of-sparrow for some crazy adrenaline-fuelled rush to chase the progress hare up the S-curve. Just let me sleep, dagnammit!

Last night's main challenge was hauling my bulky behind¹ around the compound in a shuffle that might generously be called a "jog" - week 3 of a "couch to 5k" plan strictly ordered by the company medic, who swears blind it'll help deal with post-viral breathlessness². He may be on to something, but it doesn't make the doing any easier. Today it feels like I tried jousting a bulldozer.

Today's tasks, other than the work I'm currently procrastinating from doing: I've got a series of snottograms to various companies to write, and dust off my crystal ball to see what to do with saved cash after April, assuming I can use ISAs again. The council tax bill arrived, surprisingly only £12pm increase on the bill - previous years have been much more painful. I guess it just means [hometown] will just look tatty and full of potholes instead.

The monumentally dull documents I'm supposed to be working on are calling... toodles!

---

¹ Does MSE have a swear filter, or are you all just indecently civilised?

² Could be COVID, could be 'flu, could be a cold. Whatever, it caused me to cough myself blue while it was active. Thank Brodie and Axelrod for paracetamol!

South_coast

🤣 I think there is a swear filter and it just turns everything into exclamation marks. Let's test it: !!!!!! 😅

I feel you on the early rising - wide awake at 5.30am here 🤦‍♀️!

South_coast

Yep, you can't say !!!!!!, but you can say *rse 🤣!