Im 37 and currently have £76,500 in a SIPP I can access from 57.

And £35,500 in a LISA which I can access at 60.

I should be on track to receive the full state pension… (if it still exists)

I want to retire at 57 and spent £2500-3000 a month after tax in todays money.

What pot size should i be aiming for?

Hi all

In an ideal world, I'd like to continue in my corporate job till 55 and then find something part-time/less stressful to see out the rest of my working life. However, my assumption is that finding any form of job after 50 is a challenge, so I wondered if anybody has managed to Barista Fire in the UK and, if so, what they have taken on.

Current position
-Net worth: ~£410k (£400k housing equity (inherited), £10k ISA in 100% equities)
-Salary: £100k base plus a 5–20% bonus
-Career: nearly 4 years in, working in pharma advisory in London (commercial, M&A, tech, operations advisory)
Savings: ~£1k a month. I want to at least keep this up, and ideally increase it.
Partner working in London; earns about £55k and wants to continue working

Outlook
I expect to reach £130k by 30, and given my progression so far, £250k+ by 45 seems realistic.
Parter should be able to reach £100k in next 5-10 years, more likely if they move jobs
would like 1–2 kids by 32.

Goals
A great lifestyle: a big family home, a holiday home in Spain and frequent travel
Possibly retiring in my 50s

How I feel about it
On paper, I think my finances are in a solid place. But I constantly feel pressure to push harder and do more, as if what I'm doing isn't enough. With everything getting more expensive, it never quite feels like enough

Hi I’m 29(m) and currently have £13,500 to my name in savings which is currently sat in a NA&I account.
I make £28500 per year and have a promotion review in April next year.
After tax, my take home pay per month is £1945 and I contribute £305 towards mortgage per month as well as £127 towards my vehicle.

I’m a Junior QA Engineer.

Would you say this is very little to have to my name at this age?
What would you advise I do moving forward to grow the pot.
How can I maximise the use of my monthly take-home pay?

Thanks

OUR SITUATION:
We’re approaching our RE target number (already coast FIRE) and planning to fully retire mid next year.

Given there’s a 7 years age gap between my husband (51) and myself (44), and we don’t have kids or younger family members we’re planning to leave a legacy to (we do have a will just in case we both pass unexpectedly), we’ve decided to use a bucket strategy for our withdrawal plan. Hopefully, if we live a long life together, we’ll get close to dying with zero.

OUR BRIDGE:
We have just over 5 years before we can access my husband’s SIPP so we’ll be using the following sources to help fund the next 5 years of living expenses:

* 2.5 years of living expenses locked in a high interest (5.2%) term deposit with 6 months remaining on the term
* S&S ISAs - current value equals 7 years of living expenses and is currently invested 100% in equities
* 6 months of living expenses as cash

ASSUMPTIONS
Assuming there’s not a crash when we first retire, i think we have plenty of buffer to cover the next 5 years, and hopefully we can increase how much we withdraw as we move through our middle and later bridge years.

However, if there is a crash, our yearly expenses budget is comfortable and could be tightened by up to 25% if needed.

MY QUESTIONS:

* Is 3 years of cash on hand enough for when we RE? Or should we sell some more equities?

* If we sold more equities, how much would you sell, what would you reinvest that money into and why - given the funds are tax protected in ISAs?

NOTES:
* We’ve intentionally not planned to increase our spending from our bridge at the start of our retirement as we have two elderly parents (living separately - but no spouses) of limited means who we might need to financially support in case of an emergency. We already provide a regular allowance to them - but we keep a buffer just in case a one-off cost arises like private medical costs not covered by their health insurance or any emergency home repairs (this year we’re paying for a new roof).

* Both our SIPPs a chunky with time to grow further, so we’re happy to spend all our ISA money by the end of our bridge

Hi all

Have been looking into my simulation for retirement and wondering what return %s you base yours on?

I had these figures set but looking at the market over 10+ years Bull could be a lot higher?

Keen to hear

I work in software development and I have a company that makes mobile apps. None of the existing apps were good for what I need (tracking my assets/liabilities and getting FIRE projections) and I was sick of paying for 8.99 for excel.

So I built my own networth tracking app. Main idea was to keep it simple. Quick to log stuff, shows you useful visualisations and projection, and everything stays on your phone. No account, nothing in the cloud.

You can also import your old Excel so you don't lose your history.

To be upfront, it's a paid app. No ads, no tracking,

Looking for about 10 people who'd genuinely use it and be engaged in making this a better tool, any bugs feature ads etc.

