Best financial decision

During my first marriage my husband took care of anything financial I was very naive and just brought up our 3 children for 20 yrs in ignorance, after we divorced I determined I would learn how to manage my finances and in consequence I am now a widowed after my second very happy 25yr marriage and I’m living mortgage free with some savings and perfectly adequate income because I learnt how.

When I was 40 I joined a big company with a good pension scheme, up to then I had no pension. It was my first 'proper' career job after a break bringing up children. As it meant a big payrise, right from the start I immediately paid most of my extra salary into AVCs (Additional Voluntary Contributions) to the pension scheme. Having never received the extra pay, I didn't miss it and I did that every time there were wage increases.

I hoped that I would be with the company until I reached retirement age, but 12 years later the company had to halve in size and the redundancy scheme was very generous, including pension uplifts for the over 50s. I could see that there was little future for me with the firm and so I left, but because I had paid maximum AVC's, for those 12 years, my occuptional pension with my state pension means that I now have a comfortable pension income.

very clever,

I did the same thing

Living in London and divorced, It was a struggle to pay the mortgage etc. When I retired most of my lump sum paid off the mortgage so I had little savings but a reasonable pension.

I found 3 casual very part time jobs, two paid well because they were linked to my previous job. I worked for about 5 years until I broke my ankle but I saved the money, refurbished my house and still had savings.

Any day now a premium bond will pay out a million- it is only a matter of time!

Taking out a private pension along with my workplace pension, enabled me to retire earlier.

If you'd asked what my worst financial decision was ........not to inflation-proof my alimony payments. Still receiving sane amount .....since 2000.

Leaving work and changing career at age 50 - masses less money but happiness!

Downsizing and wiping out the mortgage was a pretty good decision too.

My premium is before yours charley!

kitty it could be the same month as two separate millions are given away.

I play the lottery in the hope that one day ..... in the next 10 years or so me and my DH will finally be able to get out of all the sh*t we have on a daily basis.

Many years ago we did have private pensions but sold them all, together with our house, static caravan and everything else we owned at the time to keep our small business afloat during the financial crisis and to keep our employees in jobs. For what? And why? I ask myself every day . My DH had a stroke a year ago this very week .

My best financial decision ... there never was one.

Best financial decision? Nope. Never made one of those.

My husband tried to cheer me up by telling me ‘you can’t be lucky in love AND money’. I believe him - heh heh!

At 46 I separated, was working part time at a modest hourly rate.
I immediately asked for full time hours and got them.
When the house sold I bought outright an ex council house. It seemed best to be sure of having a home for myself and my ds who had just started university, no matter what else might happen.
I was living pretty much week to week but had the security of not having to find rent/mortgage.

Ds eventually moved out and I met my now dh. After 8 years I moved in with him and rented out my home for two years. Getting fed up with tenants being late with rent and then doing a moonlight flit I decided to sell. (Dh and I were married by this time).
I'd owned the house for 12 years, it was at the peak of the house prices and I sold for 5 x times what I paid.
Best financial decision ever.

I hope you win Gillybob .

Probably the best decision we made was to use the lump sum gratuity that DH got when he finished his Army service to pay off most of our mortgage. It made a considerable difference to the amount of money we had to live on as, though his civilian job carried a reasonable salary, it was never going to match his service pay. Within a few years, we had paid off the rest, and being mortgage free was a very good feeling. When my SiL had a considerable windfall a couple of years ago, they made the decision to do the same thing and the money they saved in mortgage payments softened the blow when DD lost her job and they were down to one salary for a while.

I remember when we chose to pay off our mortgage when I was 40, by means of massive downsize (OH had had to leave work because of ill health) our accountant was dead against it because of losing tax relief - but we were both clear that we just wanted the roof over our heads to be secure so we could bring up family in some certainty.

We lived in a tied house so let our home out. Not always problem free but was the seed for our financial status. It helped when, like Gillybob, the financial crisis hit and all my income from my business had to pay the business mortgage. Thank goodness my DH had a proper job. I think the interest rate was about 18.5%. Horrendous.
Then I sold the business and invested the money, now I work from home and hope to continue for a couple more years (because I enjoy it and it’s flexible) so haven’t needed to access my small private pension yet although I did take my state pension last year.

Ditto gillybob. X

I think the relief of owning your house outright gives is indescribable.

I can remember when DH was facing redundancy in a industry, where he was one of thousands in that position. I looked in our local paper and realised that if things got really bad and we had to sell our then home, we would have enough equity left after paying back the mortgage to buy a small 3 bedroomed house in a local town.

We knew that whatever happened the family would have a roof over its head. The reduction in our stress levels when we realised this was immense.

Apologies for going off on a bit of a tangent here but Unbelievable as it sounds our LA have just sent me the terms of their new lease agreement for the small factory unit we rent from them . We have been in the unit for over 20 years and probably could have bought it 5 times over but have never been in the position to get a deposit together . Anyway they only want to put the rent up 20% ! I can’t believe it . I really can’t . With so many economic uncertainties, the plight of NE industry , the automotive industries etc. Up here They see business as a cash cow to keep their own executives in the manner to which they are very accustomed. I have never felt so defeated as I do right now .
Sorry rant over ...... for now .

gillybob - words fail me! How much more can you both cope with!

The best financial decision we've made is to seek the services of a well trusted and recommended Financial Adviser who has overhauled various pension pots and investments and given us valuable information in terms of what to put where and, most importantly, why. His admin is second to none and we understand where we're at, what it means in terms of retirement plans and how we can flex to suit. It's been very impressive so far, long may it continue.

Taking out a repayment mortgage instead of an endowment mortgage, in the 1990s. Interest rates were high so endowments looked like a good bet, and had been previously as people not only got their mortgages paid off but usually had a lump sum over too. But my husband was against them and had done all the maths. He would also quizz each financial advisor: "how much money do you make if you sell us an endowment mortgage?" The answer was, basically, 10x the commission of a repayment! And as soon as interest rates started to fall, his scepticism was vindicated. It was lovely to see our repayment mortgage decreasing every year whilst our income went up, and we were able to afford to pay extra, and so paid it off early. Some friends of ours are still paying off their mortgage in their 60's (as the endowment didn't make enough money to clear it).

Marrying money....no, seriously, spending well below (but living comfortably) my personal allowance when married, I bought and sold AIM listed stocks and shares with the remainder, learning as I went. A few mistakes but nothing drastic.
After putting aside my initial investment I reinvested the rest and so on and built up quite a nest egg which I still carry on doing today.
My OH works in the upper tier of banking and is quietly impressed by my 'fun' as he calls it.
It's not something I have to rely on for an income but it makes me happy to see it grow from an acorn into an oak tree.
Other than that, I've never worried or had to worry about money...luckily, so there was no scrabbling to make sure my retirement would be comfortable.

Best decision I ever made was to get divorced and get a council house, which I bought. Then married again many years later and sold the house. We were then able to pay of the mortgage.