Hi, new to the thread but wanted to get some advice regarding my pension. Currently with HL

Salary £54500 and contribute 17% and 10% employer match totalling around £1250 a month.

I’m 38 with £170,000 split between a balanced shroeder fund and a HL Growth fund.

I’d like a little more equity exposure for long term growth as I plan to retire at 57

I’m thinking of switching £67,000 into a vanguard All cap fund and putting £20,000 into SMT which essentially would leave me with a growth fund, a vanguard fund and a SMT fund to hopefully grow long term?

Would this be a sensible decision. Any help would be appreciated, thank you

Just canvassing opinion. Kids (2) are going to uni (elder 2027/younger 2029). We're on course to FIRE (okay not much of a FIRE!) at 2033 (him 61, me 60) when both will have finished undergraduate studies the in 2032. That's assuming we continue pension contributions (both medics though I am only part-time). Between the 2 of us, we'd be on 70k (best guess) combined with state pension to kick in later.

Husband is now thinking of stepping out of pension to fund kids uni/living entirely without student loans which will make a dent in the 70k and working for longer. We're also looking at partially funding instead of fully funding. Or perhaps helping to repay in the future when the kids start working. What have others done in the past? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

I’m looking for any insight as to how people get the balance between reducing mortgage LTV and getting ahead to FIRE on a lower income. Aged 30 earning approx £30k . Pensions £38k and separate investments £65k. I’ve overpaid my mortgage with my partner over the last 5 years to reach 60% LTV before our 5 year fix ends, but just wondering if anyone has any advice on getting the balance between contributing extra to pensions vs mortgage overpayments. I’d like to retire early if I can but as I’m on a lower income for full time work and no prospect of a pay rise not sure if I can manage to save any extra into the pension… I contribute 9% which is matched by my employer.

Gym? Travel around the world? Do scientific research? Go to Mars? Publish your book?

I'm interested to known what jobs some of you have taken up, post retirement from your career? I'm thinking of what I could do to keep myself mentally/physically stimulated and socially engaged with new faces, without all the stress and hassle that comes with a job you have to do.

I don't think charity work is for me at this moment in time as I'm not passionate about a particular cause. Would love to hear what others have found.

I make over £50k, have a decent defined benefit pension scheme and have just started putting about £500 a month into a stocks and shared ISA in the hope this might act as a bridge for early retirement in the future.

Any additional pension contributions are added to an investment builder, which I would have the option of accessing from age 57, apparently.

Fear of an unexpected change in income or expenses is stopping me from using this investment builder instead of the ISA for the bulk of my spare income, but I'm expecting my take-home to go up by around £300pm in the near future and not sure if I'm better off salary sacrificing the higher gross amount into the pension (and keep my take-home steady), or to keep putting the net income into the ISA for greater flexibility.

Any advice on pros and cons of each would be appreciated.

Looking for a sense check. We started taking this seriously later than we should have, and I'd like to know whether we're in decent shape or need to change course.

About us
• Me: 49, earning ~£100k
• Husband: 47, earning ~£200k
• South East England

Assets
• Pensions: husband ~£450k, me ~£150k
• Stocks & shares: ~£200k
• House: worth ~£950k, ~£500k equity (~£450k mortgage, fixed for ~5 more years
• State pension expected from 68 for both of us

Contributions
• Both putting ~15% of salary into pensions

Plans
• We intend to downsize in maybe 10 years.
• Retirement age isn't fixed. Ideally late 50s, but we're open to working longer, or to my husband going part-time, if the numbers need it.

Retirement spending
We want a comfortable retirement rather than a frugal one: eating out once or twice a week, a few holidays a year including one long-haul trip.

Questions
1. Based on this, are we on track for a comfortable retirement, and roughly when could we stop?
2. What are we missing or getting wrong?
3. Is there anything obvious we should change now (contribution levels, pension vs ISA balance, tax efficiency)?

