Hello all.
By way of introduction I am a long time MMM reader/lurker, first time poster. In fact, this is my first time posting on any forum ever (fora?) so apologies in advance if I stuff it up.
I have recently relocated to Scotland via NZ and Canada. After a year of getting my head around ISAs, SIPPs, etc., (not to mention Scottish accents), I am now ready to get my finances sorted. I was delighted to see that the MMM forum has a section for the UK.
I have tried to follow the MMM philosophy for a few years now to various degrees of success. Now that hubby and I own a business it has become even more important to become financially literate.
In a nutshell: we are in our early 50s, with 2 dogs, 1 cat and 3 grown children (on three different continents) all at various stages in their independent lives. Our business is going really well, and we think we will be happy to carry on working for another 5-10 years or so, but we do want to structure things to stop sooner if we want to/have to. (We sometimes work full time/sometimes part time – it’s very flexible so it feels like we are retired in a way). We have a very small UK pension, but no mortgage. I have maxed out our ISA contributions (was able to sneak in 17/18 and this year) and now am faced with the rest of our savings sitting in a bank doing virtually nothing. Our ISAs are with Vanguard and I am very happy dealing with them. Hubby wants to go down the BTL route; I am baulking at the thought (Brexit fallout, etc.), but I am also quite nervous to put all our savings with one establishment (Vanguard). I am currently reading a book called I.O.U by John Lanchester (eek!) and now I just want to hide our whole stash under the mattress.
I would really appreciate some UK specific advice but also would like to know if anyone else is feeling a wee bit nervous these days given the political climate? It is probably fair to say that the political climate is always dodgy in some way, but I just don’t have a handle on the economy here (like I did in NZ and Canada).
Thanks all – so happy to have found you.
Clodagh