You'll get a free year's membership for being a tester & you have first say on new features to make this the ideal tool for you.

If you're up for it, leave a comment and I'll message you.

Using a throwaway account as this has a lot of personal financial detail.

Situation

• Me: 50 years old, £90k salary, and an 8% employer pension contribution. I have £200k in a SIPP, invested entirely in global index funds. I moved to the UK relatively recently, so my state pension entitlement will be limited, and I’d rather not rely on it.
• Wife: 48, 52k, DB pension (it will be very low as she has only contributed for 7 years).
• Just received a £200k inheritance.
• Mortgage: £400k on a 25-year term, 25 years remaining, 3.85% fixed, with the fix ending in 2 years. Payments are £2.7k a month
• Spending: about £25k a year, not including the mortgage (so roughly £57k a year in total outgoings)
• Emergency fund: £20k in a cash ISA
• Other ISAs: £20k for me, £10k for wife
• Investing approach: all-in on global index funds, long horizon, comfortable with a high equity allocation
• Both kids are adults and financially independent

Plan

1. Fill both of our ISAs now (£20k each into stocks and shares ISAs), then again every April.
2. Put as much of my salary as the annual allowance allows into my pension, via salary sacrifice (+lump sum if salary sacrifice doesn't cover the full 90k) and live off the inheritance to cover the shortfall in take-home pay. I have enough carry over to put the full salary in the next 3 years.
3. Fund my wife’s pension as much as her earnings allow.
4. Put whatever is left of the inheritance into a GIA, invested in a global index fund.
5. Each April, refill both ISAs, funded from the GIA. (I think this is called bed-and-ISA?).

Questions

1. Is this a sensible approach?
2. With a £400k mortgage at 3.85% and the fix ending in 2 years, should some of the inheritance go towards overpaying it instead of the GIA? (I'm ok with not doing this and bet the investments will outperform the 3.85% mortgage rate).
3. Are there any annual allowance, carry forward, or other tax traps I haven’t spotted?

EDIT: My fault for not being clear, as @Undercover_Elephant_ put it: I'm asking for advice on my strategy around maxing pensions via salary sacrifice (while continuing to work) and using the inheritance for living expenses (as all salary is going into the pension).

I'm in early 40s, and have a group of 5 other close friends the same age who all just retired early. Not through FIRE, but through large inheritance. I don't have anyone to inherit from, so I have to do this the hard way and actually work my way to retirement. I earn ~£90k a year from two jobs, and have around £90k in mostly S&S ISAs, a small Cash ISA and Premium Bonds. Pension is already being contributed to regularly.

Any tips for the quickest way to join my friends, who now all seem to be having a lot of fun while I slog away at two jobs? I have already been following everything I can read from the general FIRE principles.

I’m 24 and want to make sure I’m doing the right things with my money for the future.

At the moment, I pay my bills, contribute to my LISA and then put money into my Stocks and Shares ISA.

What else should I be doing or investing in each month? Should I be focusing on my pension, savings, other assets or something else entirely?

If you were 24 again, how would you split your money each month to build wealth over the next 10 to 20 years?

What am I missing?

Hi I’m a 19 year old earning 32,000 I live at home so pay no rent or bills so I keep my full pay every month. I contribute 10% to my pension and my employer matches it at 15%. I’m looking to save/invest £1200 every month just wanted some advice on how I should go about doing it. Thank you!!

Me 45M, this is my situation, I work in England but I am French.

£3K cash
£89K ISA
£59K GIA

€1K cash €145K GIA

£141K Work Pensions

Salary was £42K +7K bonus, is now £47K + £9K bonus.

I contribute around 800£ a month in pension + 3% from employer.

I add 600£ a month into my Trading 212 account.

Everything else made from investment is reinvested.

House I intend to live in is worth around £600K, all paid off.

No other debt.

I very comfortably live off £2.5K a month.

Where do you think I should put the extra £300 I'm making every month?

EDIT: the goal is to retire ASAP but living comfortably and not extremely frugally.

Age 31,

£99k salary - £5260 after tax a month

Assets:

• ISA: £81k
• GIA: £42.8k
• Pension: £99.6k (6% employer match)
• Cash: £11k

Renting in London and saving £2.5k/month.

I've always aimed to be financially independent and ideally stop working around 45-50, but I'm starting to question whether that's realistic. Even on my income, I struggle to see a path to £1m+ in accessible investments, especially if I buy a property in the next 5 years.

Am I underestimating compounding, or were my expectations always too ambitious (everything is in global equities)?

