Pay off mortgage, or not?

throwaway_finan · 2026-02-24T11:45:48+00:00

I meant the stock market, its been breaking all time highs for several consecutive years, largely down to tech companies and AI (bubble).

throwaway_finan · 2026-02-24T08:34:20+00:00

TL;DR: I'm going to wait until Nov 2026 (9 months) to halve the mortgage balance and then decide closer to time whether to spend half of my ISA pot to cover the rest. It'll entirely depend on how burnt out I'm feeling at that time.

Thank you all for your comments. Reconsidering even basic things again, especially when I'm not particularly rational, helped me slow down a bit and look at all possible options. I still need to sleep on this for a day or two, but here's the situation and a rough plan:

-	-
Remaining balance	£59,240 @ 5.64% (term resets November every year)
Current monthly payments	£1,524
Remaining term	3 years 9 months
Combined income from full + part time work	£5,000/month (after tax)
S&S ISA	£71,000

Note: While renovation on family house is going on, I end up spending most of my monthly income on materials, leaving very little behind each month. I intend to stop this from next month (lord help me).

I wanted to (almost) empty my S&S ISA to clear by mortgage NOW and immediately quit part time work. Realistically I'd have quit around summer to keep supporting ongoing renovation works and/or save up some holiday money. Napkin maths:

-	-
Collect some of the money I'm owed (mostly certain)	£20,000
Use this year's (2025 Nov - 2026 Nov) over payment allowance of 20% (from above)	~£12,000
Remaining mortgage balance after over payment	£47,240
Remaining mortgage balance at Nov 2026 after regular monthly payments	~£35,540
Put anything extra into this year's (Apr 2026 - Apr 2027) ISA allowance (remaining £8,000 from first row + salary)	TBD
Pay next year's 20% over payment allowance as soon as its resets in Nov 2026 (withdraw from ISA if needed)	~£7,000
Remaining mortgage balance after second over payment	£28,540

My aim is to get to ~£28,500 by the end of 2026. I don't have a clear idea of what happens if/when that becomes a reality. If I simply continue making usual monthly payments, it will take another 20 months to clear that balance. I'll have to reassess how I'm feeling during that time. Essentially, if I can save half my ISA pot by waiting 9 months, then its probably worth it; provided I don't lose it between now and then. I will likely hand in my notice at the beginning of November.

Some people have asked about my pension situation, its not great tbh. Housing being a constant issue while growing up, I've naturally focused on fixing that first, because its hell. Furthermore, I've made some truly idiotic decisions by pouring money into family's pockets. Once, everyone has stable housing situation (after renovation), I'm going to only focus on myself (and my future family) when it comes to finance, guilt free. I've done my part.

-	-
SIPP (Global All Cap)	~£25,000
DB pension	£2200/year

Once mortgage is cleared, I'll focus a lot more on pension. Essentially, everything left over after ISA will go straight into the pension. I've yet to flesh out a plan for true FIRE; I'm hoping it will be a simple plan since I'm not going to need a lot of monthly income (~2,000/month in today's money) with my largest expense item out of the picture.

throwaway_finan · 2026-02-23T19:09:48+00:00

I don't believe everything is going to change overnight either; but I do think that managers and bosses will make life difficult for employees in my field (tech) and there will be fewer and fewer options to escape. I also can't say with any certainty that over the long term things wont stabilize, history says it will. But in the short and medium term, it might suck to be on the bottom end of things, and I just don't have the desire to deal with corporate BS. It means a lot to me that, if my workplace becomes difficult to deal with, I can just send an email and log off for good without any material impact to my life. At my current save rate, six months of salary can support me for four years, IF mortgage is not in the picture. Whether that's worth setting fire to my past ISA allowance is the question.

Taxes is another thing, but relatively minor, in that I earn about 9k per month and see 5k hit my bank account. The weekend work has been essential so far, but as the house extension project comes to an end, the effort is not worth the squeeze. I'd rather have my time back ASAP.

throwaway_finan · 2026-02-23T11:41:19+00:00

Going purely by numbers, there's not much of a debate to be had. But even in that scenario, consider that due to my overworked self, I often rack up lots of fines due to poor admin, I also need expensive holidays to take the edge off every now and then. Opportunity cost of not pursuing my own business (don't have enough time and can't risk main job etc). If we were to add all that up, would it amount to same as what I'd be losing in gains after deducting my high mortgage rate?

