Moving forward and upwards

savingholmes wrote: »

Hi MF - glad the probationary review went well and that they continue to make adjustments for you. I would be tempted to focus on buying your own place and come back to AVCs later. Even with AVCs you may be able to transfer the to a SIPP at some point - or you can set it up as a sipp and do it yourself from the start. If you are unsure the AVC is likely to be the easiest route. Glad you got a DB pension.

Good morning SH, the focus is buying, I'm not doing anything else about the pension at the moment, just trying to see what options I have and understand what I need to do to get what I want.

Once I've my own place my plan is:
* to make small overpayments (OP) for a few months, as it gives me time to start receiving the gas / electric bills and adjust my budget accordingly.
* then when I get my annual payrise split it 50/50 between OP and pension.
* by January 2021 I will have settled into my new life, my budgets will be a reflection of my outgoings and I will be better placed to make pension decisions.

I want to clear the mortgage in 10 years; the first 5 years will be fixed with a sub-prime lender, the last 5 years with a normal lender. My credit history will be squeaky clean in 5 years and all the bad history gone. Of course, I always have the option of paying the ERC and remortgaging after a few years, but for now it's all about getting my home and the rest will get planned once I'm in :j

I'm conscious with my age and current pension provisions (excluding the DB pension), I won't be in a good place. If I leave my pensions where they are, I can add to them each month.

I know the amount I want monthly in today's money, it's doing it so I have the equivalent in 24 years.

The good thing is work list all their pay bands and what it is per year, so each year I can budget knowing what my payrise will be and when it is. I have 3 or 4 payrises between now and the top of my band.

As it stands when I do move, my savings will be depleted to about £1k, that scares me the most :eek:

I also know how much I can put away when I move into savings, OP and pension. Priority is building up savings pots eg emergency fund, car fund and property repairs; there is no point going all in with a pension and having nothing for car bills or a roof repair and then having to take a loan or put it on my CC and spread the payments.

The only debt I ever want is a mortgage debt, but I know this isn't a perfect world, but I will do my best never to go down that dark road again

Time to update my savings goal:

I need to have £3944 for my associated fees (AFs) :eek: as up until now I have focused on getting a deposit, the AFs have run quietly alongside my MSAs. It's time to split deposit from AFs.

I do like the steps idea, but need to plan differently to avoid confusion when reading my diary! Thinking letters of the alphabet would be the way forward, therefore I have to reach the letter 'U' as that will give me a spare few quid.

So far I have £1866 towards the AFs, and am on the letter 'R', this is a short, fast race to reach the top of getting £2058 together and have planned £700pm for 3 months, the extra money will then kickstart my home repairs / maintenance budget.

The extra £50+ I normally tuck away will go to my car fund pot and emergency fund savings; I'm not going to be recording them here at this stage as that's something for me to monitor privately for now.

Until this diary has served its purpose and I have keys in my hand, it is purely a place for me to keep on track with buying a home :T