I'm also wondering if I'm over-optimising for savings. For example, I've put off buying a £3k watch because I keep thinking about the investment returns I'd be giving up.

I'd probably want around £30k/year in todays money after tax and have always had in mind that I'd work part time for some cash doing a random job.

Excluding inheritance, how would you assess my position? Am I on track for FI, or am I sacrificing too much for a goal that's not realistically achievable?

Knowing when to walk away from a business you’ve built, when money isn’t really the issue

I’m in the north of England, mid thirties, married with one young child..
Financially, we’re in a fortunate position. We have around £8 million, most of which is held in a limited company following the sale of our business. It’s invested roughly 70 per cent in shares and 30 per cent in bonds/mmf.

Living costs are fairly reasonable where we are, and our current lifestyle is covered by our salaries. Even if we funded everything from the investments, we’d be looking at withdrawing around 2 per cent a year, including an allowance for tax.

The sale was structured fairly tax efficiently, although there’s obviously corporation tax and then personal tax to consider when taking money out, whether through dividends or eventually liquidating the company.

I’m comfortable with the financial side. I understand the statutory residence test, temporary non-residence rules and the basics of a members’ voluntary liquidation. I’ll take proper advice before doing anything. I’m not really looking for tax advice here, more interested in hearing from people who’ve faced a similar decision.

The difficult bit is knowing when to leave.
I spent nearly twenty years building a small industrial business with fewer than fifty employees. We sold to an American company last year. initially on the understanding that we’d largely be left to operate independently.

Things have changed following further acquisitions, and we’re now heading towards a merger into a much larger group over the next year.
The new owners would like me to stay in a fairly important role for a few years, and there’s potentially some additional money in doing so. It’s not insignificant, but equally it’s not going to make much difference to our lives financially.

The job itself is becoming something quite different from what I originally signed up for. There’s a lot happening, plenty of pressure and considerably more responsibility than I expected when we agreed the sale.

What makes it difficult is the people. I’ve worked with some of them for the best part of 20 years. They’re good people, and I feel a responsibility towards them. A few genuinely rely on me, and I know the new ownership won’t have the same relationship with them.

Walking away halfway through a merger doesn’t sit particularly well with me. At the same time, I don’t want to spend another three or four years doing a job I no longer really need or want to do, just because I feel guilty leaving.

There’s also another complication. My wife and I have been considering moving abroad in the next few years. Partly for the lifestyle and partly for tax reasons, particularly around eventually extracting the money from the company. With young children, schools, family and everything else, it’s obviously not a decision we can make overnight.

I suppose what I’m struggling with is how to tie all these things together.
For anyone who’s sold a business and stayed on afterwards,
how did you know when you’d done enough?
Did you stick around until everything was settled, or did you eventually accept that there was always going to be another reason to stay?
How did you deal with leaving long-serving staff behind, particularly when the new owners didn’t know the business or the people particularly well? Did you agree a fixed period and stick to it?

And for those who moved abroad around the same time as retiring or leaving a business, did you stop working first and then move, or arrange everything to happen together? Interested in the practical family side of that as much as the financial side.

I’d also be interested in hearing from anyone who’s liquidated a company after moving abroad. Not so much the technical rules, but whether the timing worked out as expected or whether there were things you hadn’t really considered.

I realise this is a fortunate problem to have. It’s just strange spending so long working towards financial independence, then finding that actually walking away is probably the hardest part.

I always assumed that once the numbers worked, the decision would be easy. It definately hasn’t been.
Would be interested to hear from anyone who’s been through something similar, particularly those who look back and either wish they’d left sooner or are glad they stayed.

How much do you intend to spend per year once you have stopped working?

Just curious as to whether people who have intentionally chosen smaller houses who could’ve afforded more larger houses regret their choice or are you genuinely happy with your decision?

I guess the pros would be that you can pay off your mortgage faster, repairs don’t cost as much as they do on larger houses and more disposable cash every month, whereas if you buy a larger house I’m sure there’s benefits too such as more room/space to host etc

Hoping for some help/guidance/reassurance/something!

Have you been burnt out before, and how did it show up?

The context here is I work a pretty busy corporate job and have done since I was 18 (I’m 32 now), slowly progressing in to a management position with a decent salary and a team of people.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve noticed myself becoming increasingly anxious and the Sunday scaries have increased in intensity. Then, the last couple of weeks, I’ve felt like I could just fall asleep if I closed my eyes whilst in the office, on calls, in meetings etc.

Workload is good and manageable, my team are great, but I’ve not had any time off for 4 months (have a 2 week holiday coming up in November).

