"The Save £12k in 2024" challenge

MrsCautious

MrsCautious said:

Number #56 MrsCautious £73.33 adding for March 

thank you, some monthly interest paid from easy access saver. 

Aah sorry £76.33 not £73🤦🏻‍♀️

enthusiasticsaver

george4064 said:

#4 declaring £1,186.78 for March

No S&S ISA or LISA contributions this month, we're hoping to start some pretty major renovations works soon so need to keep money aside for that. Off to France next week, so very much looking forward to a week off work and relax!

However we must continue contributing to ISAs as we are on a journey to be mortgage neutral. Our mortgage is mostly IO and we intend to pay it off when we turn 60, where we will sell sufficient ISAs (and maybe also pension withdrawal) to pay it off. I don’t want to rely too heavily on the pension to pay off the mortgage incase the age we can access increases, but the tax relief for both of us means it’s better than ISAs.

Net-net we’ve agreed to roughly contribute the same between pensions and ISAs, however more are going in pensions as employer contributions are on top of ours. We used to contribute to LISAs but stopped when lifetime allowance was lifted, but I do think about maxxing LISA each tax year and then move onto ISA after for the ‘ISA half’.

I always say we need to investment minimum the difference between the payments if our mortgage was 100% repayment and no IO element, currently that’s about £1,000 per month. Always the danger that we don’t really invest more and fall short when we come to repay the mortgage, albeit there’s a long time to that point (about 29 years!)

Thoughts/opinions welcome, sorry for the long post!

Great work all and some really encouraging posts

I would say you need to be fairly disciplined to invest a certain amount to repay the mortgage.  Is converting to repayment an option before the end date creeps up on you? I can understand maximising pension contributions. Hope you enjoy your French trip. 

enthusiasticsaver

#1 £67.55 in interest added in March to make a total of £16417.55.  Some of that will come back out later on in the year. 

enthusiasticsaver

Suffolk_lass said:

The purpose of this post is a little reminder as there are some surprising MIU (missing in updates) people on the 2024 spreadsheet so far. We might hide them on the spreadsheet at the end of March, if no word. They are red at the moment. 

So hopefully this is not a nag but just a nudge, especially for any who omitted to click on the favourites pennant so this thread is in their bookmarks. Of course, if you expect a big bonus at the end of the quarter, no worries, but it would be good to know if you are still interested (or not):

@Betharooni @Lomcevak @imajica37, @CreditCardJunkie, @brucefan_2, @scrooge2008, @James240, @angelicious @D0lphine @Stanleymp @mrsmseabastian @Brianglasgow2022 @jools1985

And @Sandyra, we know you are saving for a wedding next month so we hope to see you after that!

I have hidden the rows for all those above apart from @jools1985 @CreditCardJunkie and @Sandyra as we have not heard from them.  I will delete the rows in a months time if still no update.  Almost into April now.  Have a lovely Easter all. 

juststuff123

No. 12 reporting in for March - £44,734
Thanks

gd55

#10 reporting £259.97 for March

I got a lovely bonus payment in my March paycheck but I'm sitting on it until we tick over into the new tax year so it can go into my LISA. Therefore March only has my tilly tidying amounts but April will be a bumper month!

I have saved into my emergency fund and holiday pot, and paid a good chunk off my student loan (so close now) but I'm not recording those amounts within this challenge.

george4064

enthusiasticsaver said:

george4064 said:

#4 declaring £1,186.78 for March

No S&S ISA or LISA contributions this month, we're hoping to start some pretty major renovations works soon so need to keep money aside for that. Off to France next week, so very much looking forward to a week off work and relax!

However we must continue contributing to ISAs as we are on a journey to be mortgage neutral. Our mortgage is mostly IO and we intend to pay it off when we turn 60, where we will sell sufficient ISAs (and maybe also pension withdrawal) to pay it off. I don’t want to rely too heavily on the pension to pay off the mortgage incase the age we can access increases, but the tax relief for both of us means it’s better than ISAs.

Net-net we’ve agreed to roughly contribute the same between pensions and ISAs, however more are going in pensions as employer contributions are on top of ours. We used to contribute to LISAs but stopped when lifetime allowance was lifted, but I do think about maxxing LISA each tax year and then move onto ISA after for the ‘ISA half’.

I always say we need to investment minimum the difference between the payments if our mortgage was 100% repayment and no IO element, currently that’s about £1,000 per month. Always the danger that we don’t really invest more and fall short when we come to repay the mortgage, albeit there’s a long time to that point (about 29 years!)

Thoughts/opinions welcome, sorry for the long post!

Great work all and some really encouraging posts

I would say you need to be fairly disciplined to invest a certain amount to repay the mortgage.  Is converting to repayment an option before the end date creeps up on you? I can understand maximising pension contributions. Hope you enjoy your French trip. 

Completely agree that we need to be disciplined! Converting to repayment is definitely an option, however I think we will likely make an overpayment in the next few years when we come to remortgage in 2026 and then ad-hoc overpayments going forward.

