I will be in a position next year at the age of 37 to pay off my mortgage in full if I so choose, but in my head I keep battling if I should or should not as its doesnt feel like the best use of my money.

Bit more context, I have £250k in my ISA and £40k from a sharesave due which combined can clear the c.£290k mortgage I have left; house value of £340-350k.

For reference I have grown my ISA at about 1% CAGR above that of the S&P500 over the past 7 years.

I know a lot of people on this thread wont have done this, but I am interested in those that have paid off their mortgage, is there a different feeling you have with no mortgage, or would you have rather kept the money invested and not paid the mortgage off.

Do feel free to ask any questions to help as I am genuinely interested in peoples thoughts.

i’m 18 and left home recently under bad circumstances. i‘m trying to figure out finances mainly? i work full time and get paid about £1800 a month, and save about £1300 but have taken some money out of my savings just to pay for a new life and things, so i have about £4500 in savings now. does that feel on track? i’m on a gap year but id get a lot more help at uni with finances so this is just money to put away and not look back on for a while.

also trying to figure out bank accounts. i want to open new ones, i have a good savings thing with natwest (mainly attached because i’ve had it since i was 12 and no one else has access and it feels like mine), but what other cards should i have (thinking another debit and a credit).

and a little odd one, my parents have been sending me some money, which would invalidate my estrangement for sfe, it’s £100 a month and i can’t make it stop or send the payment back (complex family things), and the bank can’t block it. i really want to avoid closing the account, stupid but it’s those little normal things i guess? what do i do?

Hey all, was just wondering if anyone had expereinced the same.

Me and my wife use a joint account to pay all our bills, 2 months ago the HSBC app went down for about 3 days meaning we couldn't transfer money into the joint, knowing this I rang up my morgage company and paid the payment over the phone on the day it was due to come out, no dramas or so I thought.. They did say we might receive and email in the following week because things might overlap and just to ignore it.

A month later the morgage payment gets taking out our joint then goes back in within a couple of minutes, I honestly don't usually check our joint that much but I had a feeling that something was a miss, anyway rang them up and paid the payment again same day it was due, they said cause we paid manually it pretty much had over taken the DD so we had to setup a new 1, So I asked to do that and they said it can't be done over the phone it will have to be sent in the post to sign? Its coming up to payment day and we still haven't received anything, when contacting them they keep saying it will be with you shortly and to top it off its coming up as 2 missed payments on my credit?

Anyone experienced anything similar and will the missed payments be removed?

Sorry about the waffling but its really starting to annoy me.

Thanks.

We've just ditched our advisor (was paying around 1.9% all-in) and moved to a flat-fee platform. Everything's going into VWRP across ISAs, my LISA, pension contributions through our Ltd company, and our son's JISA.

I'm 43, my partner's 38, and we're hoping to semi-retire at 57. We've also got two buy-to-lets we're selling off one a year.

A couple of things I keep going back and forth on:

Is having literally everything in one fund daft? I know it's global, but it's heavily US and that nags at me a bit.

When should we actually start moving some into bonds or cash? 5 years out? 10? And is it better to shift gradually, or just build a cash pot to live off for the first few years?

Our company is a restaurant which was part of our retirement plan, but they way things are going I'm not super confident of the longevity of the business in 15/20 years time.

Anything else you'd do differently in our shoes? Cheers.

Hi all,

I just checked my pay slip and there’s a line that says BASICANNUAL - Backpay and it’s 2x my monthly salary before tax

This is added on top of what I normally earn

I joined the company in February and it’s a huge company, and I’ve been paid the right amount since I’ve joined and I’m unsure what to do? Do I not say anything since it s back pay?

Hi,

I'm looking into buying a car sometime in the future. My idea was to use a combination of cash and long term transfer balance credit card to purchase the car.

Let's say the car costs 20k, and I pay 10k with cash outright. Assuming I get approved for a credit card with a 10.5k limit, would I be able to pay the other 50% with the credit card? The idea is then to transfer the credit card balance to another long term transfer balance credit card with 36 months. Then I can pay the minimum balance on the credit card until the balance clears.

Are there any issues with this logic?

I'm a fulltime NHS worker who does NHSP extra shifts and I've received a letter from the HMRC saying they haven't received payment for my overdue Simple Assessment. The amount overdue is £xxxx. Anybody who has gone through the same. Any advice and guidance is appreciated.

Just had a pay rise (confirmed last week) starting with immediate effect that takes me over the plan 2 threshold. Received my payslip this morning but student finance has not been deducted.

Does anyone know roughly how long it will take for deductions to start showing on my payslip? Should I mention the deductions to my employer?

