I dream of a MF home for my plants

Idreamofplants

Oh gosh where has the past 5 months gone? Life has been upside down with eldest having lots of health issues. My head has not been on OPing the mortgage. I've managed to send £300 this month & hoping to get back on track. Small mortgage was totally paid off by end of 2025. Remaining balance on mortgage is now £152K. I have lots of decisions about things which I have avoided making:

• work: currently have one nearly FT permanent role and 2 other self employed jobs. It's too many hours a week but I can't decide what to do about it. I would like to change careers after years in healthcare but no idea where to start.
• pension: could take one with early penalties in a couple of months. Lump sum would half pension but monthly sum I would pay 40% tax on so not sure it's worth the savings on the mortgage
• house: next year when fix ends youngest will also be done at school & eldest might not return after Uni or not for long depending on work. So we could look to downsize and move closer to OHs work - OH does not want to do this as they hope to change jobs but it is a 4 hour round trip the days they are in base which seems crazy

off work for a few days and going to catch up on diaries & try and make some decisions!

Houseplants all doing well - looking forward to warmer weather and getting outside in the garden again

beanielou

Blimey. 4 hours is long commute.
Could you just take the lump sum without the pension?

Idreamofplants

Hi beanielou - unfortunately not :( You have to take the pension as well as the lump sum. I read today that if I take the pension early then for the first 5 years I won't get the same inflation rises on it either so it seems quite complex to understand the impact of taking it so early. OH only commutes 1-2 days a week so it could be a lot worse I guess. He is reluctant for us to more because he has had redundancies in the past and doesn't think this job will be stable long term.

Had a good day off. Gym with youngest then sorted some of the chaos in eldest's bedroom. Finished a book and took it back to the library then cooked a decent meal. I love days like this. Off to see DD at Uni tomorrow.