Pretty new to FIRE although I've been doing a fair bit of it for years without realising...as above are there any must read or listens that anybody could recommend? whether directly related to FIRE or just in the same ballpark

I love reading people’s FIRE update, so I thought I’d contribute an update of mine (F32) and my partner’s (M37) journey. We live in Wales and both work in Financial Services. I earn £91k, plus 10% bonus and 15% employer pension contribution. My partner earns £88k, plus 11% bonus and 10% employer pension contribution. We have worked our way up from earning £40k each around 5 years ago.

I discovered FIRE in 2018, and have been following it since then, although I only started formally tracking my numbers in Excel in September 2022.

My partner took a little bit more convincing, but got bought into FIRE during Covid (although he’s always been a saver.) He only started tracking his numbers in June of this year, meaning we only have a six month view of our assets at a household level. We are aiming to retire at 45 and 50, with a pot of £1.5m, which gives us 13 years to get there.

This post is going to cover our progress as a household from June – December 2024 and our intention is to provide an update every six months.

If there’s appetite, I can also share my numbers over the last two years.

Our Numbers

Our Expenses

We spend around £43k per year, and have an outstanding mortgage of £193k. We’re very lucky that we have an interest rate of 1.58%, although this is set to expire in 2026.

How We Got There

• Increased our income: We have both seen strong salary increases over the last 5 years. My partner managed to get an extremely generous voluntary redundancy package during the ‘Great Resignation’ and started a new job almost immediately with a near 100% pay rise. I also moved companies during Covid, increasing my base salary by 75%. I’ve also had a promotion since then, which gave a further c.20% pay rise.

• Property: Living in Wales, we were both very fortunate to be able to independently buy small properties around the £100k mark back in the early-to-mid 2010s in Wales while earning a c.£25k salary. During Covid we moved to a new home, and rented out both properties for c.18 months. We then sold my partner’s flat and kept my house, which we continue to rent out.

• Pensions: Pensions are a great way to build wealth, and I have always put a large chunk of my earnings (c.20-30%) into my pension. In retrospect, this was probably a poor decision back when I was a basic rate tax payer, although the benefit is that those contributions have really compounded over the last few years. We both continue to put 20-30% of our earnings, and our bonuses, into our pensions via salary sacrifice, and our employer puts in additional contributions in as well! That’s why we’ve seen so much growth in our pension amount over the last 6-months.

• Individual Stocks: I dabbled with some individual FTSE250 stock investments during Covid and made some good money (5 figures), before deciding to sell and put it all into index funds. The irony is that I would have made a lot more if I’d kept them, although I much prefer the peace of mind that comes with a ‘set and forget’ index fund strategy.

• Spending Habits: Finally the alignment of our spending habits was crucial; it would be far harder if one of us liked spending most of their wage. Our combined expenses of £43k are high compared to others we’re aware, but we’ve minimised “lifestyle creep” generally, continuing to buy second hand clothes, make mostly homemade meals etc.

• Luck: I cannot overemphasise that we have been lucky. The stock market has performed beautifully over the last 5-years, and we increased our contributions during the ‘flat’ growth period we saw in 2022/3. We were lucky that we were able to buy property early on in our careers, as I’m conscious that if we were just starting out now then we wouldn’t have been able to do it. We’re also lucky that my partner was offered redundancy during Covid, as that made us both feel secure enough to take the ‘risk’ of moving companies, which has paid off massively for us.

What’s Next?

We’re going to continue our slow and steady index fund investment approach into 2025. My partner, who holds the majority of our cash holding, is also going to look to reduce his cash exposure and put more into the market.

We’d also like move to a slightly larger home when our fixed rate mortgage expires, although we are still unclear on whether or not this would be worth losing our FIRE progress for. Our clear ‘red line’ is that we don’t want to touch the money in our ISAs, so we have a fair amount of thinking to do about what we want from the next property and the trade-offs associated with a move.

Does anyone know if HL allow fund transfers to a different SSIP? I wanted to look inti creating own SSIP and choosing the funds i invest in

Just reviewed the geographic breakdown of my various investments and have calculated that I am 51% weighted to North American equity.

Could this be considered too much?

I'm concerned that given the current bubbly valuations US equities will underperform for the next decade.

