Looking for advice on where we could make our money work better!
Age: 35
Spouse’s/Partner's age:31
Annual gross income from employment or profession: 65K (incl bonus)
Annual gross income of spouse: 43K
Monthly take-home pay Combined approx. 5K
Type of employment: Me: Private Sector Wife: Civil Servant
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving? Saving in general – was 600EUR PM until wife went on maternity leave
Rough estimate of value of home: 375K
Amount outstanding on your mortgage: 250K, 23 years remaining, repayments of 1,250PM
What interest rate are you paying? 3%
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc: None
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes
Savings and investments: 41K in savings accounts, 9K in company share scheme (sell some of these each year)
Do you have a pension scheme? Yes, Company plan: Company contributes 12%, I pay 5% and make additional AVC of 5%. Have been contributing for 4 years. Currently approx. 43K in fund. Wife: Public sector pension and AVC of 5%
Do you own any investment or other property? No
Ages of children: 8 month old
Life insurance: Yes
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
My wife is currently on maternity leave (full pay for 6 months and is now on unpaid leave) returning to work in May. No problems with covering mortgage payment, bills etc while on unpaid leave.
We have reviewed our finances and are thinking if we should be contributing more to our pensions when she returns to work and how we are using our child benefit.
1. Is it possible to put lump sums into the pension pot at ad-hoc times (aware of the 20% rule due to our age). The thinking behind this is that we are currently comfortable from month to month so would like to do this sooner rather than later to allow the benefit of compounding the interest while we are (relatively!) young and before baby number two comes along in the next few years – plus have only been contributing for a short amount of time. Can we do this with the main pot or can it only be done through the AVC?
We put our Child benefit directly into a savings account for our child and I top this up with 100EUR standing order each month, with a view to having a nice pot of cash for when they are older for college/car/house deposit etc. I view this as our childs money and am therefore reluctant to subject this to any high levels of risk, but should I be looking at something different than a standard savings account to drive a better return (seen as it is being overtaken by inflation on a yearly basis).
Appreciate we are in quite a fortunate position to have some equity in our home and are able to service mortgage etc comfortably. Is there anything we should be doing differently?
Age: 35
Spouse’s/Partner's age:31
Annual gross income from employment or profession: 65K (incl bonus)
Annual gross income of spouse: 43K
Monthly take-home pay Combined approx. 5K
Type of employment: Me: Private Sector Wife: Civil Servant
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving? Saving in general – was 600EUR PM until wife went on maternity leave
Rough estimate of value of home: 375K
Amount outstanding on your mortgage: 250K, 23 years remaining, repayments of 1,250PM
What interest rate are you paying? 3%
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc: None
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes
Savings and investments: 41K in savings accounts, 9K in company share scheme (sell some of these each year)
Do you have a pension scheme? Yes, Company plan: Company contributes 12%, I pay 5% and make additional AVC of 5%. Have been contributing for 4 years. Currently approx. 43K in fund. Wife: Public sector pension and AVC of 5%
Do you own any investment or other property? No
Ages of children: 8 month old
Life insurance: Yes
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
My wife is currently on maternity leave (full pay for 6 months and is now on unpaid leave) returning to work in May. No problems with covering mortgage payment, bills etc while on unpaid leave.
We have reviewed our finances and are thinking if we should be contributing more to our pensions when she returns to work and how we are using our child benefit.
1. Is it possible to put lump sums into the pension pot at ad-hoc times (aware of the 20% rule due to our age). The thinking behind this is that we are currently comfortable from month to month so would like to do this sooner rather than later to allow the benefit of compounding the interest while we are (relatively!) young and before baby number two comes along in the next few years – plus have only been contributing for a short amount of time. Can we do this with the main pot or can it only be done through the AVC?
We put our Child benefit directly into a savings account for our child and I top this up with 100EUR standing order each month, with a view to having a nice pot of cash for when they are older for college/car/house deposit etc. I view this as our childs money and am therefore reluctant to subject this to any high levels of risk, but should I be looking at something different than a standard savings account to drive a better return (seen as it is being overtaken by inflation on a yearly basis).
Appreciate we are in quite a fortunate position to have some equity in our home and are able to service mortgage etc comfortably. Is there anything we should be doing differently?