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Original poster

What is the best financial decision you have made?

224 replies

Flyingfish111 · 26/03/2021 18:24

What is the best financial decision you have made and why?

If appropriate, has it helped you save for anything in particular?

Trying to rain in my spends and save as much as possible for a house deposit.. both myself and dp have a LISA and have done now for a few years!

I'm not so sure I have a best financial decision but one that stands out is staying at home during my time at university (of course there are downsides to this outside the financial remit) which means I will have paid off my student debt by the age of 35/36+ although I admit I wasn't as savvy as I wished I was in my 20s going on regular holidays and going out drinking etc!

Both myself and DP have also kept our savings in premium bonds and have worked out that we have won more than we would have gained interest, not a significant amount or a life changing amount but a small win all the same!

On the downside, DP is in a bit of a career rut at the moment, stuck in a particular 'specific' field in the civil service (his role is business support for a specific team with some project assistance work) and struggling to move upwards!!! Any other job in his field elsewhere is paid about 5k less. I know that this is something that is holding us back financially, something for my dp (with my support) to think about this year!

OP posts:
PassMeTheWotsits · 26/03/2021 23:44

Buying a house with my partner at 23. Substantially over paying, and being mortgage free within 12 years. Joining the company share save scheme and more than doubling what I put in. Put in £9k over 3 years and took out just over £21k

Cocogreen · 26/03/2021 23:55

Before we had kids, making double mortgage repayments and paying the house off.
Always buying the next house for LESS than you sold the old one. We’ve done this twice.
Using credit cards but not raking up crazy amounts. I heard a financial adviser say “if you’ve consistently got a large amount on your credit card, that’s how much above your income you’re living. Work out how to reign it back.” That’s been useful to remember.

blue25 · 27/03/2021 00:02

@Trekkerbabe

Great question and great reading the replies. For those with a pension what do you consider a good pot? I'm single with two children and have no idea whether I'm paying in enough to my work pension. Any thoughts welcome!
I’ve got a defined benefit pension which will pay out a set amount each year, so I don’t have a pot. However, my OH is aiming for a pot of 500k which should pay out around 25k a year on retirement. How much you need depends how much your living expenses are & if your mortgage is paid off etc.
Zenithbear · 27/03/2021 00:12

Buying property.
The biggest house I could afford in the best location for my budget at the right time for the price then overpaying the mortgage. Then moving up the ladder. Then using equity to buy a smaller home outright invest in rentals and a holiday cottage with my dp, all mortgage free.
Saving and investing about a third of my income at the beginning of each month.
Never getting in debt or using overdraft.

Spending on the good things in life-lots of holidays, campervan, motorcycles, social life and having pets.

PegasusReturns · 27/03/2021 00:12

Starting a business.

I’m interested in everyone prioritising paying off their mortgage - did you do this before maximising your pension or after?

LouNatics · 27/03/2021 00:20

Buying my house when I did. I started saving for my own home at 16 and bought a house at 20. I mean if I could go back in time I’d buy something (anything) at 18 because prices skyrocketed between my age 18-20 but never mind. I bought my own house at 20 (whilst also paying rent on my own place) and it’s been the building blocks for everything since. I’ve bought another six since then.

mktennisgirl · 27/03/2021 00:31

You seen all to be talking about houses... but how about buying shares in Microsoft or preferably Apple.. That was a much better but at the time riskier investment... No house market can ever compete with putting money in either of those companies 10 years ago..

SardineJam · 27/03/2021 00:36

Getting a balance transfer credit card...was shocked at how much interest I had been paying vs what I was actually paying off, the transfer card has allowed me to significantly shorten the period of time until I am debt free, whilst still paying off the same amount each month, cannot wait!

May172010 · 27/03/2021 01:00

We bought our first property when I was 22. A small flat. That flat doubled in value. Then used those funds to buy another one. That place went up in value by 50%. Sold that one and had c. £200k in equity to buy our current flat in London. This flat went up in value by 30% in 5 years, but we are not upsizing instead of looking to pay it off entirely and be mortgage-free. We try to overpay 5%-10% off our mortgage each year.
Apart from that, buying a lot of stuff second hand on eBay and not doing takeaways. I am saving 5% on top of my employers 12% pension too.

Strokethefurrywall · 27/03/2021 01:35

Moved to an offshore jurisdiction and built my career when I was a single 28 year old. Total risk, I didn't know anyone and didn't have a job.

13 years later, financially very comfortable, and haven't really changed our lifestyle despite large salary increases.

To be fair, we've nothing to spend it on other than property and investments.

DustyMaiden · 27/03/2021 01:41

Remortgaging my house twice to buy to let other properties. Paying the mortgage off with the rent received

mantlepiece · 27/03/2021 02:00

Final salary pension.
Bought buy to let which doubled in value after 5 years.
Bought endowment policies, not linked to mortgage.

None of these things are a goer these days!

I’m very surprised there are no tales of stock market success, not that I’ve dabbled, but thought it was the path to riches😂

We did make money as we bought houses, but we generally bought doer uppers so was a lot of hard work and disruption. It was a thing back in the day, but I can remember living in houses where major rewires, damp proof courses and kitchens were being installed while bringing up children with bare floorboards at times!