Basically looking for some advice based on the above. I am 39 and have worked at the same company for 20 years out on the road covering Essex and Herts area. The company I work for have had a massive wave of redundancies (basically offloading the worst performaing staff). They have made the 2 staff members in London redundant and have told me from next month I am now the London engineer. No payrise (I’m on £29,500 btw 😂) no consultation, just expect me to do it without any issues. This is a big multinational company, top 100 employer of choice etc. Obviously I have raised a grievance and have told them I will be looking at alternative employment. Unfortunately I cannot take redundancy either as that phase is now over so I may find myself having to cover London. I have health conditions including chronic pain and ptsd, anxiety and have coped okay with no sick days in 3 years in my current area. London on the other hand, with all the walking, traffic, stress could push me over the edge and I may just end up getting signed off sick. The company pays 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay so I have that option if the stress gets too much. Anyway my question is am I in a strong enough position to live off my investment for a few years without damaging it too much. What advice can anyone give me? Thanks

I would like to know the opinions from people who aim for FIRE about this thing thats been bugging me for sometimes now.Would be a big win of the week if i could fix my mind once and for all on one.

I pay about 6% into my pension and my employer makes a contribution of about 15%. Initially i felt this is a good deal but now that i get to know that USS pension are just inflation adjusted yearly or something and doesn’t give the growth of other pension funds that gets mentioned in this group that invests the fund into Indexes.

Im Hard stuck on deciding what might be a better deal:

1. Stop the current one ( employer will stop putting 15% contributions into my pension pot) but hopefully transfer the current pot into some other pension fund, if possible, that would invest that into index funds.

Pros: Potential growth long term. Cons: Employer 15% contribution gone.

2. Just shutup and be happy that a total of 6%+15% of salary goes into pension pot anyways!

Thanks for reading through and any comments.

My plan is to FIRE in another 15 years at around 57. We are planning to buy a place in Italy in the next two years (I have Italian heritage and will seek citizenship before buying in Italy), then downsize in the UK at retirement and split our time between the UK and Italy.

I'm wondering if anyone here has done similar and if so, how you find it? I'd also like to hear your long term plans as you age? I'd imagine most people plan to stay near there kids in older age or ill health, but I don't really know.

I'm also wondering how you've modeled such decisions in your financial planning? There are so many ifs and buts to this that I have about four scenarios planned for.

I always liked reading these kinds of posts, especially at the start of my FIRE journey so I thought I would share my stats too.

I'm 35, married, live in Scotland, work for a bank, no degree as I dropped out of uni after 2 years.

I know it's hotly debated, but Net Worth figure below excludes my home equity and outstanding mortgage.

I didn't start to track contributions until 2023, where I realised not doing so was artificially inflating how well I was thinking I was saving, due to good market performance.

As for FIRE goals, I'm flexible. Some days we're thinking work hard until FIRE. Some days, I think we'll get so far and CoastFIRE at part time til we feel done. Either way, it's still a long way before any option is available.

So for now we're enjoying our day to day and hitting our annual NW target.

Posting on behalf of my dad. He’s 63, retired living off his forces pension. Owns a flat outright, but is currently unsure of what to do with his last private pension. He has a pot between £250-350k, which he has invested with our friend who is a financial advisor.

He doesn’t plan on accessing the money for a 5 year period. He was happy to go pretty high risk, but i was shocked when he told me that this has gone down 2% this year. This doesn’t sit right with me considering the S&P500 is up 25% this year alone (an abnormal year maybe). My thoughts are move this to a SIPP and invest it himself in the S&P500 if he’s happy with a higher risk. I would welcome any advice please - thank you.

I’m doing preliminary research on an idea I’ve fleshed out so far on ChatGPT of all things, and looking for opinions here on whether this has missed something.

Objectives: I am 50 and not necessarily looking to retire too early, maybe 60-62, but I want FI, and a long term solution for my child and future generations. So I want steady low tax income while retaining and growing capital so it sustains the family long into the future. So IHT needs a solution. I have now with my wife £600k in ISA, £140k in GIA, £300k in pensions, and we are maxing out ISAs each year, as well as about 40k each into pensions each year. I’m about to receive a £500k lump sum from inheritance.

