Moving forward and upwards

savingwannabe wrote: »

OMG your financial news sounds great. Good, now tell me how you stick to the NSDs as I made a pig's ar*e of myself and bought a flipping handback I didn't need.

How do you stop clicking on social media and fleabay?

I am so sorry about your neighbours. It sounds awful in a few months this will all be over as you will have escaped.

It's just by sheer determination the NSDs (well and the lack of mobility means I can't nip anywhere without my car, everything has to be carefully planned and timings worked out).

Everyday I look at my savings spreadsheet and see what I have and how much I need to save, whilst £2100 doesn't sound a lot and on paper it isn't, it actually does take a while to save.

I even have a breakdown of my planned savings for payday, sometimes that increases, sometimes it decreases, depending on if I have purchased something eg eBay buy now pay 14 days later.

Everyday I check my income / outgoings spreadsheet and see what I have left for the month and have budgeted the following month. See what wiggle room I have given myself.

Don't get me wrong, I'm on a few local selling sites, I'm on eBay looking, scouring online antique shops etc, but it's for ideas. I know I must save and can buy what I need (want) when I move and have saved for it.

I watch items on eBay that take my interest, gives me time to think whether I really want it, out of about 10 things this month I have purchased a set of art deco red glass pudding dishes with a clear glass stem and base (£6 incl p&p) as I would have kicked myself if I lost out on them.

I've had 80p in my purse for a while and could have spent it on cake or bread, but I haven't, it's sat in my purse.

My budget has been worked out for when I move, allowing a fun fund for coffee, meal out, getting my hair cut more than once a year etc, but still saving into different pots for big expenses :j

Weekend update:

Took a slow stroll to the post office yesterday, needed to get a letter sent out.

When I got home I read through the AVC guide from work, looked into a SIPP and also had a look to see if there is a FA discount perk through work.
There is and I get a free initial consultation with him, followed by 10% discount. That's something I will look into later this year.

I'm more interested in a SIPP as I can do a drawdown on my money, rather than have to buy an annuity.

I've looked into my S&S ISA and have added £2.50 to two different pots within it and another £2.50 to my normal pot. Will keep adding a little bit to my two new pots and see how they go.

Ideally, I would have a mix of low, medium and high risk pots. But, I've a little while to carry on my research!

Moved £5 to my AFs, so I only need to get £2052 together now.

Not sure if I said, but I've picked out my sofa and arm chair, both within my furniture budget with money left over.

I'm still trying to find the coffee table I spotted somewhere, got a while to find it again and save for it!

Hopefully, over the next few months I will get hold of some paint charts and see what's around. I've also been watching a load of the old property programs (property ladder, changing rooms etc). I'm tired of rental magnolia!!

Just over £12 left in my account and payday is in 2 days; I empty my current account into savings the day before payday, usually leaving a quid or two in it.

Getting there, it's taken me over 3 years to get where I am, but I've nearly done it!

savingwannabe wrote: »

Well done on saving and your discipline. We both love art deco.

Thank you

I'm determined to get at least one bit of art deco furniture! I deserve an indulgence after being so good (although, when it comes to parting with cold, hard cash I may run a mile :rotfl: )

Must get to BHF this month and see if they have anything

Midweek update.

There won't be much exciting activity for the next few months, but I want to keep posting

Tucked £5 away today into my S&S ISA, £2.50 in each of the new pots. I'm going to be doing printouts each week so I can get a good understanding of how my money is buying me units, how the value fluctuates and anything else I can pick up by watching them.

I am planning to put £20pm away to start with - £10 into my original pot (direct debit) and £5 into each of the new pots (manual payment).

I've got to do so much more research into SIPPs, as I would like to get some actual additional pension up and running by the new tax year.

Worst case is I drop a bit into the AVCs and give myself til April 21 to sus out SIPPs and put the money I would put into a SIPP into an account and drop that in when I know what I'm doing.

Best I can afford with the SIPP and AVCs is £50, so £25 each, per month.

Realistically, I'm looking at 20 years of SIPP / AVCs. That allows me 4 years of trying to make the right decisions at the start, or moving it around to safer options towards the end.

I'm still determined to overpay the mortgage when I move, due to the interest rate I'm facing with the lender. Once I'm with a normal lender I can then re-evaluate my position.

I don't fancy doing the full 24 year term, 5 years with the sub-prime and 5 years with the normal one would be nice.

Means I would have 5 years of a small contribution to pension, then 19 years of being able to sink the spare money into pension (the difference between the sub-prime and normal mortgage payment)

or

5 years of small contribution to pension, 5 years of bigger contribution to pension, followed by 14 years of half my wages into pension.

Got a while to sort out the finer details

Reading this through, before posting it, I think the SIPP will give me more flexibility in case I change employer down the line. Last thing I want is yet another pension pot that I will just leave sitting around and getting an annual statement for.

Anyhow, I'm off to relax and see what's on YouTube!

savingholmes wrote: »

Hi MF - I've finally worked out why I can never find your diary - you are on a board I never go on. Saving - oops!

I wouldn't over-worry about whether to do AVC or sipp as I think you can move one to the other later if you want. Your pension adviser at work should be able to tell you. Similarly it may not be in your best interest to do so - but if your other pensions are not defined benefit - you could potentially in the future transfer the and manage them as a single pot. I am not an IFA and you would need to do your own research

It is odd being on a different board, I'm not planning on hopping to the next one (MFW) for many years as I will need to replenish savings.

I wish work did have a pension guy, the guy I've found is on their staff discount list!

The pension I am now in is the only DB one, all the others were just the normal ones so could get chucked into something else, the two small ones will as they will just payout in full when I retire due to it not being worthwhile sending me £5ish a year :rotfl: got £350ish in one, under £1k in another. So I'm more than happy to risk moving them.

The bigger one (over £5k and increasing on its own each year) I will leave as a stand alone pension.

I've read the AVC guide from the works pension, so far I don't understand it all, so will have a few more reads of that!

I'm hanging out on the pensions board and picking bits of info. Main thing is, I want is a grasp of it for when I do contact an IFA. Still got a few months before I need to start something up.

Turns out I have four pots within my S&S ISA, not three as I thought the info with these was straight forward, easy to understand and make a decision.

I digest bite size info easier than reams of info, not sure whether that's because of my health, meds, age or something else.

I used to be able to and thrived on it in my previous career, now I get side tracked, start looking into something mentioned and research that, go back to the first thing and get side tracked into researching something else in it.

I've got a while to make a decision as I've allowed myself until April 2021 for concrete plans :rotfl:

I'm enjoying myself that's the main thing :T gives me something to do when I'm unable to get out.

I've collected some boxes from work, must start filling them and bagging things for charity.

All my plans are slowly coming together.