Parts 204-205

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.  Some thoughts on my mortgage, and some positive updates to my investment income.

Updates since the last post…

I’m not in a good place, mentally I mean.  I’ve not woken up and found myself in Essex or something.  It’s fair to say I’m feeling awful.  I’m not going to talk too much about it in this post though.  I only mention it because the frequency with which I post may be further reduced, as might be my interactions on social media.  

In brief, I’m struggling with my mental health.  There’s so many layers to this, and different moving parts, that’s it’s almost impossible to untangle.  There’s the depression, anxiety, and stress that’s just a contstant presence in my life.  This is in no small part down to being autistic in a non-autistic world.  Trying to explain what it’s like to a non-autistic person is difficult, but here is my somewhat simplistic example.  Imagine you are at some event, like a party.  This party represents the world.  There is a constant buzzing sound which no one else can hear, but which you can hear and it’s causing physical and mental discomfort.  The other people at this event are aware there’s a buzz, and they are aware that it’s causing you discomfort.  However, they’re not willing to turn a dial to turn the buzzing off, despite such an act causing them almost no hassle in the process.  This is why “Autism Awareness” is a steaming pile of horseshit.  The world is not designed for autistic people, and that’s why autistic people struggle.  It’s like walking through life with a rock in your shoe.  

Something else that’s been on my mind lately is my own mortality.  Autistic people have, according to many reports and studies, much shorter life expectencies than non-autistic people.  Depending on the report/study, the quoted average age of death is between 39 and 56.  I’ve just turned 40, and to complicate matters I have *deep breath* issues with my heart, type-2 diabetes, thyroid issues, and a range of other long-term physical health problems.  

For the last few months I’ve been putting a brave face out there to world as much as possible, but the reality is I’m struggling.  It’s taking so much strength and stamina each day, to just get through that one day.   

Last week I was out and about doing various things, and I took a route I don’t normally walk.  I was going through an area with trees, and some secluded grassy areas.  There was this one point at which I just stopped, and looked around.  It was so peaceful.  The sky was blue, and the sun was shining down in a warming, non-harsh way.  There was a gentle breeze, and there were birds on the field to my side hopping around looking for food.  It wasn’t anything special, and I’ve seen parts of the natural world that are more stunning and beautiful.  There was just something in that one moment of time that seemed so peaceful, but it was like I was an observer of that peace rather than being part of it.  

I’m just so tired of all this.  I’m so very, very tired.

So what do I do now? I keep going.  That’s all I can do.  I keep going and I hope that things get better over time.

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2023 Goals

Click here to see my 2023 progress (opens a new tab). 

What Am I Doing?

TV: Waiting for Ahsoka to finish so I can binge it all in one go.

Audiobook: The Great Post Office Scandal by Nick Wallis.

Financial Update

Total Assets: £520,896.92. 

Total Debts: £280,440.89. 

Total Wealth: £240,456.03.

Investment Income in 2023: £6,495.65 (target £8,500).

I had a nice boost to the finances this week, as I received four (almost) identical letters.  Each letter was regarding an old loan I’ve had dating back several years.  It turns out I was overcharged interest, and so I’m getting that interest back along with some compensation.  

Regular readers may remember the problems I had with Barclaycard earlier this year.  The Financial Ombudsman has confirmed that they have all the call recordings from Barclays, and so I’m just waiting for a decision from FOS.  I’d be amazed if I didn’t get something from this, and Barclays have already offered, via FOS, to pay me £75 to resolve the complaint.  I told them to jog on.  For those who don’t know what happened, I’ll briefly explain…

There was an offer earlier this year where Barclays offered 50,000 Avios (airmiles) if you signed up to their card and spent £3k in three months.  I was accepted for the card, and from that point on every single thing Barclays did was wrong.  They even tried to deny the offer ever existed, despite a friend of mine signing up to the exact same offer, and receiving a similar experience to me.  There’s also evidence online of this offer, including on Barclays own website.  

My Mortgage

In the next couple of weeks the index valuations of my properties should update.  This is a quarterly update, and I’m expecting a slight drop.  Once I know what I’m working with, the focus is then switching our residential mortgage to interest-only.  To do this, we need the LTV to be 75% or less.  This means we’ll have to hammer the balance down a bit, as the current LTV is approx 76.4%.  Once we have the LTV below the required amount, we can then put roughly £125,000 of the debt on interest-only.

Our mortgage is not particularly simple.  We have a dozen or so parts to our mortgage, each with differing rates of interest and repayment terms.  The plan is to put the parts of the mortgage on interest-only that have the lowest rates of interest, so we can focus more of the repayment of capital on the parts with the higher rates of interest.  

Looking further ahead, renting out our apartment is a fundamental part of our FIRE plans.  Apartments of our size and type, in our part of the country, can typically rent for at least £1,100pcm.  We also have a secured parking space which will boost that.  Our service charges and ground rent total up to around £150pcm, and then there’s tax to pay on any rent received.  I’ve been trying to work out what we’d need to reduce our mortgage payments to, in order to actually make some money off the apartment.  Assuming an interest-only mortgage with a rate of 5%, we’d need to drop the balance down to around £120,000 for it be viable.  If rates are lower, we can go with a higher debt.  However, higher rates of interest mean we’d have to reduce the debt further.  It’s a balancing act.  

2023 and 2024 Investment Income

I need to generate a further £2k in the final three months of the year to hit my 2023 investment income goal.  It’s going to be difficult, and I’m probably relying on a Premium Bonds win to push me over the line.  A typical month will see me receive around £575 of investment income.  This figure is made up of the various investments that pay out monthly, but not the investments that pay out once or twice a year, like stock dividends.  £575 x 3 = £1,725, so I’m not that far away from hitting my goal in reality.  

Taking that £575 monthly figure into 2024, it would produce an annual amount of £6,900.  Then, there are the various dividends received annually or six-monthly, which based on the last year’s payments, could potentially set me up for generating £10,000 investment income in 2024.  

Disclaimer

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my employer, nor should they be considered advice.

If you want personalised financial advice, seek an appropriate professional.  If you are in financial difficulty, seek advice via the resources below:

StepChange

MoneyHelper

Biolink and other links

You can now find all my social media pages by checking out my Biolink:

bio.link/davidscothern.

Also, check out Darren Scothern’s blog which talks about autism, being autistic, and general mental health:

www.darrenscothern.com

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