I would like to ask your advice on paying back tax after an underpayment.

I received a benefit in kind from my employer in the previous financial year (2025/25) which meant that HMRC calculated I paid too little tax by £1840, and HMRC said that would be taken out of next year’s salary, starting in April 2027.

However, my tax code has also changed from the standard 1257L to 336L, this started in August and I have tried to contact HMRC several times to ask why they are changing my tax code this year, when they are not going to claim back tax until next year, but they have been unwilling to change my tax code for this year.

My pay slip has come in today, and it turns out that I have been charged £909 for income tax from my post-pension gross salary of £3170. This seems like a massive overpayment as I have calculated that with a standard 1257L tax code, the monthly income tax should be £434.

Therefore, I appear to be paying around £475 more tax per month, meaning that I will massively overpay in this financial year what I owe HMRC.

My question is whether there is anything else I can do in this tax year having already queried this several times with HMRC. I have contacted the payroll team at my employer and have been told this is a HMRC, not employer, issue.

My annual salary is £41805 with a 8.9% employee contribution to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme.

Hello,

First post here, and I’m going to lay it all on the line.

I need some advice, and you’ll probably understand why by the end of this post. 😅

I applied to do an MSc at the University of Leeds and was awarded a partial scholarship because I’m care-experienced. This scholarship helped somewhat, but I was still left with substantial tuition fees to pay, which I planned to finance with a postgraduate loan.

Fast-forward, and I’m doing really well at work and on my MSc, but I become ill and have to rely on statutory sick pay for nearly four months. I end up spending the remainder of my postgraduate loan on living costs rather than tuition fees, leaving an outstanding balance of around £1,100 out of £14,500.

Somehow, whilst recovering from my illness (my final operation is due next week!), I manage to complete my research dissertation, achieve 85%, and earn a distinction overall! This was a mammoth effort and absolutely vital to helping me secure a job, pursue a PhD, and set myself up for a career.

I’ve now spoken to my university and explained that I cannot afford to pay the outstanding fees. I’m in debt because of my prolonged sickness and the costs associated with my MSc, and I cannot realistically borrow any more money to cover the balance.

The university knows I have no family support, and I was awarded a scholarship precisely because of my circumstances. Yet they’re unwilling to work with me to find a solution. It seems to be a case of paying the fees or not graduating.

I understand that they need to protect their interests, but this is a genuine situation that could have a significant impact on my life and essentially waste hundreds of hours of hard work and dedication.

I need some advice. Is anyone aware of any organisations that offer scholarships or financial support to academics from disadvantaged backgrounds?

Do you think the Tuition Fees team’s decision is final, or can anyone suggest a creative solution I could propose to the university?

I know this is a problem of my own making, but I’m just looking for any ray of light in what feels like a pretty bleak situation!

Thanks for hearing me out.

Hi all.

I'm trying to work out what my take home pay will be if I reduce my working hours. I'm chronically ill and need to reduce them as much as I can afford to, which is £300 per month.

My monthly salary before any deductions is £2404 for 32 hours weekly.

I pay 7% into my pension.

I purchase extra leave which deducts £46.23. This will continue until April.

I then have PAYE and NI deducted.

I've tried to figure this out myself but the brain fog is kicking in and I'm not sure if I've done it correctly.

Please would someone work out how many hours I can afford to reduce?

It would be super helpful if you could tell me how much money I'd drop monthly by working 28, 27, 26, 25, and 24 hours too, if that's not asking too much?

If you need more info please let me know. Thanks in advance!

Hi all,

Wasn’t sure where to post this but have seen others make posts about the energy ombudsman before so thought maybe someone may be able to offer some advice.

Essentially 18 months ago our electric metre stopped working, we reported this and they sent out a technician to install a new smart meter and what followed was 18 months of back and forth with them.

We were told that they couldn’t install a new meter as there was an issue with our gas pipes and that they would report this to northern gas for us. They never did. We found out when reporting as separate issue and sorted this out ourselves.

We were then told there was a separate fault with the metre that needed to go through the dno and that we needed to raise this. We did and were told it was up to a technician on site to report it and there was nothing we could do.

We then entered a formal complaint and spent 12 weeks arguing back and forth, even though they acknowledged in their email to us that the flow to the dno had to be raised by a technician onsite, they continued to say we needed to do it and chase it up. When we refused, they then agreed to send a technician out who after all that time found out that the fault was incorrectly reported and we finally got a smart meter installed.