Solution: Keep loading up the ISA and pensions until 62. Create an investment company and loan it the £500k in 2025, with subsidiary focused on property. Transfer the 500k to the subsidiary and with 50% mortgage buy 4 buy to let £250k flats in Manchester. Put all proceeds from the rental income after tax as dividend to the investment company and invest in global tracker ETFs. Do this until retirement at 62 and then spend the DC pensions as quickly as possible on travel and nice experiences, leaving the ISA growing passively. When the DC is exhausted around 67, sell all the flats and transfer funds to the main company, and liquidate the ISA. Put the proceeds from the ISA as a loan to the investment company, By this time I expect about the ISA to be about £1.5m, so this will be a total loan of £2m. The investment company will then have about £3 or £4m, which will all be invested in ETFs. There is no corporation tax on dividends on UK domiciled ETFs, so if the ETF produces eg 3% dividend and 4% growth, we can take the 3% of £3m as £90,000 tax free every year, growing with inflation, as a loan repayment paying no tax at all until £2m is repaid, so this is after about 15 years and when I’m over 80. Once the loan is repaid we can then be paid as dividends. My son will be a director and on our retirement we make him the owner of the company but with rules that only my wife and I can receive loan repayments and dividend payments until we are no longer around, when he can then do as he wishes.

I know BTL has a bad rep here, and the plan above might work with an ETF only plan, but I’m keen on diversifying and Manchester is growing fast so seems a safe bet. Keeping the flats in the subsidiary is clearer and reduces risk in case there is a legal issue with the flats.

What do people think? This seems to produce good cash flow, retains capital and avoids issues with IHT, while producing hopefully a long term resource and security. But I don’t see many posts about investment companies so welcome any suggestions.

I'm assuming most here would opt to invest instead of overpaying the mortgage because you believe your investment returns will outpace the mortgage rate. According to these example illustrations overpaying the mortgage ends the mortgage 9 years earlier than originally scheduled. But investing overtakes the mortgage 13 years earlier than expected.

But why not push this further with an interest only mortgage instead of repayment? Investing the difference would overtake the mortgage 16 years earlier than expected. By year 30, you would be £300k better off with an interest only mortgage compared to investing with a repayment mortgage.

Of course, there is risk involved with this. But I think the aversion to this strategy is mostly behavioral (being unable to stick with the plan and investing the difference) rather than mathematical.

You can mitigate some of the risks by investing in your pension and then using your tax-free lump sum to pay off the mortgage. This would be highly efficient if you are a higher-rate taxpayer. You could also invest in a LISA and use this to pay off the interest only mortgage when you are 60.

Anyway, it seems mathematically that an interest only mortgage is the optimal financial solution and could leave you hundreds of thousands of pounds better off.

What do you think? Are interest only mortgages the optimal financial decision?

2023Hfood & eating outey Flamers (do we have a community name?),

I posted the last two years (find them here and here). There were a lot more positive vibes and good questions last year compared to the first, so let's keep that going! I love gathering this data and seeing my hard work come together. I really try not to look at my positions over the year as I enjoy the surprise at the end. If you want to know more about me, read my last two posts, but I am a software engineer based in London working in the high-frequency trading industry. I'm not going to repeat it all here to keep this short and precise. I will hang out in the comments this weekend and try to answer what I can.

This year's big financial events: I got a new job after thinking I had already hit the ceiling for job hopping. I moved to an American firm that pays American salaries but in London (220k base + 230k bonus). I continue not to contribute to my pension, but it is growing organically. I have a big decision next year whether to lump sum a huge amount in before starting to lose the 4-year carryover, as I am at the taper now it is time to make use of what I have on the table while I can but id love to hear others opinions. I doubled my investment in crypto and have now taken out my initial investment (30k), and the rest remains as a fun bet allowing me to be super boring with my other investments, which are in ETFs and trackers.

Big costs this year have been holidays (12k) and a big focus on health. I spent 7k on memberships to physical activities including the gym with a personal trainer. This has been money well spent, and I feel so much healthier for it. I also learned how to get the most out of private medical insurance by going for a free physiotherapist session every week, who just focuses on any aches and pains.

I made tables last year, so I have extended them with this year's data.

