Lumina's leap towards a brighter future

1246

Comments

  • Lumina
    Lumina Posts: 35 Forumite
    I just overpaid £33 :j A combination of cheaper broadband and slight pay increase :)
  • lippy1923
    lippy1923 Posts: 1,374 Forumite
    First Anniversary First Post Combo Breaker
    Hi Lumina


    Just come across your diary. Keep up with the good work. I will be reading with interest.


    Lippy
    Total Mortgage OP £61,000
    Outstanding Mortgage £27,971
    Emergency Fund £62,100
    I AM NOW MORTGAGE NEUTRAL!!!! <<Sep-20>>

  • themadvix
    themadvix Posts: 7,879 Forumite
    Mortgage-free Glee! Photogenic First Anniversary Name Dropper
    Hi Lumina,

    I saw above you mentioned meeting IFAs regarding your OH's pension... I'm self-employed and only got around to sorting a pension out earlier this year. I met with a couple of IFAs and did some research but the pensions I was being offered were expensive and complicated - in the end I opted for the NEST pension (the government set-up one that is standard offering for auto-enrol). SE people can have one, they just don't get any contributions from their employer (funnily enough!). It's just what I was looking for as it offered the flexibility to put as much or as little in per month as I could afford (and in fact I tend to put in a lump sum at the beginning of the year, as I collect all tax money/NI and pension contributions together and pay into pension once tax bill is sorted). It also offered an ethical option too (which was important to me). It might not be what your OH is looking for, but I just thought I'd mention it as it was perfect for me, and much cheaper than IFA options!

    Vix

    ETA Obviously I can't vouch for it's performance as it's all very new!
    Mortgage free 16/06/2023! £132,500 cleared in 11 years, 3 months and 7 days

    'Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.' Ernest Hemingway


  • Lumina
    Lumina Posts: 35 Forumite
    themadvix wrote: »
    Hi Lumina,

    I saw above you mentioned meeting IFAs regarding your OH's pension... I'm self-employed and only got around to sorting a pension out earlier this year. I met with a couple of IFAs and did some research but the pensions I was being offered were expensive and complicated - in the end I opted for the NEST pension (the government set-up one that is standard offering for auto-enrol). SE people can have one, they just don't get any contributions from their employer (funnily enough!). It's just what I was looking for as it offered the flexibility to put as much or as little in per month as I could afford (and in fact I tend to put in a lump sum at the beginning of the year, as I collect all tax money/NI and pension contributions together and pay into pension once tax bill is sorted). It also offered an ethical option too (which was important to me). It might not be what your OH is looking for, but I just thought I'd mention it as it was perfect for me, and much cheaper than IFA options!

    Vix

    ETA Obviously I can't vouch for it's performance as it's all very new!

    Thanks Vix,
    I had a look a Nest and it seems like a good option for the self employed . I think it will be best for OH to pay in monthly - once the money is gone it can't be redirected towards the mortgage :rotfl: but he's also putting money aside each month for taxes and overheads, which I think I overestimated by about 20%. He doesn't know this, but it should hopefully leave a nice lump sum at the end of the year :)

    We also had some rather good news and should have about £4000 coming our way :j I'm very tempted to overpay all of it, but we're most likely to split it between OH pension, savings, OPs and the home improvement pot...

    October has been a very expensive month so far and I fell slightly off the MSE wagon... I ordered lots of nice bedding for LO and other bits - the damage is about £130 - but at least it's all good quality stuff that should last years - at least that's what I'm telling myself :rotfl:
  • Lumina
    Lumina Posts: 35 Forumite
    edited 23 April 2018 at 9:10PM
    We seem to be leaking money at the moment - I spent the past days ordering the last few things for LO and I feel I have made sensible choices, but it's still been really expensive :(
    Heating work is being done too at the moment, so that's another £1200. And we have family visiting this weekend, which could easily cost another £300 for eating out for 4 days. But the alternative would be to have them all in our house which would be a bit stressful :rotfl:
  • try_harder
    try_harder Posts: 1,527 Forumite
    First Anniversary First Post Combo Breaker
    Really enjoying your diary Lumina ,hope you have a lovely weekend with family.
  • Lumina
    Lumina Posts: 35 Forumite
    edited 23 April 2018 at 9:10PM
    October was a very expensive month - I haven't had the courage yet to assess the damage, but we did have a nice time with my family, and they paid for most meals :)

    I don't think November will be much better: sleep deprivation and money saving don't seem to go hand in hand... we ordered lots of freezer friendly food and the next day I left the door open and it all defrosted overnight :(

    On a more positive note: I got paid an extra £140 in October, something to do with ML pay which I swiftly overpaid. It's our biggest OP to date :beer:
  • Lumina
    Lumina Posts: 35 Forumite
    It's been a little while since I last posted - life has been hectic to say the least:
    • We've saved 10k since Nov - mainly due to OH working almost 24/7
    • managed to get most of baby's things for free or second hand - the only new things we bought were socks and dribble bibs :o
    • stopped spending money on food while out and about
    • We haven't touched our emergency fund

    Unfortunately our 18 year old car has decided it's time to retire and we're replacing it with a shiny family car with a proper boot. We decided it was worth the investment and it will hopefully last us 10 years ... cost: 8k :eek: leaving us with 2k to put towards the mortgage..

    And then there are the nursery costs which are just :eek::mad::eek: - but I'll leave those for another day :rotfl:
  • Lumina
    Lumina Posts: 35 Forumite
    I haven't updated this diary in ages - and tbh we haven't made much progress in terms of overpayments anyway.

    Mortgage still stands at £82'000. However we have also managed to save £26'000 since starting this diary last summer - we spent £8'000 on a second hand car, leaving us with a potential overpayment of £18'000. We're debating at the moment if we should sell our house now, and use that money as a deposit or wait - and we seem to be getting nowhere... Whenever we have made up our minds, we start worrying about the economy, and when we think we want to wait, we hear scary stories about some of our neighbours.

    Has anyone any tips on how to make a decision to feel comfortable with?

    We would essentially double our mortgage, but repayments would still only be 650ppm, but we also pay a small fortune in child care costs...
  • Lumina
    Lumina Posts: 35 Forumite
    Again, it's been ages since I last updated this diary. A lot has happened since then: We sold our house in February, found a new one a few weeks later and today we received the mortgage offer letter from our bank. We'll be borrowing 180k over 30 years.:eek: Meaning we will more than double our mortgage.

    It's our dream house in terms of location, but it will need a lot of work. We're hoping that the roof is okay as we've budgeted to replace everything else. I still need to book in the survey, but fingrrs crossed that it will all be okay.
This discussion has been closed.
★ ★ ★ Meet your Ambassadors

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 343.1K Banking & Borrowing
  • 250.1K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 449.6K Spending & Discounts
  • 235.2K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 607.8K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 173K Life & Family
  • 247.8K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 15.9K Discuss & Feedback
  • 15.1K Coronavirus Support Boards