Now comes the billing issues, we continued to pay our direct debit throughout. They charged us £707 back in July based on estimated readings and a further £300 last month (each bill was for the past 3 months), all based on estimated readings. The person handling our complaint stated this was based on average readings calculated from the date of our last successful read and they have adjusted the bill to account for the fact they can’t charge us past 12 months. The issue is that the date of our last reading was put in by the 1st technician who came out AFTER our metre stopped working so completely false as you couldn’t get a read from it, paperwork we have even states they couldn’t get a read.

We have looked back at the last year including how much they have charged us and what we have paid and it makes zero sense at all. Seems like they are just wacking on crazy inconsistent estimated readings and charging us whatever. It is not inline with previous years usesge when our metre was working. Based on the above, we went from credit to nearly £500 in debt with them and they are now demanding we pay nearly £300 a month for the next year to clear this which also makes zero sense as £40 odd would go towards the debt and there is no way we are using £260 in gas and electricity each month.

Since our metre has been installed we are actually on track with a monthly bill of around £120 a month for gas, electric and standing charges although do understand that this will go up over winter and down in the summer.

We are giving them one final time to come to an agreement with us so rectify all of the inconsistencies and then plan to go to the energy ombudsman if they disagree but we are curious as to what the process is like and based on the above information if we would have a good chance.

Hi, first time posting.

I was self-employed until October 2024. I had a few unpaid invoices from different clients on ceasing trading. I deregistered from self-assessment in 2024 as I did not anticipate those invoices ever being paid. In May 2025, one was paid. I discovered this by chance in summer 2026, when checking my old business bank account. This month, two more invoices have been paid.

As I’ve deregistered from self-assessment, how can I declare these sums? I called HMRC when I first discovered the May 2025 payment. They said they would post out a form, but this never turned up. I called again to chase it up and the person I spoke to said that I was within the trading allowance and didn’t need to declare, which I don’t believe is correct.

I started a PAYE job the day after ceasing trading in October 2024, if relevant.

Any advice gratefully received!

I'm looking into setting up a bare trust for my children, funded by their grandparents who live outside the UK.

The setup would be:

• Settlor (grandparent): Non-UK resident
• Trustee (parent): UK resident
• Beneficiaries (children): UK residents

I've contacted a couple of providers, but they said they only support bare trusts where the settlor, trustee and beneficiaries are all UK residents.

Has anyone managed to set up a bare trust with a non-UK resident settlor?

If so, which provider did you use? Are there any providers that support this arrangement, or anything else I should be aware of?

Any advice or experiences would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Evening All. I have a 0% balance transfer deal on my credit card, which expires on 30 November. I will almost have cleared the debt by then, but there is a chance I will have about £500 remaining. The APR would be 22.48%. I appreciate it is not ideal to pay interest on this, but I can clear the £500 balance and any remaining interest with my December pay if required. My question is, does not paying off the balance in full by the end of the deal have any impact to my credit rating?

hey, im 22 and on my employer's pension match. i've got a stocks and shares isa with 100% VWRP and wanted a similar approach in my pension.

the default fund included some cash and bonds that seem far too risk averse when i've got more than 40 years until i can touch this money.

i've changed to the L&G All World Equity Index 3, which tracks the FTSE All-World.

i basically wanted to do a quick sanity check that this isn't a stupid decision

does this seem sensible? thanks

Hi all - let me know if this isn’t allowed here, but basically I have a reasonable amount of savings (eg probably enough for a house deposit), although my partner is Australian and we may be relocating there in the next few years. About 1.5 years ago I moved most of it into a split between growth and stable investment portfolios/ISAs. It has made money since. I guess I’m looking for advice (not so much specific market/investment advice), but if people still see growth investment portfolios as a good option in the medium term eg next five or so years? If we did move to Australia we might want to use that money to buy something, and I’d traditionally seen investments as a reasonable place to have money for the medium term - but with the world as it is right now, and the chance we are headed for a recession, would it be safer to take most of it out and keep it in high interest savings? Any thoughts/comments appreciated!

hi all!

I have had “open LISA” on my to-do list for about a year now, and with the uk government looking to scrap the cash LISA, it seems urgent to open one in the next month or so. the only thing is, I can’t decide between a moneybox cash lifetime isa or a moneybox s&s lifetime isa.

some key info:

- I’m 25, and no clue when I’d be looking to buy. I’d hope to buy somewhere between 29-35. I feel like this is a hard one to predict with current state of the world though…
- Currently on £28.5k, salary progression/career switching I’d project to be between 30-35k within the next 3-4 years.
- Overall savings is at ~£22k in easy access, £4k in cash ISA.
- I have a trading 212 S&S ISA with roughly £4k in it currently (not sure if this excludes me from opening a Moneybox S&S LISA?)

