Optimising savings and pension

Optimising savings and pension

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GroundEffect

Original Poster:

13,844 posts

157 months

Saturday 31st January 2015
quotequote all
Around one year ago I bought my first house. That was to be a part of my pension pot. I am on a 2 year fixed mortgage at 4% (26yo with 90% LTV didn't help).

I was calculating my pension pot the other day and with the stakeholder agreement my company has and the current 3%/6% payment plan I'm destined for a very apologetic pension pot come 58yo - the earliest I can retire. I will increase pension contributions when I can - in 4 years.

What I want to do is optimise my savings and mortgage payments. Each month I have around £1200 of unused income. On my own (the Mrs and I don't share income).

My first intention is to increase mortgage payments now that I can easily afford to. Is there anything else I should be doing? At this moment I don't have much liquid savings because of outgoings in 2014. I want to maximise things so that I'm mortgage free before retirement and have a useful pot outside of work.




GroundEffect

Original Poster:

13,844 posts

157 months

Saturday 31st January 2015
quotequote all
My home.
Yes higher rate.
They contribute 6% to my 3%. The Max for them 11% but you need to be with the company five years to do so - I'm at 14 months (contractor before).

I have just taken out £7k of premium bonds on money I do have.

GroundEffect

Original Poster:

13,844 posts

157 months

Monday 2nd February 2015
quotequote all
Hmm. Not good news.

I have estimated by the time I cab remortgage (March 2016) that my house will be worth £25k more than I paid for it because of the stupid south east housing market. This would change my LTV to around 78% at current rates. This would definitely help. I have a loooong mortgage term of 34 years left but at remortgage with various calcs I could reduce to 20 years with the same payments. That's a good start.

I plan on getting stock in a few years when I've sorted out the housing situation.