...unless acted on by an unbalanced force

WuLiao

South_coast said:

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

That's a bit of an !!!!!!. I guess most of my posts will have a load of !!! in, as after years of this sort of work, I'm practically feral!

Some horrible rumblings from the client's offices today. I'm hoping it doesn't turn into money.

WuLiao

Happy days, I have a transfer date 🥳🥳

In a shade over a fortnight I leave this office and head for home. In maaaaybe a month, I open my work laptop in a different office closer to home to start leisurely life of 40 hour weeks. Same company, so no faffing with pensions or benefits. I'll even get weekends! In the meantime, as I finish up and hand over everything, the days are beginning to drag.

This evening was supposed to kick off with a breathless shuffle around the compound (or more optimistically, a "run"). As I step out of the door all dressed up for ritual torture, the rain came and spared me 😁 Just means I'll have to try again tomorrow. Bah!

Money-wise, it's the end of the month, so it's all pretty mundane: three scheduled transactions remain, roughly £55 worth. I'll squirrel the excess off after the last invoice leaves. I'm currently peering into the crystal ball to try to guess at what my savings and equity will be in mid-2025. I'll put up some numbers when I'm happy with them for anyone interested to chuck rocks at - the result will be better for it!

edinburgher

MorningcoffeeIV said:

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.

That sounds like total nonsense to me, as one of the people who do this I've never once considered this

I do so with some companies as they are only tangentially relevant to my life. For example, I might use Big River to order cat food, or L1dl for my groceries. It doesn't mean I want to chat about them if some random spammer or company rep uses the search function and toddles over for a chat (both of which have happened to me personally).

It's a bit of a double standard, as there are companies that I chime with whose business I will happily promote in full, like Vanguard 👍

WuLiao

edinburgher said:

It doesn't mean I want to chat about them if some random spammer or company rep uses the search function and toddles over for a chat (both of which have happened to me personally).

You have better manners than me @edinburgher - it hasn't happened to me, yet, and I hope company reps have better things to do with their time as they're likely to be told to foxtrot oscar in a way that challenges the swear filter.

I got a little bit of fresh air this morning for some inspections, which was pleasant. Unfortunately the timing and duration of the inspection meant I didn't get my usual coffee supply, so my brain feels like it's presently trying to fold itself up into an origami swan and force itself out through my right eye. I hate caffeine withdrawal 🤢

Run tonight (shortly, in fact), if it doesn't rain - I'm a wuss, and will give up at the first droplet so @powerspowers running through agitated amphibians kinds puts me to shame 😅

So I've had a play with numbers. Spreadsheets are like knot-weed - I thought I'd have just the one quick and dirty spreadsheet, but it turned into one for mortgage amortisation with introductory periods, overpayments and SVL. Then another for savings rates, factoring in different interest rates and limits. Then one for CGT. Then one to link them together. I'm sure there's room for another...

Bottom line up front, for the remainder of my fixed rate period, it makes exactly zero difference whether I save or overpay. The big factor will be whether we sell or remortgage the BTL house, and that becomes an exercise for the astrologers.

Numbers

I put some numbers in my first post, however I rather carelessly forgot to include some other regular costs (mostly kids' extra-curricular stuff). I've also not considered things like holidays as those have been so few and far between in recent years.

In consequence:

Annual Income		67,500
Annual Costs (est)		48,500
Annual Costs (corrected)		50,500
Saveable Amount		17,000

I've made a number of assumptions, most of which are untrue but since I'm looking at a time horizon of now until end of December 2025, I don't see them being so overwhelmingly wrong.