Salary Progression

Assets

(*Bonus only just landed)

Spendings

My Year in Review

I would not have guessed that I changed jobs and increased my earnings by 50%. It really pays to keep in contact with good recruiters who take the time to learn your niche and will keep an eye out for the perfect job for you. I thought my costs would have risen more, to be honest, but having my GF move in with me has led to some savings (not all costs split evenly). The market has been good and with Trump coming in it seems the stock market is the best place to keep capital over the next year. I did not really treat myself this year to any big-ticket purchases; maybe that's for next year! (I see you RTX 5090). My goal for next year is to get my FIRE net wealth to 750k, which is a balancing act between taking advantage of pension or using GIA.

I am always open to ideas to optimize my FIRE, so do leave a comment. If you're in the industry, I am happy to discuss it as I do with my mates, and we all improve our position by knowing more about the market.

Best of luck to everyone, and keep saving!

Hey all,

I want to sense check with everyone my current approach.

Some basic details Age 39 Married 2 kids age 6 and 3. (last year at nursery) earning 130k, partner 42k Have two buy to let , net after tax per year is around 6k.

For the last 3 years I have maxed out my pension allowance (between employer and own contribution).

current pension pot is around 300k and parther is on the DB scheme, but not really looked in to it.

Pretty much don't have savings as all go into pension. My view is tax saving is too good!

Is this a good approach ? cash flow will be better next year once daughter goes to school.

What would you change ?

Thanks D

Please feel free to use this space to discuss anything on your mind related to FIRE - newbie questions, small bits of advice, or anything else that you feel doesn't belong in a separate thread.

Besides company pension match and some funds we're holding like bonds and emergency savings, my partner and I want to shift all of our savings/investments in the next 3-5 years to pay as much cash as we can for a home (if possible we aim to do the whole thing in cash). We're starting with 50k and going to split the ongoing contributions between index funds and low risk pots.

In summary, we're really keen to get off of rent... and we've still got a few years before deciding where to settle permanently (whether in or out of the UK as we're both from other countries). We also like to avoid as much debt (mortgage) & interest as possible. Getting off rent or paying off a small, quick mortgage could double our contributions into retirement going forward just based on our incomes today. So it seems like a sensible thing to prioritise.

Does this seem a bit extreme or is it a reasonable goal to set?

Going to post my stats and assumptions, can I be doing any more?

Currently on £75,000 pa

Salary Sacrifice - £687.50 per month

Take home - £3,900 per month

Matched Betting - Around £1,500 a month (Last 5 months average is £1,675, so being prudent with estimates)

JustPark - £250 per month (Last 9 months average)

Interest - £85 per month (May reduce when I pay my 0% credit cards but depends on the credit card offers at the time)

So my net income per month is around £5,700 per month

Monthly Expenses (£2,425)

Housing - £1,350

Food Shop - £200

Eating Out/Hobbies/Shopping - £330

Car (Insurance, Tax, Fuel etc) - £300

Subscriptions (Music, iCloud, Prime) - £25

Sports - £220

This leaves me with around £3,275 left

I invest £1,667 per month in the Vanguard All Cap ISA.

Leaves me around £1,608 left

I have a 40 year mortgage because I believe the market will outperform my mortgage at 4%

I put a lot into my house, so I have:

Pension - £31,000

S&S ISA - £22,500

Cash - £36,000

0% Credit Cards - (£22,000)

I want to retire as early as possible (Even 45 if I can) so I’ve been pummelling into my S&S ISA as much as I can

What else can I do?

I’ve been at my current company for less than 3 months but I feel like I have some leeway to ask for a raise, I’ve been working all the time and my CFO knows I’m overworked, could use this for a salary increase?

Anything else I can do to cut expenses or increase income?

How do I forecast for potential future kids and family costs?

I’m 26 if that helps.

2022

2023

I am posting this sort of as a dear diary and perhaps a way of how not to attempt to FIRE.

**Interesting year summary**

Since my last post I failed to mention that i got a new job because i was made redundant. the redundancy pay came in at just under £30k. I had a job lined up already so all the money went into ISAs. 10k mine, 10k my wifes and and 5k into kids JISAs, rest into topping up emergency fund. Worked for 6 months and got laid off again. It was not my fault at all and snagged 50k severance somehow. checked with hmrc and since in two different fiscal year im eligible for the tax free 30k again. This time round i was without a job until three weeks ago so money went on living expenses but a lot of it managed to top up everyone ISAs and a 10k holiday. Dont even ask about that expenditure, if it wasnt for me the entire 50k would have been spent on non FIRE stuff.

