Busting this debt before 42

MillQueen

You are doing brilliantly - that's a great amount for half a year.

Loving the colouring in as well! So satisfying! I'm absurdly excited for when you get to the row at the top of the "L", perhaps around the end of the year if you keep going at this super fast rate.

The total interest saved is excellent 🌺

Chocolatefund

Oh yeah. I hadn't seen that! The LOAN part all coloured in will be very visually pleasing indeed.

Catscoffeecake

You are smashing the loan overpayments! its amazing how much interest you save from the overpayments as well.

Chocolatefund

So I'm in a bit of pondering money move.

Got a notification that my Trading 212 SIPP account is finally here. Yay! So I've started the process of transferring my wee little pension over to it. I got a lovely message that transfers from this particular provider are taking longer then usual and that I'm #214 in the que...lol.

Its going to take several weeks to go through, so I've stopped the direct debit for now as any new payments could delay the process.

This MacBook loan keeps on annoying me. I'm considering forgoing one months £300 SIPP payment and pulling some funds either from my ISA or emergency funds to get it out of my life.

My accounts so far;

£2000 in emergency fund

£150 in sinking fund

£1840 in stock and shares ISA

There's £874 left on the loan. The next direct debit on the 1st July will take it down to £750.

Need opinions. Or a slap upside the head to be more patient.

MillQueen

Well I guess you’re weighing up whether the short term satisfaction of paying it off quick will outweigh the long term benefits of investing that bit of money. It may not matter too much financially either way if it’s not going to be a life altering amount to keep or pay, but maybe consider whether you’d gain more interest in hanging onto the money and paying the loan off slower or getting rid of it if it’s a higher interest loan than what you would otherwise get. If there’s not much difference you can just follow your heart and do what feels right.

I think I’d also feel good to get rid of something like that and stop it hanging over me.

in_need_of_direction

can you repurpose the pension dd that you have had to stop and put it towards the loan?

Chocolatefund

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82034822#Comment_82034822

Yes, this was my thinking. However I could just dd it into the new account in the meantime.

Catscoffeecake

whole head versus heart debate isnt it, best thing of course is to pay into SIPP but its also about peace of mind, are you better doing it now whilst you have funds to do so, rather than in few weeks when money might be tighter etc. But then its also 0% which isnt much. Could you compromise on where you take it from? are there any other areas you could cut back? any way you could make some more money? Personally I can see temptation of paying it all off, and you have a reasonably good income so if an emergency happened it wouldn't take long for you to refill that fund in mean time.

Chocolatefund

@Catscoffeecake it's definitely head vs heart. The money is just sat in my emergency fund staring me in the face…mocking me..

Thanks all. I've decided to give myself a mental slap and practice some more delayed gratification as I've got a plan that might work.

HMRC still owe me £615 higher rate pension tax relief. So what I'll do is make an extra overpayment of the loan after payday which will bring it down to £625. Then I'll take a hot iron poker to HMRC. We'll see what happens.

Failing that I'll keep chipping away at it. Starting a bank switch after payday which will bring £180 when done. Also awaiting on £100 cashback from renewing my broadband back in April. Also have hopefully £75 coming my way in more cashback in a couple of months. One of these plans has GOT TO WORK. 😂

Catscoffeecake

It sounds like you have lots of little pots of extra coming in over next few months which you could use to pay it off with rather than take it from emergency fund. Maybe give yourself the goal to pay it off by end of year? and if not gone by end of December then you can clear it so you start 2027 without it? might be enough of a delayed gratification.