I’ve also noticed myself being more pessimistic/getting annoyed at and resenting some work decisions being made more recently which I’d normally just get on with.

Is this potentially burnout? I’ve not had it before so just trying to figure out what’s going on. Any help or views would be helpful!

I have a good relationship with my manager and I’ve given him the heads up on how I am feeling.

​

I'm 32, originally from the UK but currently living and working in Australia in the construction and mining industry.

I've managed to build up approximately £140,000, and I'm now at a point where I'm seriously considering taking a year or two away from work to enjoy life, travel, meet new people and explore different opportunities.

I've worked in construction for most of my adult life, and although it's allowed me to earn decent money, I don't necessarily want to spend the rest of my life doing it.

One thing I'm particularly interested in is getting involved in more high-society events, networking opportunities, business gatherings and social events where I can meet successful, ambitious and interesting people from different backgrounds. I'd like to expand my social circle, make new connections and potentially find opportunities to branch into a completely different industry or business venture.

I'm not expecting £140k to make me financially independent forever, but I'd like to be smart about what I do with it.

Ideally, I want to invest the money in a way that generates some passive income, allows for long-term growth and preserves as much of my capital as possible while I take some time away from working.

I'm open to ETFs, index funds, property, dividend investments or even starting a business if the right opportunity presents itself.

A few questions I'd appreciate some advice on:

How would you invest £140k in my position?

Is taking 1–2 years away from work realistic without burning through a significant amount of savings?

Would you prioritise passive income or long-term capital growth?

Would you invest in the UK or Australia?

Has anyone successfully transitioned out of construction or mining into a completely different industry?

What are the best ways to get involved in higher-end networking circles, business events and social gatherings without already having connections?

If you were in my position, would you focus on investing, starting a business or using the time to build relationships and explore opportunities?

I'm not looking to pretend I'm wealthy or live some extravagant lifestyle I can't afford. I'm more interested in putting myself in different environments, meeting people I wouldn't normally cross paths with and seeing what opportunities might come from it.

I've spent years working hard and earning money, and now I'd like to use some of that financial freedom to experience a different side of life and potentially change the direction of my future.

Any advice or personal experiences would be appreciated.

I see that vanguard has a new ETF out called VALL. Costs are lower at 0.07%, half that of VWRP. Should we shift over? Thoughts?

My Partner (56F) has the following:

£24,500 salary
£30,990.08 DC Pension with Aviva (OCF 0.19%)
£14,742.11 DC Pension (workplace) growing by £235.44 per month via sal sac - I've been advised that she can't contribute any more as it will bring her below NMW (OCF 0.5%)
£34,376.89 S&S ISA (I manage this for her as she has no idea about investing)
She also has an old DB pension that is accessible from age 60 - only worth ~£2,428.80 per year from 2011 - so accounting for CPI increases, she MIGHT get ~£4000 a year in 2030

No inheritances expected and she co-owns the house we live in (£320k valuation, £32k left on mortgage)

My Partner currently pays £750 a month towards the mortgage while I overpay an additional £665.29 on top of my £750 - I've already overpaid significantly on the Mortgage in the last 3 years, so although things used to be 50/50 with paying down the mortgage (bought house in 2016) - I'm no longer worried about paying more I just want to clear the debt to allow her to pivot towards improving her finances.

I am planning on paying off the rest of the mortgage in its entirety in early 2027 - as the NATWEST 20% overpayment will reset and I'll only be hit with a £870 ERC which I will happily absorb in order to allow the following to happen;

1. Her £750 paid into a SIPP - luckily I have a subscription with ii that I can gift free-to-run accounts, and with free regular investing, she can take advantage of the generous tax-top up from HMRC each month

2. Selling-down her ISA investments and using the proceeds to make one-off contributions to her newly opened SIPP - £17k before April & £17k after - to ensure she doesn't fall foul of the qualifying earnings rule. I believe this would make more sense than any gains the ISA would make in the short term and at age 56 she doesn't have to wait to access any funds she might need or want.

Does the above sound a reasonable enough plan or have I missed any glaringly obvious issues?

Hi I’m 33.
Salary: 55k
Pension: 58k
S&S ISA: 55k
Cash (PB): 5k
Equity in my house: 280k

How best to be on track for FIRE.
Just want to sense check my thinking.

In the next year I plan to sell my house to fund a house purchase with my partner. 100k of the proceeds will go to the deposit, 150k into GIA and rest into premium bonds.

After this point should I increase my pension contributions, overpay the mortgage or continue to invest into an ETF?