Suffolk_lass

george4064 said:

enthusiasticsaver said:

george4064 said:

#4 declaring £1,186.78 for March

No S&S ISA or LISA contributions this month, we're hoping to start some pretty major renovations works soon so need to keep money aside for that. Off to France next week, so very much looking forward to a week off work and relax!

However we must continue contributing to ISAs as we are on a journey to be mortgage neutral. Our mortgage is mostly IO and we intend to pay it off when we turn 60, where we will sell sufficient ISAs (and maybe also pension withdrawal) to pay it off. I don’t want to rely too heavily on the pension to pay off the mortgage incase the age we can access increases, but the tax relief for both of us means it’s better than ISAs.

Net-net we’ve agreed to roughly contribute the same between pensions and ISAs, however more are going in pensions as employer contributions are on top of ours. We used to contribute to LISAs but stopped when lifetime allowance was lifted, but I do think about maxxing LISA each tax year and then move onto ISA after for the ‘ISA half’.

I always say we need to investment minimum the difference between the payments if our mortgage was 100% repayment and no IO element, currently that’s about £1,000 per month. Always the danger that we don’t really invest more and fall short when we come to repay the mortgage, albeit there’s a long time to that point (about 29 years!)

Thoughts/opinions welcome, sorry for the long post!

Great work all and some really encouraging posts

I would say you need to be fairly disciplined to invest a certain amount to repay the mortgage.  Is converting to repayment an option before the end date creeps up on you? I can understand maximising pension contributions. Hope you enjoy your French trip. 

Completely agree that we need to be disciplined! Converting to repayment is definitely an option, however I think we will likely make an overpayment in the next few years when we come to remortgage in 2026 and then ad-hoc overpayments going forward.

I assume you are getting a higher rate of interest on your savings than you are paying on your mortgage and that you have calculated the compound impact of this? For me, I added a degree of discipline by getting the BS to increase the interest only payment to the next £100 and not to reduce it when I made overpayments. Then I made regular overpayments whenever I had Tilly Tidied to over £1000. I did not anticipate how much of an incentive, seeing the interest amount on the mortgage decrease, was going to become - approaching obsessive, "where can I find £x from to make the next OP?". I can see it with the government incentives added to your LISA but not with your ISAs, given the volatility of the markets. Happy to be persuaded otherwise but for me, the feeling of that debt burden lifting was just wonderful

george4064

Suffolk_lass said:

george4064 said:

enthusiasticsaver said:

george4064 said:

#4 declaring £1,186.78 for March

No S&S ISA or LISA contributions this month, we're hoping to start some pretty major renovations works soon so need to keep money aside for that. Off to France next week, so very much looking forward to a week off work and relax!

However we must continue contributing to ISAs as we are on a journey to be mortgage neutral. Our mortgage is mostly IO and we intend to pay it off when we turn 60, where we will sell sufficient ISAs (and maybe also pension withdrawal) to pay it off. I don’t want to rely too heavily on the pension to pay off the mortgage incase the age we can access increases, but the tax relief for both of us means it’s better than ISAs.

Net-net we’ve agreed to roughly contribute the same between pensions and ISAs, however more are going in pensions as employer contributions are on top of ours. We used to contribute to LISAs but stopped when lifetime allowance was lifted, but I do think about maxxing LISA each tax year and then move onto ISA after for the ‘ISA half’.

I always say we need to investment minimum the difference between the payments if our mortgage was 100% repayment and no IO element, currently that’s about £1,000 per month. Always the danger that we don’t really invest more and fall short when we come to repay the mortgage, albeit there’s a long time to that point (about 29 years!)

Thoughts/opinions welcome, sorry for the long post!

Great work all and some really encouraging posts

I would say you need to be fairly disciplined to invest a certain amount to repay the mortgage.  Is converting to repayment an option before the end date creeps up on you? I can understand maximising pension contributions. Hope you enjoy your French trip. 

Completely agree that we need to be disciplined! Converting to repayment is definitely an option, however I think we will likely make an overpayment in the next few years when we come to remortgage in 2026 and then ad-hoc overpayments going forward.

I assume you are getting a higher rate of interest on your savings than you are paying on your mortgage and that you have calculated the compound impact of this? For me, I added a degree of discipline by getting the BS to increase the interest only payment to the next £100 and not to reduce it when I made overpayments. Then I made regular overpayments whenever I had Tilly Tidied to over £1000. I did not anticipate how much of an incentive, seeing the interest amount on the mortgage decrease, was going to become - approaching obsessive, "where can I find £x from to make the next OP?". I can see it with the government incentives added to your LISA but not with your ISAs, given the volatility of the markets. Happy to be persuaded otherwise but for me, the feeling of that debt burden lifting was just wonderful

We are investing the excess cash, I believe over the long-term (30 year period) global equity markets will return higher than the average mortgage rate over that same 30 years.

I think my tolerance to risk is high at the moment, but as I get older and there's gradually less time till we hit 60 I might be a bit more risk adverse and overpay than invest.

MrsCautious

#56 MrsCautious adding £564

that means I’m still in a minus this month but a much smaller one. Thank you.