Advice on financial priorities for the next 5 years – retirement planning & mortgage

Triumph13

I'd second Marcon's recommendation of professional advice, but on the numbers given I'm afraid retirement in 5 years doesn't look feasible.

As a sense check, I've calculated some ball park figures.  If you were to up your total pension contributions to £50k pa, that would take your takehome down to about £3,500 a month - which is lower than what you say you are working towards even before your mortgage goes up.  Five years of that, plus your existing £400k, gets your pension to £650k.  25% of that tax free, plus your existing savings still leaves you more than £50k short of paying off the mortgage.  Using the remaining pension to buy an annuity and to bridge the 5 year gap to state pension leaves you with an income in retirement dropping to about £2,300 a month.

Something has to give.  Unless you are prepared to cut spending massively, the obvious options would seem to be working longer or moving to a much cheaper house.  

ali_bear

Would you consider moving outside of London? When the time comes your capital would buy you a very nice place in many areas of the country. You have some time to think about what you want, how you want to live. 

MSE_ForumTeam5

We've merged two threads, as we ask that duplicate threads are not created on multiple boards

Kernowshep

I'd be renewing the IO for as long as possible in Feb 2027, and throughout lumping as much as possible into the pension (ideally via salary sacrifice) until the numbers work. A bit of investment growth and you'll hit your target, if not you work a bit longer/sell up and move.