u/Ki1664

Prohibit hospitality businesses from automatically adding "discretionary" service charges to bills, and ban digital card readers from prompting customers with pre-set tip percentages before payment. We believe all tipping must be 100% voluntary and initiated by the customer

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In our view, the current tipping culture has become coercive and stressful as some restaurants routinely use "drip pricing," adding a 12.5% charge at the end of a meal, forcing customers to awkwardly ask to remove it. We think digital payment screens with pre-set tipping suggestions use psychological pressure to guilt people into tipping for basic counter service. We think this creates a hostile environment and anxiety for consumers.

With the crazy markets this year, today I realised we are now mortgage neutral; having enough in our ISA’s to pay off our mortgage if we wanted.

We made the decision to invest instead of overpaying and touchwood so far it seems to have paid off. I know there’s lots of questions about overpaying vs investing

Some numbers M36/F33 married, in the house we’ll probably die in. 5 bed, 1 toddler/ 1 on way. House is worth about 380k, 250k left on the 32 year mortgage, currently fixed for another 2 years at 3.4% and paying £1082 a month. Made the decision to heavily invest in the ISA’s while the allowances are generous and while we are young. Heavily increased contributions during the Covid dip and the rest has just been DCA.

ISA’s at 257k as at today. Both of us work as public servants earning 34k and 54k respectively. Never been high earners but live frugally during the month, have on average invested around 40% of our wages since we started our Fire journey in March of 2019. I drive a 14 year old car but we splash out on a couple of decent holidays a year as our motto is experiences not things. Due to a recent pay cut (was on 44k before January but took a career change) we’re only investing around £500 a month since the start of the year as well as saving up for maternity leave. Hopefully next year this can increase .

Both our Pensions are DB currently about 12k each a year from SPA with 13 years working although we can both take from 57 reduced. I also have a SIPP with about 35k in contributing £250 a month.

Holding 14k in premium bonds as an emergency fund and 8k in crypto BTC/ETH that I bought in 2019.

My plan has always been for us to fire aged 50-55 or at least have the financial independence to choose. Mortgage should be small enough to pay off or investments can cover hopefully, but at least will have the decision.

All in all no regrets not overpaying the mortgage. Here’s to lower interest rates in a few years 🙏🏽