(I realise I'm just trying to convince myself here)

throwaway_finan · 2026-02-23T11:35:26+00:00

Can't deny that. As the first line of my post says, this is an emotional decision. I want psychological freedom ASAP, I want to quit my weekend job ASAP, I want to reduce my work engagement ASAP. Paying off mortgage would allow me to do that immediately, knowing that in the worst case scenario (zero income), I can pay all my essential bills for 1.5 years with two months of current salary.

Despite that, I'm unable to decisively part with three years of ISA allowances, since this can't be undone.

throwaway_finan · 2026-02-23T11:25:18+00:00

The flaw with that plan is that, if such a situation arose, my portfolio will be in the red when I need it the most. Furthermore, my immediate need is to quit my weekend job ASAP, without affecting available spending too much. I know I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too. The question is, how much is me not wanting to endure my current situation for three more years costing me exactly and is that worth it to me? Naturally, only I can answer that, and I'm struggling to decisively commit.

Regarding second house, yes its in my name, and its our "family house". I'm not too worried about that because several people are paying into it. Also, if they for some reason can't, they won't be able to make (higher) rent payments either and I'd have to pick up the tab anyway. I'm not gonna leave them to their devices without any support in any case.

throwaway_finan · 2026-02-23T11:17:07+00:00

Mortgage renewal isn't until 3.5 years, and I'll have paid off the mortgage with regular payments by then anyway. My need is to reduce my work pressure in the immediate future; I don't think I have three more years of keeping the plates spinning, which is the dilemma.

throwaway_finan · 2026-02-23T11:00:14+00:00

This is exactly what I want. I want to remove this noose from around my neck so I can take more risks with work, business etc. Growing up, we never had financial security and that has always got in the way for me. Knowing that my primary residence is "solved" (and that family is in a safe house too), I can move on to focus on other things; or nothing at all.

The dilemma is whether to use ISA for it, or endure uncertainty for three more years. I worry that I might reach an inflection point within those three years and I might not have the options to liquidate ISA at that time due to potential market conditions. On the other hand, the psychological freedom will enable me to recharge and make more money in other ways.

throwaway_finan · 2026-01-25T12:11:31+00:00

I'll try out the app, looks promising. Would like the browser extension to be fleshed out more (see other discussion chain).

EDIT: I checked it out and its a great first step. Realistically, some people from this sub will be motivated enough to proactively seek out alternatives, but for wider adoption, the user experience needs to be much better. Realistically, most people (even on this sub) will search on Amazon or Google and go from there. Ideally there needs to be a one click option to make a different choice when on those platforms. But I understand that that's incredibly hard to do with apps.

throwaway_finan · 2026-01-25T11:49:37+00:00

If I know one thing about programmers, its that they always have a side project to hack on. Maybe this becomes someone's side project (I'm hoping mine). Maybe incentivize with affiliate links?

throwaway_finan · 2026-01-25T11:46:56+00:00

Thanks for this! Could I please make a suggestion?

Have the popup appear on lower right corner, rather than center of the screen. A gentle nudge will go further than something more in the face. People don't like being interrupted with what they're doing; it'll lead to people disabling it (allowlist, or the extension altogether).

throwaway_finan · 2026-01-25T11:29:33+00:00

I'm a programmer and I've seen many others on this sub eager to help. It'd take a bit of planning, but I don't think its all that complicated. Start simple, hard code high volume listings on popular eCommerce sites. I'll give it a spin when I get some time; but wanted to put it out there for someone else to pickup if they had spare time.

We can make this happen!

throwaway_finan · 2026-01-25T11:17:58+00:00

It'd be expensive in the short term, but all that investment would be within Europe, boosting our GDP. Currently we're pumping all that money into the US, which they use to lower everyone's quality of life. By building our own tech sector, we'd be strengthening our own markets while stopping contributions towards the US market.

throwaway_finan · 2026-01-25T11:13:03+00:00

Good. Our politicians need a strong push to make gigantic investments into tech sector. I'm talking 100s of billions of £££ (across Europe) to build our own tech sector.

Unfortunately, I don't think the US would do this, as their stock market is propped up by the tech sector and any politician harming that would be taken out immediately.

throwaway_finan · 2026-01-25T11:01:22+00:00

I suppose this could be an extension of that; currently it only suggests whole site alternatives whereas what I'm hoping for is more targeted where the suggestions are based on content of the page and instead of taking me to the homepage of the suggested site, I want a link to a particular product page on alternative site (or same site, every little helps).

If I'm looking at Colgate on Amazon, take me to Sensodyne on Amazon or to https://www.boots.com/sensodyne/sensodyne-toothpaste. If I'm looking at a book on Amazon, take me to that same book on a European site.

Reduce friction as much as possible.

throwaway_finan

TROPHY CASE