FIRE Girls Pension Diary - Aim High & Dream Big

LL_USS

Great to hear you can do a marathon @MallyGirl.

Well done @Firegirl and @hugheskevi for keeping up your ISA plan.

Payday today yay but most will be gone shortly when bills and credit card payments for holidays earlier in the year and a pre-booked one in the summer, and a few furniture updates in the house (I am still not ready to use interest free transfers yet). Will be a bit more time till I start to have money aside for ISA and LISA this year.

PS: for us university employees we can maximize extra work outside of our full workload (for e.g. dissertation supervision) then turn that to research money (untaxed) then use for travelling (just having to pay for kids)

Firegirl

I’ll have to look into Halifax Clarity.  Last one I did was barclays last year and I put all the funds to my mortgage and then I’ve nearly paid of the card….sort of short term stoozing but sort of not. 

I could maybe switch off from it if I had a separate account for the DDs for credit cards payments to come out of.

it sort of annoys me that my brain won’t let me do this, yet 0% finance is totally acceptable

theblueflash

swindiff said:

I started Stoozing again when interest rates went up. Well worth it to me atm. 30k on 0% credit cards earning me £1500 a year. Halifax clarity CC offers free money transfer to your bank account.

Please can I just check @swindiff - I’ve had Clarity Cc for years, don’t see an option for “free transfer” - I see one for 6.9.% APR for certain amount of time and amount, but not free. Is it a “new customer”  or a sign-up thing maybe? 

swindiff

theblueflash said:

swindiff said:

I started Stoozing again when interest rates went up. Well worth it to me atm. 30k on 0% credit cards earning me £1500 a year. Halifax clarity CC offers free money transfer to your bank account.

Please can I just check @swindiff - I’ve had Clarity Cc for years, don’t see an option for “free transfer” - I see one for 6.9.% APR for certain amount of time and amount, but not free. Is it a “new customer”  or a sign-up thing maybe? 

The ongoing APR is 6.9% but there is no actual fee to do a money transfer like with most other cards. The idea is you immediately do a balance transfer to another 0% card, so you never pay that 6.9%

Firegirl

I have an expensive holiday to pay for so my plan is to pay for the holiday with a 0% card.  I’ll leave the money we saved in the mortgage and I’ll pay down the credit card gradually. It might work a little better this time because when I move to the umberella company in July then I won’t have as much disposable income to throw at the card!

Firegirl

@Fox40

I wanted to let you know that your post about moving to an umbrella company, that you posted on my ISA vs Pension thread, was life changing!

I have arranged to change from getting paid by my agency payee over to an umbrella company and salary sacrifice to my pension.  I finalised figures today.  Approx £5000 pm will go straight to my pension as salary sacrifice and I’ll still have approx £800 a week to live on, and save to ISA/Mortgage.

In this set up if I take a holiday I don’t get paid so I’ll need to plan that in but once it changes over I will be significantly better off overall because of significant tax savings by salary sacrificing to my pension.  Also I have some extra benefits and one of them is a free video call doctor that can do prescriptions. 

I cant thank you enough @Fox40 for prompting me to research the umbrella option again. 

And for anyone else reading this thread and thinking I should really look into this.  Are you a contractor and getting paid by the agency and paying towards your pension after being paid? Ask your agency for your umbrella rate and ask them what umbrella company’s they’ll engage with.  One phone call and 10 mins later you’ll have an illustration which will help you decide.  Do it now you won’t regret it.  

Fox40

Firegirl said:

@Fox40

I wanted to let you know that your post about moving to an umbrella company, that you posted on my ISA vs Pension thread, was life changing!

I have arranged to change from getting paid by my agency payee over to an umbrella company and salary sacrifice to my pension.  I finalised figures today.  Approx £5000 pm will go straight to my pension as salary sacrifice and I’ll still have approx £800 a week to live on, and save to ISA/Mortgage.

In this set up if I take a holiday I don’t get paid so I’ll need to plan that in but once it changes over I will be significantly better off overall because of significant tax savings by salary sacrificing to my pension.  Also I have some extra benefits and one of them is a free video call doctor that can do prescriptions. 

I cant thank you enough @Fox40 for prompting me to research the umbrella option again. 

And for anyone else reading this thread and thinking I should really look into this.  Are you a contractor and getting paid by the agency and paying towards your pension after being paid? Ask your agency for your umbrella rate and ask them what umbrella company’s they’ll engage with.  One phone call and 10 mins later you’ll have an illustration which will help you decide.  Do it now you won’t regret it.  

Glad to be of assistance. Which umbrella company did you choose in the end?

Firegirl

@Fox40

I went with Paystream in the end…..

went round the houses a bit as the pension provider I was with said they would only accept a fixed amount but when I got through to the new business department they agreed to accept a variable amount each month. 

There were only 3 umberellas that my agency would engage with and Paystream were the one I’ve heard of before. 

Others were Danbro and Focused.  Focused is the same group as paystream so not much difference in them and I’ve never heard of Danbro.

calcs weren’t very different so went with Paystream.

Thanks again! 

michaels

Lets hope Labour don't crack down on this now you have set it all up....

Firegirl

I know!!!! We’ll just have to roll with what ever happens. Can never predict govt behaviours