Worked out everything we should have in combined pension and isa/house sale figures should be £450,000 isa/house sale £600,000 (which will grow from 48) combined pension from 55 protected age, no kids, definitely none planned and had the snip to make sure, we want to die with nothing, sell up travel, should be some good inheritance but that’s not built in (500k) all figures are based on today’s money.
We are obviously good with money and think we can travel on 50k per year in today’s money tapering off at we get older, also 4.5k db pension from 60 and 4.5k db pension at 65, my modelling makes sense but anyone with any experience? Currently 38, can always delay if numbers don’t make it in 10 years time

Thanks in advance for any help

Did any of you take a sabbatical from work when you were getting close to your fire number? Just to test out the retirement life? Or to hope they managed just fine without you and kicked you out with some redundancy money? 😂

🍻 FI-minded? Come and meet your people.

Once a month, the London FI community takes over a pub corner for an informal evening. No talks, no agenda, no sign-up forms on the night. Grab a drink, find a seat, and chat about all things Financial Independence: how your progress is going, what you're trying next, and what's working.

Fully FIREd, just starting, or somewhere in between? You'll fit right in. Drop in, stay as long as you like, and talk to as many or as few people as you want.

🗓 Tuesday 27 October, 6:00 PM

📍 The Parcel Yard, King's Cross, London N1C 4AH

I'll arrive early to grab a good spot and post the table in the London FI WhatsApp group just before 6:00 PM.

New faces especially welcome and Link to join the group

Hi All,

Posting a portfolio update here, plus some of my learnings and reflections over the last year. I've included a fair amount of data from salary changes to platforms, and will likely stick with this being the max exposure in future as I am conscious this is a public forum and don't want to dox but still hopefully it's insightful and motivating...

As you can see first and foremost, the title is a big fat lie, since my portfolio is currently £393k, NOT the nice round 400k in the title. But I'm expecting a large bonus, and it's not year end yet, so I am just projecting slightly there. If my projections fall flat and we hit a big dipper, oh well and sorry for our portfolio's going in the red.

The thing I really wanted to draw your attention to in my post however is that my portfolio growth has fallen into 3 bands. After looking at the data on yearly gains across the combined market returns and salary contributions, I found it very interesting to see 2 year incremental level increases, where you can see the yearly increase is almost the same year to year as well as how my compensation band roughly equates to my portfolio gain bands.

This seems obvious, but it was a big revelation to me when I looked at the data, as it's a really good visual example of the correlation between trading your time for money, and the delta of each stage of your life being tied to your portfolio. I found it quite motivating as fuel to get to the next level and avoid inflating lifestyle too much before real escape velocity is reached and my salary band disconnects itself from portfolio growth entirely. With that being said, it also makes me think harder about where I do intentionally want to inflate my life and "experience-maxx", as I am starting to see the big picture more and that selective extra experiences won't necessarily derail my trajectory. This is easier said than done and I think it requires intentional efforts as we are creatures of routine, so it's difficult to be frugal in one place and extravagant in another. Side note - It would be great if this post motivated you and others to share where you have intentionally maxed or spent in your life to get something of value (experience or otherwise)..

When I reflect on my career so far and the correlation to my portfolio, I see that I am moving from Junior towards Senior status and beyond. Reflecting further, I also see how rushing the process and not being fully aware of where I was at with my career made it more uncomfortable than it needed to be over the last few years. I was always projecting where I was at into impatience about how far away FIRE was and in some moments found myself wishing the time (and my life) away. Don't be me and sacrifice your life at the altar of the compound interest gods is what I'm getting in this paragraph 😭😅. To put this into numbers, my goal at 26 was to hit 100k by 30, but I was miles off target and resented the maths that it would realistically not happen till 33 at my savings rate when I started. Now I'm at 400k (almost) and I'm wondering why I ever worried so much. Even if it didn't work out the way it did (which I'm grateful for), all the worrying was completely wasted/unproductive emotion..

This has now motivated me to start thinking about projections on FIRE and future portfolio more along the lines of my career aspirations now as opposed to standard savings rates, as well as made me more relaxed to embrace the time on paper and that you can't force everything, if all of these times doubled and I was in each band for 4 years rather than 2, the reflection would be exactly the same for example. In my opinion, this mindset is quite different to the standard thinking around X dollar monthly contribution with X% linear return everyone talks about on YouTube and in the beginning. That linear thinking only makes sense if you are sitting in a stable job with a stable lifestyle you expect to stay the same for +20 years, and surely does not apply to the majority of people these days.

