Hi,
First post here, although have been reading for a few months now.
My husband and I have inherited a couple of chunks of money over the last few years and now we have a baby, we're finally getting round to doing something with it. We have an emergency fund of £20k and no significant debts apart from our mortgage (other than small credit card amounts which are paid off in full every month and student loans which in the U.K. are not worth hurrying to pay off).
We have about £90k to play with. Our home is worth about £300k (living in SW London, so VHCOL area) and we have around £163k still to pay off, with 18 years left on the mortgage. Our current interest rate is 2.99% which is fixed until December 2018. We can overpay by 10% per year while we're on the fixed rate, which we have done for this year already.
My original plan was to split the money and use ~£56k to pay down the mortgage (so 10% in January - £16k - and then a further £40k as a lump sum when we're out of the fixed rate). And then invest the rest. I've spoken to an IFA who is setting up the investments for me and that is being done at the moment.
However. As I mentioned, we have a baby and we are thinking we probably don't want to bring him up in a big, expensive city living so far away from our parents. We're originally from near Manchester where COL is cheaper, and we could get a 3/4 bedroom house in a decent area for around £200k (we're not set on any particular area, but from various searches I've done, this looks reasonable).
If we were to move in the next 3-5 years, is it even worth paying off more of our mortgage? Or would we be better off investing it all now and just getting a much smaller mortgage when we move?
Any advice very much appreciated!