• Savings interest rates will stay the same indefinitely
• I will always be able to shelter savings from tax
• Income and costs will stay the same indefinitely
• Other rules such as CGT will stay the same
• House prices will neither rise nor fall
• Inflation is ignored
  

I've considered the following scenarios:

1. Savings driven (mortgage neutrality)
2. Hybrid approach: £300pcm overpayment until December 2025, the rest saved.
   
3. Full MFW: £1000pcm overpayment until December 2025, no further savings additions but existing savings left to accrue interest
   

Outcome:

Scenario 1

Assets Dec 2025	Value £		Liabilities	Value Dec 2025		Neutrality
House	575,000		Mortgage	321,063
BTL House	400,000		BTL Mortgage	222,000		178,000
Savings (Aggregate)	89,446					89,446
Sub-total						267,446
Subtract Mtg Balance						53,617

Scenario 2

Assets Dec 2025	Value £		Liabilities	Value Dec 2025		Neutrality
House	575,000		Mortgage	311,224
BTL House	400,000		BTL Mortgage	222,000		178,000
Savings (Aggregate)	79,455					79,455
Sub-total						257,455
Subtract Mtg Balance						53,770

Scenario 3

Assets Dec 2025	Value £		Liabilities	Value Dec 2025		Neutrality
House	575,000		Mortgage	288,269
BTL House	400,000		BTL Mortgage	222,000		178,000
Savings (Aggregate)	56,356					56,356
Sub-total						234,356
Subtract Mtg Balance						53,912

Summary Scenario 1: BTL sale

• If in December 2025 I sell the house I will incur roughly £26,000 between commission, CGT and costs based on today's thresholds.
• In all three cases, I would then need a mortgage of roughly £80k over 10 years
• Maintaining today's payment rate, I could pay that off in roughly 6 years.That would see me mortgage free in 2031, but also wiped out in terms of savings and other assets. In effect, I'd be starting from zero.
• Savings in March 2035 could be ~£127k (see below).
  

Summary Scenario 2: Successful remortgaging

• If I did not sell the BTL, was able to remortgage it, and remortgaged the residential property at HSBC's present 5 year fix rate (3.94%) (and kept doing this as needed), savings/mortgage crossover would be in March 2035
• Net worth at the crossover point would be the equity of the BTL house. Hopefully this is more than £127k, but maybe not. Who knows?

This has taken rather too long. I'd better go for that run. Offski!

WuLiao

Ugh, I hate how MSE adds <div><br><div> at random, but can't be bothered to go back and edit it. Sorry for the screwy layout.

WuLiao

End of the month, and that means its one and only highlight - payday!

I've spent the last week thoroughly miserable as the reality of change sets in. I don't really know how to handle it, and don't have the words to describe the war going on between my ears in the small hours when I should be sleeping.

Money wise, well, payday of course. 90% by value of all my expenses, regular savings and so forth are automatically handled within the first week of next month, so I'll update numbers then for the advertising bots to read. I've got to read up a bit on UK savings and tax, as that's something else I'll have to start to pay attention to again. The running (ahem, lardy shuffling narrated by the ever delightful Jo Wiley) is going OK. I'm looking forward to being able to shuffle somewhere with scenery, which I'll be able to do in a week, so that's something.

This time next week I'll be reinstalled at home. In the meantime, the plan for the next 6 days is handover at work tempered with intervals of existential dread.

Biß später!

WuLiao

I can honestly say that the UK seems to have deliberately made all of its ports of entry as miserable and uninviting as possible. Still, it beats the alternative. It feels strange to have finally put the suitcase in the loft and the passport in the filing cabinet, and especially weird to have been able to switch off completely. In the last two weeks I've barely used a computer, which is quite an amazing thing. Even mundane stuff like the thrice-weekly run shuffle are improved by the simple addition of lakes and greenery... bliss!

I caught the latter half of the school holidays; we managed a couple of days out before the weather set in trapped us indoors.

There's been a fair amount of spending and some more still to come, but things have stabilised enough for a quick update:

Assets	Balance £		Liabilities	Balance £
House	575,000.00		Mortgage	346,000.00
BTL House	400,000.00		BTL Mortgage	222,000.00
Car	30,000.00		CC1	2900.00
Current Accounts	10,141.00		CC2	700.00
Savings (Cash)	35,600.00		CC3	0.00
Savings (Premium Bonds)	16,000.00
Savings (Investment)	2,500.00
Savings (Pension)	165,000.00

I have this as approx. 70% neutrality considering BTL value, and approx 18.5% neutrality on a savings basis. The next few months will see how well I can make the new reduced income work.

Tasks for the following week include choosing an ISA and seeing a doctor (dreading this).