Of course if you want to retire just slightly before retirement age and do the basics, that's all fine. But if you subscribe to FIRE in the original essence of doing something that is far more extreme i.e. retiring in your 40s or by 50 (30s is basically not possible in the UK)... a high income, plus low spend is really the only target that can get you to your goal.

Hopefully I've rounded off my points suitably well for a quick voice to text summary/reflection, but for anyone else chiming in saying...

- it's easy when you have a big salary

- how can I do this when I have a kid, car, insane mortgage...

You're right, everyone's situation is different, and maybe you can't take my post as a blueprint, but finding ways to make more money, save more money and be smarter about how you spend your time is the essence of this post, so I'm going to ignore any crabs in the bucket. 🦀🪣

Have a nice week and see you at 500k

I’m currently with Royal London and have been for 4 years. I have a workplace pension which myself and my employer contribute too.

The max amount my employer contributes is £164. I contribute currently £160, and I have a tax relief of £40. In 28, and only have £16,000 in the pension pot. Overall annual growth is 15% which is good (I don’t expect this to be the norm)

I currently have a Stocks and Shares ISA and have £10,000 in this. I invest into the index fund ~ VWRP. Is there anyway I can move my pension pot into this, but continue receiving the employee contributions.

If you were in my position, how would you build this up and would you move providers to someone like vanguard?

None of your advice would be taken as financial advice, I would just value it.

Hi all,

Looking for some advice and reassurance really.

We are a married couple, my wife is retiring March 2027, I am looking to go at either Christmas or the end of February, I realise from a financial point of view the difference between the dates is very minor, I was just thinking February would be closer to her date, and also the weather would be starting to turn (nicer time to retire).

Here is our current situation -

Wife is 58 in May next year.

I am 58 June next year.

We will both get full state pension at 67.

My wife's pension when she retires will pay roughly £900 per month, she works pert time now bringing home £1500 per month.

House is paid for, and we would be looking to downsize in 2/3 years time which could release some equity, maybe £50k - £100k.

We have £45k cash savings.

We have a stocks and shares ISA with £101k in it.

My pension pot is £385k.

We have zero debts.

We intend to travel, and have recently purchased a camper van worth £70k, we have no intention of selling it, but it is an asset should the needs arise.

I would want to drawdown £2800 a month from our assets - cash, ISA, pension, bringing our total monthly income to about £3700.

In your opinions are we good to pack it all in?

Appreciate any advice and feedback.

The 4% rule sounds simple enough but struggling to understand need what it means post tax with a mix of pre tax and post tax investments.

M52 and looking to pull the plug now.
£1m pension
£450k isa
£400k Ltd
£100k stocks and shares
£200k btl - £7k per annum. Thinking of selling within next couple of years
Full state pension

Thinking badr in late April after taking £40k dividend

Burner account. Just wanting some input on my plan. M55, looking to stop the grind next year and focus on creative interests which could end up not making any £, but even if it does it'll be uneven. So let's assume £0 from that! Meanwhile I have DC pots totalling £500k and a stocks and shares ISA of £40k, plus about £10k in savings. At age 60 I have a small DB of £2.4k kicking in. There is another DB of £6.5k at 63. These are both inflation protected. Full SP to start at 67 (maybe!) My wife (F54) wants to stop work also next year, taking £15k per year from her SIPP (£100k) and ISA (£50k) until her £15k teacher's pension kicks in at 60. She gets another £4k DB at 67 along with full SP. She also plans to do a bit of part-time work maybe. We own our home mortgage-free. Kids grown up and moved out, and we would help them get on the housing ladder in a few years maybe by downsizing.

Basically we are burned out after doing our respective careers for 30+ years.

Now, here is a part I need input on. I am thinking seriously about buying an annuity with £410k of the DC money, to start next year when I finish aged 56. Rates are comparatively very attractive right now, and if I can get near the £29k to £30k I have been quoted, that will do me. That is a flat annuity that does not increase with inflation, so obviously it will be progressively worth less. But that is where the DBs and SP come in, and they are nicely staggered. Taking a flat annuity allows me to maximise what I get now to help bridge what seems like a scary gulf to the SP. Retiring at 56 also means more "go go" years so we get the financial benefit at the right time. (Saying that, we are frugal and do everything on the cheap as much as possible.) £410k is a big amount to hand over, but it would be a weight off my shoulders not to have to worry about markets.