I am thinking now as we are older there are not many ways to make your money work for you, I can remember the days of getting good interest on saving accounts, those days are long gone.

I hadn’t thought about premium bonds until I read this thread. I think I might put a bit into that. Bit of excitement in my life if I win. No excitement from my TSB savings account 😂

blueshoes · 27/03/2021 02:03

Marrying dh - 2 high earners working a break (except my maternity leave x 2) from university are better than one. Having a frugal Dh and similar outlook on money. We like our bargains - it is possible to enjoy reasonable luxuries without paying over the odds. Constantly upgrading our home to the current forever house which we could not now afford and soon-to-be mortgage-free through massive overpayments from salary increases.

Staying in London (and paying for private schools for the dcs) rather than moving out to the suburbs for good state schools. Property prices have shot up in London over the last 15 years whereas they have stagnated in the burbs. If we had moved out, we would be completely priced out London and could not move back. Having to pay for private schools also meant taking more stressful high paying jobs (with higher risk of redundancy), but which come with good pensions whilst you are in it.

SUBisYodrethwhenLarping · 27/03/2021 02:04

Getting premium bonds SmileSmileSmile

blueshoes · 27/03/2021 02:06

I’m very surprised there are no tales of stock market success, not that I’ve dabbled, but thought it was the path to riches

We have been steadily paying into Stocks and Shares ISAs and pensions over 20 years They have done massively well, doubled and tripled. Unlike property, there is almost no maintenance costs or hassle and when we sell, no CGT.

Higgeldypiggeldy35 · 27/03/2021 02:07

Bought my first house (terrace in a dodgey but up and coming area), over paid mortgage and added 45k to value in 5 years so was able to put 100k down for next house with my husband. We were able to get a much nicer house in a nice area.

Bythemillpond · 27/03/2021 02:38

I did all the right things. Bought a house young, worked several jobs to get a good financial backing behind us. Put off having children till late 30s so we could give them a good start in life.

If I had my time again I would have had a bloody good time, squandered money on anything I fancied, had children in my teens and denied myself nothing.
Dhs cancer and an incompetent NHS meant we had to fund dhs cancer treatment (I think because of our postcode meant we weren’t eligible for treatment), Covid and lockdowns have financially finished us off.

Savoury · 27/03/2021 02:41

Not giving up when I had small kids as it's very hard to get back into some careers. Slogged away getting increasingly better paid jobs.
Until recently, never upscaling our lifestyles when pay rises came but invested in stock market linked ISAs or property instead. Never ever buying new cars full stop and never any car on a leased deal. If that meant I was in a Ford Fiesta, so be it and I was lucky to have it.

Savoury · 27/03/2021 02:44

@Bythemillpond I am so sorry to read of your husband's cancer Flowers.

Can I ask why the NHS won't fund his treatment? I always thought it was a service that was better for heart attacks and cancer than chronic but not life threatening treatment like Crohn's.

AnotherBoredOne · 27/03/2021 03:01

@Bythemillpond

I did all the right things. Bought a house young, worked several jobs to get a good financial backing behind us. Put off having children till late 30s so we could give them a good start in life.

If I had my time again I would have had a bloody good time, squandered money on anything I fancied, had children in my teens and denied myself nothing.
Dhs cancer and an incompetent NHS meant we had to fund dhs cancer treatment (I think because of our postcode meant we weren’t eligible for treatment), Covid and lockdowns have financially finished us off.

That's heartbreaking:( My partner died of Leukemia but we were fortunate to receive everything and anything we could through the hospital system at very little cost to us. If we have had to pay it we would be bankrupt. This is Australia though.
Bythemillpond · 27/03/2021 04:05

He was offered an operation that would buy him more time and could actually cure him. I have heard other people get it and his consultant said he would have been an ideal candidate but NHS trust said no so we had to pay for the operation ourselves
This was after he spent 6 months going to various doctors at our local gps surgery asking if he could have cancer as he was showing all the symptoms and being sent on his way with the advice to not worry and to stop using Dr Google he would scare himself to death.

Pyewackect · 27/03/2021 04:27

Use all our financial resource to buy our outright.

Pyewackect · 27/03/2021 04:27

Our house

TheChild · 27/03/2021 06:41

When I got a new job I saved the increase in wage into a regular saver account that I couldn't access. We had never had the money so didn't miss it. It meant that after 2 years we had a 5% deposit for the flat we are in now, before I started that job we had nothing in savings and never thought we would be able to get on the property ladder.

Trinacham · 27/03/2021 08:45

@PegasusReturns

Starting a business.

I’m interested in everyone prioritising paying off their mortgage - did you do this before maximising your pension or after?

I pay into a pension aswell and have done since early 20s. Our reason for paying off the mortgage (or at least getting it low) is so that we can afford to have and raise children though (and be a SAHM for a while), rather than just because. With my pension I pay 6%, my employer pays 8%. Once the mortgage is finished we will be concentrating on our pensions more.