The difficult bit, that caused a lot of stress, was getting a new job. You see in the previous times i moved jobs all i did was log onto linked in and reply to a few DMs to recruiters who had interesting jobs lined up for me that also showed a bump in salary. I had 3/4 rounds of interviews with maybe 5/6 companies and get 2-3 offers. negotiate them against each other and bam id have an offer id be content with.

This time round I thought I was safe as soon as I was made redundant. I got to final stages of two companies and after 6 interview for one and about 5 for the other one said they went with a better candidate which i guess is palatable and the other said i passed all their interviews and they were going to make me the offer but the whole company went into a hiring freeze. checked on their site and it was legit, all the jobs were gone lol.

What followed was a drying up of the market and things were looking bleak. I felt like i was technically incapable and was questioning if i was even able to do my job if i wasnt able to pass the interviews. Even worse, I wasnt able to get interviews at one point. the only reliable way for me to get an interview was through referrals. I was referred to meta and landed an interview. I did not realise the toil people put themselves through for these interviews. For some reason i joined the mould and did the same nonsense. There are a lot of resources on technical interviews for FAANGs, im pretty sure its all been leaked and answered online. So what it comes down to is if you either get lucky with interviewer or you memorised the right questions. The technical details perhaps I will do a write for r/leetcode but what put me off interviewing entirely is that i prepared for this for far longer than i did for anything since maybe my A levels/Uni exams. I was stressing over it. It wasnt healthy and it was s gut punch when i inevitable got the rejection via email. You get a rejection via a call if you were somewhat close. So i must have bombed more than half my technical interviews.

There was a lull after that rejection where i didnt even bother practicing for interviews, recruiters really dried up at this point and it was looking bleak. FIRE for the next year was looking to take a back seat and it was turning into survival to look after your family of 4. It took a bit of motivation to persevere with getting referrals. google/amazon/spotify/bloomberg/apple referrals dont work anymore it seems. i didnt even get a a rejection email for some of them, just gone in the void.

I persevered with all of them and eventually one more referral stuck and i was able to complete the interview loop and get an offer. I had no negotiating power but had to put a front on as though I had and would have bitten their hand off for whatever offer they gave me. I did exactly that the same day they gave me the offer. I did not want anything to go wrong. I lay down and just took it. Could not risk anything going wrong.

I had no choice and from pretty much fully remove a few years back i am now going into london 3 days a week. It is tiring trying to raise two children and commute hour and a half each way. All to feed family and try to reach fire faster.

There is an upside though:

£120k base

12% employer contribution for 6% employee but im putting in 25% to get below 100k for this year

FIRE PROGRESS

https://preview.redd.it/vwluevvq338e1.png?width=606&format=png&auto=webp&s=cd3e7b14601d4f61bc6e5594f852351ac9e6554b

I have a long way to go. I am trying to align my strategy from the helpful comments last year and start moving stuff over to ISA. My ISA for this year is already at 15, so I can potentially max it out this year. That number does not include house equity. There are changes in that area, as a growing family we were looking to expand housing. Just not comfortable throwing another 2-3-400k into the market to get an extra bedroom and bathroom. House prices are continuing to be bonkers. As such loft extension seems appealing.

This is only my numbers, I am not counting my wifes pension or ISA.

https://preview.redd.it/jxfx35oo438e1.png?width=2890&format=png&auto=webp&s=f2ab4cfc84e1c955aa3beb9582e3af03d4b3288d

Forgot to add the legend

https://preview.redd.it/b6sqez6i738e1.png?width=254&format=png&auto=webp&s=889d2fe9a1ef64a78bfea81f286a70107ac9d81d

Elephant in the room. crypto. i am just not diversifying from it. if anything im starting to use my own hardware to stake ethereum. it is an interesting technical challenge for myself and i enjoy it. its also an increase in returns. Sad bit is it counts as income tax. If it blows up im going to have to up sticks and move to 0 tax jurisdiction long enough for the 5 year tax rule in the uk as well as build up significant diversification to not rely on income from staking as to minimise income tax if i want to come back to uk.