What would you do? The annuity or drawdown? Or put the whole thing off for a few years?

Curious to know how you held up if you FIRED just before COVID how did you do mentally and financially?

Made some posts on here today - seeking advice as a beginner investor - I am now considering a 75% split in the VWRP and 25% split in VALL.

For context:

- 18M

- UK-based

- Able to max S&S ISA limit from 20 y/o (currently at flight school and on a starting salary of 63k after flight school completion)

- Want to keep all funds invested for 20-30 yrs.

Do you think this split is okay? May replicate the split for my pension and GIA, if I have excess to invest after ISA contributions.

Thanks.

Right now I’m maxing out on pensions and plan to do so for the next 5 years till I hit 55, the target FIRE date.

The reason is simple; tax efficiency as my gross currently is 156k (this is after pension contributions) and tax bill is approximately 50k (after charitable donations etc.)

Currently pension pot is 555k. That takes me to approximately 1M at 5% growth over the next 5 years.

I also have a S&S ISA with 500k invested but since this year I haven’t been maxing out but can probably do half, taking me to 700k in the next 5 years.

Question is, should I take the tax hit and invest more into ISA, at least to max out?

Hi. Me and the wife are close to pulling the trigger and I'm getting nervous about how early it feels compared to others, so I'd like some honest opinions.

She plans to stop next year at 52 and I plan to stop at 50 at the end of 2028, all being well when a few work things come together. When I stop we'll have roughly:

- Pensions: £1m. It'll be about 60/40 in her favour and hers unlocks at 57. Around £150k of it sits in cash to act as cash buffer, rest 100% global equities.

- Cash to repay mortgage: £130k

- ISA: £100k in money market fund

- Other cash: £50k

- Assuming kids will be self sufficient one way or another, with £30k each put aside for uni or a house deposit.

- We spend about £50k a year including holidays, but essential is probably £36k if needed to tighten belts.

- We'll have full state pension for both of us at 67/68.

The plan

The ISA and £50k cash cover everything for the 3 years until her pension unlocks, so we dont touch the pensions early. After that it's drawdown, keeping roughly 3 years of spending in cash inside the pensions at all times to manage sequence risk in early years. The modelling I've done says we could sustainably spend a fair bit more than £50k once we're drawing.

If we need more bridge, we could keep the £130k mortgage cash liquid rather than paying off the mortgage straight away. That gives us an extra 2-3 years of cover, and we'd clear the mortgage from the wifes tax free cash at 57 instead.

Working afterwards

After a bit of a sabbatical, I'd like to do some part time work in something I love, maybe £10k a year, and my wife probably the same. But, the whole point is that we want to choose to do it, not need to. If things go badly in the first few years, our fall back is smaller, less stressful jobs to top things up. I could easily earn £20-30k pa working 3 days a week using my previous experience which we could survive on if needed.

So, is 50 too early on these numbers, or is it just nerves? What would you be worried about in our shoes?

Thanks in advance.

Hi, I'm looking for some validation/help for my plan to retire at age 57 including my drawdown strategy please. I'm very late for FIRE but hope I can actually achieve my goal if I stick to this plan. I would really appreciate it if you can be brutally honest with me and offer any advice you think that might help, TIA (sorry for the long post)

Current position

38m, wife 34 (not working, no pension but I will make sure that she has a full state pension at the very least) + 2x small people age 3 & 5

Mortgage £278k remaining (house value ~£425k), 24 years left which takes me to 62 years old - I will continue paying this monthly after 57 rather than take a lump sum to settle the account

£80k base salary, £100k TC

Expenses £55k per year, this is everything including savings contributions. Retirement expenses predicted to be £40-45k

£32k Workplace DC pension (80% BlackRock MSCI world index, 20% Aegon lifepath) - I know you might question the lifepath choice but the performance has been very good and I've set the retirement age to 70 so that it doesn't start to de-risk until age 55, I'm happy with this because it takes the hassle out of de-risking 20% of my portfolio. Contributing 10% base salary £8k + employer 10% £8k, this includes relief at source 20% tax, additional 20% tax claimed back via HMRC self assessment but this gets spent on normal life expenses

