Improving all the time
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Glad it all worked out. Impressed that you are managing the overpayments when you felt it was so impossible less than a month ago.Achieve FIRE/Mortgage Neutrality by mid 2030
1) MFW Nov 21 £201,999 with 237 payments to go - now £184,341 Equity 26.26%
2) Spend on handyman & external building works & new patio door £12.3K
3) CC £4.9K on 0% spends card but offset by £34.1K savings (part EF, part future home improvement)
4) Mortgage neutral by June 2030 AVC £9.6K/£127.5K AVC target 7.5% value at 15/4
5) FI Age 60 annual income target £13.7/30K 45.7%0 -
Ta, Holmes - it's been a good 2 months, that's for sure. I don't think I'll meet the goal for next, and then it's definitely going to slow down as there isn't much in the pipeline, but will continue searching stuff out - I'm sure there must be more I could ebay, as a minimum effort.
Reporting in:
- improve something every day - yes, dealt with all the paperwork piling up on the desk
- Tilly tidy every day - yes, £1.70
- free money? - a whopping £70 from ebay, will wait to see no complaints before transferring that over
Bonus points: NSD today and yesterday.Was MFW, now Early Retirement Wannabee... Mortgage: still going down. Pensions: still going up.0 -
Reporting in:
- improve something every day - at home, no, at work, yes LOTS
- Tilly tidy every day - yes, £1.70
- free money? - £6.27 from prolific and £4.17 from TTs OP'd today. £3 from Pinecone not showed up in paypal yet, but will OP when it does.
Bonus points: NSD today.Was MFW, now Early Retirement Wannabee... Mortgage: still going down. Pensions: still going up.0 -
Late report for yesterday:
- improve something every day - no, I am getting SHOCKINGLY bad at letting this one slip. Lots of work is no excuse. Bad monkey, no banana.
[think am going to just have one money point]
- money situation improved - yes, £3 from Pinecone through. And, some scary stuff. Finally stopped nervously twittering on to myself about investment and opened a Vanguard account yesterday. These are not going to be show-stopping amounts of money by any yardstick, but it would take me years to amass an 'interesting' sum to invest, by which point it will be too late.
So I've started with a tiny £500, and will add £100 every month straight out of salary. It might end up being a higher monthly payment, but I haven't yet decided what ratio of savings I'm comfortable dividing between money I can't touch (mortgage OPs) / money I will lose interest on if I touch it (5% reg saver) / money that needs to be left alone for 10 years (investment) / and money I have instantly available earning 3% in the current a/c.
Honestly, these sums are so small I make myself laugh. But they're MY tiny sums and I want them all in the optimum place for my circumstances. So I've given them an encouraging hug and sent them off.Was MFW, now Early Retirement Wannabee... Mortgage: still going down. Pensions: still going up.0 -
Oh, and an NSD yesterday. Waving off £500 was hard enough without <gasp> going out and spaffing more on some rubbish or other.Was MFW, now Early Retirement Wannabee... Mortgage: still going down. Pensions: still going up.0
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Money you pay yourself is never wasted. Vanguard are cheap in fees which is critical. Make sure you are not too UK centric as diversity is more important than geography.
Plus read a few of the investment blogs and you’ll get an idea. Broadly it’s get comfortable slowly rather than get rich quick. Don’t panic if prices go down just think how much extra you are buying each month.
A good first step - in 10 years you will have a good 5 figure sum to help youI think I saw you in an ice cream parlour
Drinking milk shakes, cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine0 -
Well done on making a start on investing...Achieve FIRE/Mortgage Neutrality by mid 2030
1) MFW Nov 21 £201,999 with 237 payments to go - now £184,341 Equity 26.26%
2) Spend on handyman & external building works & new patio door £12.3K
3) CC £4.9K on 0% spends card but offset by £34.1K savings (part EF, part future home improvement)
4) Mortgage neutral by June 2030 AVC £9.6K/£127.5K AVC target 7.5% value at 15/4
5) FI Age 60 annual income target £13.7/30K 45.7%0 -
Well done on starting investing. Sounds like you have a good spread.0
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Thanks, Holmes!
zcrat41, it would be a good spread, if it all added up to more than £2,000, which it doesn't at present : ) and thank you for the words of comfort, mark888man.
Part of the worry is that I may have been over optimistic about the amounts I can find to put away. Until the last few months it was a struggle to get to the end of the month with just a £100 regular OP to the mortgage. Now I've signed up to that, plus another £100 into Vanguard, an 'amount' into the 5% reg saver, and then still need to find £100 more to build the emergency savings.
As I've said previously, I'm both a slow learner and lacking in common sense, so fully expecting to find out I've boobed somewhere.
OK, so, try and work it out...
I make a 5% pension contribution from salary, matched by an extremely generous 30% from my employer, so that's about £11,000 a year going into pension. I'm 10 years off full contributions for a state pension, but am not planning to retire until 60 at the earliest, so that should be covered (am 47 now - can't claim SP until I'm 67). In total that's due to give me a retirement income of around £24,000. Which may not sound much to some people, but is a hell of a lot more than I've been spending for the last 10 years! I'll be bathing in the stuff!
So if I want to retire at/before 60, I need to a) have built up some investments, and b) paid off the mortgage. At worst, those investments and savings would need to keep me going for 7 years until SP and pension kicks in - or maybe not? Thinking about it, I don't know when I can access my personal pensions (I have a previous one as well). Jeez, I can't believe I'm so ignorant about my own finances!
Well, I'd better find that out first, since it makes quite a difference whether I have to hang on for both until 67, or can access the private one at 60.
In the meantime, the monthly savings goals (which is where this circular dither started...) are still a worry, but I can reduce the 5% regsav payment right down to £25, so if it's just another £100 to OP and £100 to Vanguard I can see it may be possible to squeak through. That won't put me on track to pay off the mortgage before 60 though, and there's very little left to cut from the budget, so that means a focus on bringing more income in.
<wanders off to give head a wobble>Was MFW, now Early Retirement Wannabee... Mortgage: still going down. Pensions: still going up.0 -
sounds like you have a plan - I'm sure it will work out. its very similar to my plan as it happens - quite generous employers, a few lucky but unconsciously made decisions in my youth
don't worry about over committing on savings - the worst that can happen is that you don't make a contribution one month (prob RS as the others are a bit more un-doable). the best is you actually do manage it and your numbers head in the right direction across the boardI think I saw you in an ice cream parlour
Drinking milk shakes, cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine0
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