I wonder about a ltd where 4 family members are directors drawing money out if such an operation would work with crypto being the investment

I am counting house equity right now because I think the house will be sold for something else in the future. Most likely downsize

FIRE GOALS 2025

• last year of nursery fees. extra cash straight into ISAs

• max out my ISA at least, surplus into wifes ISA, all in VWRL

• potentially -£60k for a loft extension - not sure where the money will come from, extra mortgage or what not. thinking of ways to structure that and minimise impact on fire

• Finally get rid of poor GIA investment and rotate into maxing out ISAs

• reach 50k ISA

• reach 200k pension

Any questions or helpful tips are welcome

Vanguard have increased their platform fees on amounts under £32k, to a minimum of £4 per month.

A lot of people on here have the tactic to use Vanguard for a year, then switch into iWeb for long term cost minimising. Is anyone who does this changing their tactics or switching platform as a result of the fee changes?

Hi all,

35m here. Salary £115k. £245k in my ISA and £315k in my pension. Roughly £120k home equity. Fill up my ISA every year.

I’m moving potentially moving abroad in long term to Brazil (wife Brazilian). However now I might be going to Dubai for 4-5 years in the near term future.

I owe £40k on my student loan Plan 2. Should I start prioritising this?

I was hell bent on getting to £1m invested at 40 and paying this off might set me back a little. But 7.3% interest is killing me. I just received a nice bonus and over £2k went on student loans.

I know it’s a personal decision, but with my assets and a fully funded emergency fund, would you just spend a year paying it off over saving?

Hi everyone, I’m a sole trader and trying to wrap my head around how pension contributions work when my income hasn’t been taxed yet. Here’s my situation:

1. Income: £125,000 from self-employment.

2. Pension Contribution: I paid £8,000 into a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP).

3. Provider Top-Up: My pension provider added £2,000 (basic-rate tax relief), so the gross contribution is £10,000.

4. Self-Assessment: I know I’ll need to declare my full £125,000 income on my Self-Assessment and can deduct the gross £10,000 contribution to reduce my taxable income to £115,000.

Here’s what’s confusing me:

My income hasn’t been taxed yet because I’m a sole trader. When the provider adds the £2,000, isn’t that giving me relief twice?

Once when the provider adds 20%.

Then again when I deduct the gross contribution (£10,000) from my taxable income in Self-Assessment.

I feel like I’m getting 20% relief twice for the same income portion. Shouldn’t my taxable income only be reduced by my own contribution (£8,000) rather than the gross £10,000?

Can someone explain why this doesn’t count as double relief? I’m trying to figure out if I’m misunderstanding or if this is how the system works.

Thanks for any help!

Hello Everyone,

I have a BTL with an outstanding mortgage of £300K. I am currently living with family in another property from Day 1 when it was built 5 years back.

Once kids move out to university in next 5 years, I plan to sell this property and use the gains to pay off the BTL and make it as my main home for my retirement.

Do I need to pay CGT on my current property or pay it back if I make BTL as my main home ?

Thanks

I discovered FIRE a year ago, and kicked myself for the many financial mistakes I'd made up till then! After that I got started trying to plan, track, and organise savings and investments better (first post here).

As background: I'm 37m, in London, married with young toddler.

Here's my update so far.

Progress in 2024:

This year has gone quite well, with much higher growth than I expected going into it.

I made some decisions a year ago to better allocate my investments, and avoid foolish decisions I'd made in the past, in particular

• Moving more funds out of cash & savings accounts and into higher-growth investments;
• Adjusting all fund portfolios to be weighted towards stocks (and global rather than UK weighted)
• Maximising unused pension allowances, of which I'd accumulated a significant amount in the past few years

This happened at a fortunate time given the year we've had in the market.

I kicked myself for finding out about FIRE relatively late, but I'm very grateful I learned about the improvements I could make ahead of such a good year for equities.

Plans for 2025 and beyond

I've revised my FIRE target upward from last year, from £1.3m to £1.43m (a mixture of a slightly higher buffer than my calculations then, and inflation from the 2023 figure).