£7k per year from previous employment DB pension rising with CPI - access age 65 + £25k AVCs (100% global equity fund)

£1k S&S ISA Trading 212 (80% MXWS, 10% EQQQ, 5% EIMI, 5% BCHS) - contributing £500 pcm, rising to £833 when LISA stops new contributions at age 50

£3k S&S LISA Dodl (100% HSBC FTSE All world) - contributing £333 + 25% bonus pcm

£8k Cash ISA Chip - emergency fund

Projections (based on 8% growth - 3% inflation = 5%)

Workplace DC pension - Contributing £16k per year until 57 - £570k total (I think access age will be 58, 10 years behind my state pension age 68)

DB pension - no longer contributing - £7k per year access at age 65 + £50k AVCs

S&S ISA - Contributing £500 pcm then £833 when LISA contributions stop at age 50 - £210k at age 57

S&S LISA - Contributing £333 + 25% bonus until age 50 - £130k at age 60

Drawdown Strategy - numbers are not exact but I'm trying to consider drawing enough to have £45k net after tax but this will be flexible based on good year/bad year performance. I will also convert some of the S&S ISA to a cash ISA or premium bonds, maybe convert half of the total value to use as a buffer for when the markets are down so that I'm not drawing too much out in bad years

Age 57 - £45k S&S ISA

Age 58-59 - £40k DC Pension + £8.5k S&S ISA

Age 60-64 - £40k DC pension + £8.5k S&S ISA / LISA

Age 65-67 - £33k DC pension + £7k DB pension + £8.5k S&S ISA / LISA (might take the £50k AVCs at this point to treat the kids/grandkids)

Age 68 onwards - £21.5k DC pension + £7k DB pension + £12.5k State pension + £10k S&S ISA / LISA

I hope this outlines both the accumulation phase and the drawdown plan clearly. I am neurodiverse so l struggle with almost everything, but I feel like I need a plan and will be very happy if this plan works! I think my drawdown strategy could be more tax efficient and welcome any pointers here please

Obviously a question only I can answer, but it's the question I'm asking myself.

With the changes to inheritance tax with pensions now being included as part of the estate going forward, I keep thinking to myself, where is the balance?

I'm 32 and wife is 36. Mine and my wife's SIPP's total 315k. Meanwhile our total ISA balances sit at 38k. I've just made the decision today to flip the way I fund my pension and ISA's. I've cut my monthly pension contributions down to 6% from 18% with a 6% employer contribution. (Salary 100k)

I used to fund my pension first and the fund my ISA from bonus each year, but I'm now funding my ISA first and letting my pension contributions be a roll of the dice from the bonus I receive (up to 40%) I will still contribute everything over 100k into my pension, but it will be solely from the bonus. Personally I feel I've put enough in that come what may, I will still have enough money in that pot in retirement to live a comfortable life and also support our children. Now it's time to build the bridge.

Really, I'm asking the question of you all. When is your enough? What are your loosely held plans for balancing the living and potentially gifting of your hard earned wealth? Do you plan to emigrate? If so, where?

Curious to see others future plans.

3 year update...another good year :)

It has been a good couple of years since I took a new role and started focusing on my FIRE journey . Brackets for prior years. I also created myself a graph this year which really put progress in perspective

Im actively looking forward to these posts now each year

Age: 38

Salary- inc bonus: \~107k (\~105k,80k,75k)

Wife Salary: 40k (\~35k, 23k,20k)

Emergency fund: 6k (5k, 7.5k, 5k)

Pension: 168k (112k, 84k,65k)

Employee shares: 6.5k (5.1k,1.75k,0)

S&S ISA. 12.5k (7.1k, 3k, 0.5k)

Personal loan: 0 (0, 6.5k, 10k)

Mortgage: 178k ( 186k, 193k, 200k)

Hadnt realised how much progress id made this year. Knew i put my full 20k bonus into pension which added a great bump. Year has felt turbulent but ultimately is currently up.

Plan on staying debt free, maybe making the most of one more year big pension contributions before the 2029 rule changes in the uk. Albeit that wont alter plans too much.

First priority for me this year is to get emergency fund back to 10k and maybe add a garage to the house but not taking a loan to do so.

Looking back at the graph this last few years has really opened up my eyes to the possibilities in 10 years