What would your advice be in my situation?

Thank you in advance!!

I have about18K in a Scottish Widows pension from a previous employer. I have other pensions including a DB one, so I am planning to take what I need as required out of this one.

Scottish Widows are a nightmare to get hold of or interact with and my immediate reaction was to transfer the lot to a SIPP - I already have an ISA with Trading 212 so they were going to be my first choice until I did some background reading and found they don't allow flexible drawdown.

DOes anyone know of a similar platform where I could move the SW pension and then manage drawdown myself with the reams of paper work and nonsense SW demands?

Looking to buy my own place I earn around 27-28k a year age 31 and hopefully looking to put a deposit down around 30-35k looking at properties around 90-120k
Would be roughly paying back 500-520 a month over 25 years

Is this doable?

Also Should I take the mortgage term over 25 year or 15-18 year term I was thinking I know the payments will be more expensive a month

I booked concert tickets on viagogo pay in 3 i didnt get the tickets and i raised a claim through paypal they then declined that through their help centre and decided in viagogos favour i then chargebacked through my bank and received the money.

This morning i get a letter from a debt recovery agency for the amount.

My question is it worth fighting this for a relatively insignificant amount or should i stand on priciple and not pay it?

Good Morning,

What other online broker options are available (with timely and reliable customer support) to a UK citizen and a Cyprus Tax resident? I would like some options other than Interactive Brokers that can provide better peace of mind. I am trying to move $1-2m from a traditional bank holding and am finding their lack of customer support concerning for the size of my trades. Thanks in advance.

I received an offer from Vanquis for a balance transfer totalling around £940. I intended this to come off my higher balance capital one card, but I do have two accounts.

Stupidly, I've rushed this and ended up mixing up my cards (both have similar ending 4 numbers) and have put my £200 limit card in around £750 of positive credit after clearing the balance in it.

Due to me trying to resolve this amongst also trying to merge my two accounts, its flagged for I'm guessing fraud and whilst they've realised it isnt fraud they have decided to close my accounts, fairs fair i have no qualms but this still leaves the £750 of positive credit.

I spoke with Capital One and they say Vanquis have to request the money back, which does contradict what I was told prior to my accounts being blocked, but I spoke with them anyways.

Vanquis state they cannot recall the payment as it was through their app and the only small chance I would've had was if I'd done an over the phone transfer.

Took this back to Capital one and they once again repeated the same line, which by this time Vanquis's agents had finished for the day.

I've logged a complaint with Capital One, but has anyone dealt with this issue previously and how did they resolve it?

Prior to being blocked their message team had tried to just refund the balance to my bank which I can only assume is what triggered this issue and that person specifically stated they cannot refund the payment to Vanquis so I'm just really confused right now.

Had also requested at that time if they can just move it to the correct card which I was told no.

Spreadsheet Headings

I wonder if anyone can help me please.

 For several years I have been buying and selling on eBay to build my personal collection. I sell on items I no longer want and use the proceeds to buy a new version, or I buy multiples of an item and sell the spares on to cover the cost of mine. I have been told the latter is deemed trading and I will need to report to HMRC.

I have hired an accountant and she has informed me I need to construct 2 spreadsheets as described below

A)      Items bought for resale (business). This includes multiples or items I changed my mind about owning and sold on.

 B)      Items I kept for myself and sold later (these will come under the £6,000 chattels rule)

To the best of my recollection her instructions were to organise the information as below.  Can anyone confirm if my thinking/recollection is correct or provide any background info on the questions at the end ? Thank you for any help it’s greatly appreciated.

Both of the spreadsheets should be subdivided as follows (please see attached file 'Spreadsheet Headings' :

Gross Sale price per item (eg the amount you sold it for and any postage you charged the buyer, without any deductions,), .

Summarise any Operating Expenses incurred per item: eg initial cost of item, amount of eBay fees, postage paid, any partial refunds etc.

This gives us the formula :

Net operating Profit (per item) = Gross Profit  (of item) - Operating Expenses (of item)

Summing this over the year will give the net operating profit of the year.

Is it at this point I can summarise and deduct the costs of shipping items to me throughout the year ? By this I mean money paid by myself to get a large bundle sent over to myself from overseas. 

When do I debit packaging/postage materials ? Is this also an annual Deduction ?

What other deductions can I potentially claim ? Mileage allowance for trips to the post office ?

For the reselling sheet this is fairly straightforward, however for sheet B these items I have owned for years, how can I take into consideration initial purchase price as it’s long in the past ?