Given this year, it's possible I'll achieve this goal before my previous target age of 57. Calculators suggest mid- to late-40s on even fairly conservative assumptions, although it's hard to predict of course.

2025 is likely to be a story of continuity from this year: I don't intend to make dramatic changes to my portfolio or investment strategy, and I don't expect to be able to increase my savings rate (some high costs like nursery fees get in the way of that!) There are some downside risks, and my job is not hugely safe at the moment, but I can only control so much.

I do expect to put FIRE more to the back of my mind than the front of my mind, though. With a stressful work situation, I found myself using FIRE as an outlet to think about how I could put it all behind me one day, and was constantly reading on the topic, checking my portfolio, updating spreadsheets, and so on. It wasn't healthy for me to think about it so often, and I'm going to try focus more this year on managing work stress where I can: the journey is long and you've got to find a way to enjoy it.

How am I doing? Is my plan reasonable?

Hi all, long time lurker and very grateful for this sub. Wanted to post my current situation (new account) just to get an idea of how I'm doing and some thoughts if my plans are reasonable/achievable.

I'm (34 M), married (wife not earning) with 1 child under 1 (no plan for more).

• Income: ~250-300K (varies based on stock price)
• ISA: 315K (maxed out every year)
• GIA: 440K
• Pension: 110K (contribute the max the company will match 5%)
• House: equity 220K, remaining balance on mortgage: 520K

Total NW including house: 1 Million 85K

Total NW excluding house: 865K

I've only started earning and saving at 25 (so just the last 9 years) and have been lucky with landing a high paying job and also lucky with good 9 years of stock market gains.

My plan:

• Continue maxing out ISA every year

• Continue contributing to pension the maximum that the company will match. I know there are massive tax benefits for my tax bracket when it comes to pensions, but I really hate the fact the money is inaccessible and the retirement age keeps moving.

• Currently investing ~40-50% of my income into stocks, mostly S&P 500. I expect this to continue (possibly increase as my income increases, could also decrease - see next point)

• Schooling: the plan is to go state school (there is a nice one next to us), but if our child doesn't get in, then we'd look into private schools around us. They are between 20-30K per year. This will reduce the amount I can invest.

• Pay for my son's university

• Buy my child a car when he's older

• Buy my child a house (deposit) when he starts working

• If I die before wife/child, leave them enough money so that wife doesn't need to work and all their basic needs are taken care of. I have life insurance of 1.7 million

I've put some number in compounding calculator with average 7% annual return based on my current numbers and in 15 years it takes me to £3.5 million

Goal: retire by 50 with annual expenses of ~50-60K. Do you think this is doable? Am I missing something?

Thanks

EDIT - I mean SIPP**

I was reading today there is a government top up of 20% to an SISS on top of the tax relief you get, which would be 40% for me. With the top up it seems to be a no brainer?

For context, I have a company pension, I pay 10% they pay 10%. I wouldn’t be putting massive amounts in the SISS initially ~£3k per year, however there’s a good chance I will go over the £100k mark in the next 2-3 years so I’d also like somewhere to put money so I can avoid any 60% tax trap.

Is my thinking on this sound here? Or am I better off putting it into my ISA or GIA?

What is best to do?

1- pay off the mortgage and then rent + buy a bugger house

2- pay off the mortgage at the existing rate so you have more cash available and put as much as you can into index-funds and stocks?

I am sure this has been covered numerous times, but with the current economic climate coming up, interested to hear thoughts and opinions.

Cheers

Once you have paid off your property, how much will that get you for the next mortgage.

How much does the bank consider a a fully paid of property and annual rental income to mortgage against.

Eg, your salary is leveraging 5x or 4x

Is your property similar to this concept, will you get the full value of your property + annual rental income to borrow against.

Thanks

Hi all

I'm exploring the potential of setting up a LTD to trade shares. The reason for doing this is that I want to create a shared investment vehicle with a friend, with a view towards building a track record in investing and potentially managing other people's money some day.

I'm trying to determine the tax implications of doing this, and whether it would leave me worse off than investing as an individual and paying CGT. Does anyone have any experience with this?

I have seen lots of threads on Reddit about investing a company's profits into stocks, but this is not what I am doing. I am looking at setting up a brand new entity with the explicit intention of trading stocks.

Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks!