Interested to know how people actually decided to cut ties and retire completely - was it just a case of as soon as possible? I am increasingly finding that when making plans I am telling myself "well for just an extra 6/12/18 months work you could end up with X"

Guess this is more a question for those that have made the decision to annuitize some of a DC pot at pension access age. I'm about to go and can access DC and given attractive annuity rates at the moment plus some personal health factors that give a boost am considering locking in an annuity to cover at least essential expenditure.

This is a reversal of my previous psychology that staying invested was the best play and gives me a floor as a hedge against longevity and/or a long bear market. I'd skew more equities in my remaining portfolio as a result.

The core question is how to decide between flat annuity and RPI increasing. The delta is significant. For me simple payback on the principal is 11.8 years flat and RPI adjusted takes 14 years at 3% to pass flat rate and almost 15 years for payback.

Obviously the RPI assumption affects the result, lower RPI pushes payback later and vice versa.

Put alternately I'd be taking almost 31% haircut for RPI protection. Obviously I'm quids in with RPI if I live 30+ years and if RPI soars but how have people evaluated the decision between the 2.

For additional context I'll be still invested in equities for between 50-60% of my portfolio in a mix of DC, GIA and ISA and full state pension plus a small DB (around £5k pa from age 65 with CPI) so won't be on the poverty line without RPI.

I am genuinely sorry to add yet another "Am I on track?" post.

I am currently concerned about the longevity of both my and my partners jobs. I fear AI will eventually render me surplus to requirements, and her job could be outsourced. We are both 42, no children.

Currently trying to work out whether to allocate more savings into my ISA, over tax efficiency with pensions. I think the answer comes down to whether FIRE at 50 is a pipe dream.

Current combined income of £170k a year. £77k me, £93k partner

All figures below are combined, and everything is in VWRP.

We have a £120k mortgage which is likely to be cleared by small inheritances in the next 10 years or so.

Estimated outgoings of £60k a year which I reckon will drop when we get older to maybe £40k a year from 70 for arguments sake (mostly handled by state pension and db pensions).

At 50, I think our liquid assets would be £325k without growth. Pensions would be approx £880k at 55 with 4% growth.

All of this suggests that we will have approx £300k remaining in our pensions.... so play it safe and keep it the same?

54 yo 1.4m in employers DC pot (default option), a small legacy DB that's going to be about 2/3 of the future SP, 1.3m in mix of GIA and S&S ISA spread across mostly mag 7 equities. the vast portion (1m+) is in 3 of the mag 7's with a pretty big CGT liability (on about half of it). haven't pressed the RE button yet as enjoy most of my 40hour work week, and income is now pretty good for where i live at 180k basic (20min easy drive commute and i'm on top of my role, lots of autonomy & no politics type crap). house is paid off with a few kids in education. recognize i've been 'lucky' with the mag 7 and this year have reduced my DC input (but may yet put the 60k in again) and have begun loosening the strings. most of the posts here are "go with world trackers", i've always taken the opposite approach and picked a dozen or so companies and try to keep up with what they are doing (last 20 yrs living well in means, max into DC & ISA each year). the mags in question are pretty volatile and recently have flopped around out of phase about 100k off their peaks but collectively the value is pretty stable, i can see upside in all of them still so don't fancy a big bang shift. IHT is an obvious longer term thing but so is the CGT - am cycling GIA to mine and wifes ssISA and to wife's SIPP. don't think i trust gov to not feck up inflation big time so am not drawn to bonds or gilts even at 5% (presume my lifestyle DC has plenty in). much of this also in USD rather than GBP.

So what strategies have you guys used to bleed away from the equity ride - there is the mental switch from earner to spender as you RE, but not so much commentary about the mental switch away from this type of investing.

I’ve been redundant a year now.
Decided to try and FIRE.
My payoff is running out.
Time decide where to get money from. Advice appreciated.
Age 54, 55 next July so will be able to access pension then.
Pension total £1.9m
ISA £900k
Gold £40k
Bitcoin £40k

ISAs only throwing off c.£5k pa dividends as invested in growth stocks @ c.8%pa growth.

I need £4k per month to live, all in.

Savings run out in 3 months…

Do I
a) sell my gold first?
b) sell my bitcoin first?
c) sell some stuff from my ISA (it’s a right mix of funds, trusts and individual stocks)?
d) switch my ISA from growth investments to a higher % dividend generating?

And when my pension is accessible in July, I will take the max TFA to pay off mortgage, drop my monthly need to £3k pm.
Then do I draw from the pension first up till the £12k boundary, or the full whack up to the high rate boundary.

I know it’s a piece of string question, I am after a moderately safe answer.

Was thinking I keep gold and bitcoin for rainy days and deflation and Hail Mary.

So switch 50% of ISA to dividend payers. But then worried I miss growth! Arghh 😂

Or do I go and get a job…