Yea to be fair, there probably will be a decrease for a while when he does teachers training and also in his early career. So the total amount will go down. I think in that case we would end up tightening our belts / potentially putting less in my pension for a bit. It does make me nervous having such a difference between our earnings for a while as it puts even more pressure on me, but I would say I’m pretty employable so would hopefully find a job quite quickly if I lost mine. Would also get around £20k in redundancy.
I forgot to say as well, I earn around £10k a year in a side hustle. I’m planning on starting to just put it all in pension so that I can get more take home pay when needed.
@ComeOnJ Partners pension is a mix of different kinds - his employer has changed their terms about 3 times in the 20 years he’s worked for them! He is not a teacher yet. If : when he becomes one he would be on their scheme. The 20k was based on his current job.
yes the 50k is a rainy day fund, altho it also might have to cover ivf if we want another baby (thinking about that now). I conceived this one naturally but am getting on. Would keep around 12k for that (I have frozen eggs so would just be for a few transfers etc)
@ComeOnJ I’m not actually sure how savings allowances work, thanks for the tip - I will read up and see if better to split some cash between me and partner.
@Campingkit the plan with the extra £1k left over is to put it in the mortgage - before maternity leave (which I’m on now) I was putting this much away to cover me for the year. So i will build a bit more equity but only about £12-24k more over 1 to 2 years. At current rate I am paying off about £600 of the loan every month out of £1600, bit depressing! So over two years would get it down by about £36k.
my area is actually quite stagnant in SE London price wise at the mo, but I’ve made anything from £20k to £40k from owning the house for 5 years. We would move to a village of Tunbridge wells I think (at the moment) which holds value well and isn’t that cheap, but certainly cheaper than London.
we are also considering buying a less expensive 3 bed with a big garden and having a garden room for an office as less expensive than buying a four bed. And maybe going for something less pretty so we don’t stretch past 500. I feel like with AI / economic climate etc I’m quite nervous about future economy and employability! My industry is quite vulnerable to AI although I am senior and probably quite hard to replace in some ways as I hold client relationships.
should say as well, I own the house. My partner pays me £1k a month at the mo for contributions to rent, bills and baby, but we are moving towards a more joint model ie me saving for our early retirement, partner taking out more take home pay and not putting extra into his pension. We are doing a joint budget at the moment and any extra we put into mortgage I would like to treat as 50:50 when we buy a house together. Also am thinking of converting what he’s paid in rent towards the capital of the house for 4 years into equity for him. It probs only works out at £250 a month but would be a nice start for him as he doesn’t have much in the way of savings (hes actually quite good with money but his commute costs are high and I think he sometimes over stretches to keep up with me on holidays etc even tho I don’t ask him to)