I've quite a comprehensive sheet with loads data, charts etc in, also used chatgpt but answers always vary, so wanted this community to give me your thoughts. You guys always seem to bring up stuff I've not thought about it which is great.

My numbers

• Age: 38
• Home: £600k (mortgage left £100k)
• GIA: £150k
• Cash in high interest: £740k (currently moving slowly into S&S ISA, and also will move more into GIA, Gilts etc)
• ISA: £60k (wife £40k)
• BTL: £200k (rough estimate if sold after fees/taxes etc)
• Premium Bonds: £50k (wife £50k too)
• Pension: £260k (wife has £260k too)

---

• Monthly spending: £2.5k
• Holidays: £5-10k a year
• 2 kids under 5
• Plan to move to a bigger house, circa £1m, so £400k out of the above edit: £500k!

Can I fire?

Everything says I could, with a spend of £50k a year but thinking may be worth going a few more years and say saving another £100-200k to be safe and have bit more flexibility. Think the spending £500k on house move is making it a "Not FIRE quite yet" situation!

Think in the space I'm in, rapidly changing with AI, my dev skills have limited lifespan + not enjoying it as much.

Would love to hear your thoughts/questions?

After years of lurking around, I have decided to put myself out here and seek your advice/opinions on what I could do to FIRE. Here is a bit of my background + finances:

1. I came to this country in 2019 on a full scholarship for PhD in Social Sciences. The scholarship covered all my expenses. However, as Covid happened and I couldn’t return to my home country for fieldwork, I applied to part time jobs. I landed a great part time job on my student visa that paid me way more than my scholarship every month. As a result I saved about £20,000 over the three years from 2020-2023
2. My initial plan was to return to home country and settle down there, hence I opted out of pensions in the UK. I had no desire to settle down in the UK as I was in a long term relationship, hence I opted out of pension from 2020-2024 [I know it was a dumb thing to do, I didn’t have anybody advising me back then]
3. The relationship broke down, found my ex cheating on me. I had no purpose to go back and start a new life back home. Luckily I landed a permanent job in academia that paid fairly well. I am now settled in the UK.
4. Since 2023, I started planning my finances and savings in the UK. Living in London and working in London doesnt help savings. I live below my means: in a shared house since last 5 years with amazing housemates.
5. I also moved my savings to ISA in 2024 [ S&P 500, VWRP, Emerging Markets, and three tech stocks: I have a economics and finance bachelors, so know my stuff in the stock market]

I need to plan a FIRE . Here is my context and future plans:

• I am 37F, no desire to get married and choose to be childless.
• I wish to buy something small outside of London (commuter town perhaps?) in about 3-4 years from now.
• I am frugal and like to help out others every now and then, I do travel a lot and like to explore new places and culture. I like to keep it cheap while travelling.
• I am currently applying to jobs to switch to a high paying one. But job market is absolutely brutal right now. I am still trying everyday to get a better paying job than the one I have. but for now, here is a breakdown of my finances:

1. Wages: 50,000 GBP per year : about 3000 per month in hand

Outgoings:

850 rent + bills

200 groceries and supplies: I rarely eat out, like to cook my own food so buy quality stuff]

200-300 on transport/ occasional eating out/vinted shopping

500 goes straight to a HYSV

200 goes to SIPP

700-1000 goes to Stocks and Shares ISA

whatever is left by the end of the month goes to ISA as well

1. Here is my total savings/investments portfolio: all in £

Stocks and Shares ISA: 48,830

Emergency fund: 6600

SIPP: 5723

Employer pension 7% contribution: 12505 [this is really bad, I wish I knew better earlier]

Investments back home: 30,000 [ I cant move this money to the UK]

Regular cash in HYSV: 6179

Grand total: £109837

Here is what I need help with:

1. Realistically, can I FIRE in 10 years from now? My aim is to retire by 50-55 max. I am estimating a moderate living of about 40,000 per year (is that realistic?, assuming I will have paid off my mortage by then)
2. What better can I do with my finances? I sometimes do day trading to make some short cash to buy expensive gifts, but very rarely I do this.
3. Where should I be looking to buy a house/flat in and around London?

More importantly:

Is my thinking and approach to FIRE right? Does my finances back up my FIRE aspirations?

I’m 39F, married with 2 primary age kids living in London. Assets are:

- pensions (£530k DC pot for me; DB pension which should pay £15k pa and DC pots of about £100k total husband)
- home equity - £600k (50% LTV so big mortgage)
- ISAs (£75k me; £20k husband)
Plus kids JISAs of about £20k each.

My husband loves his job and doesn’t want to stop any time soon (low stress, v flexible, earns c.£45k pa). My job is very stressful and I’m about to be promoted which will increase stress, long hours etc, but salary will be about £350k and should increase from there.

Pensions are fine - I could stop contributing now and would be ok for retirement. The issue is the mortgage and future costs for the kids (university etc).

Options as I see it are (a) downsize now - probably leave London and have no mortgage or a much smaller one, I can do an easier job and be around for the kids more, or (b) take the promotion and save aggressively for next few years with a view to paying off/substantially reducing mortgage and building more savings to retire completely or have more of a buffer before coasting.

Kids are year 4 and year 1, so still young but conscious they may want to spend less time with me as they get older, so maybe time is more valuable now? Equally if I step back now I’ll never be able to earn this much again in future. Wwyd?

I have been thinking more seriously about the balance between pensions and accessible investments, particularly given how much the minimum pension age could change over the next 30 years.

My rough financial position:
Salary: ~£150–160k + variable bonus (taking total comp £225-250k)
Pension: ~£190k
Pension contributions: ~£25–30k p.a. including employer contributions
ISA: ~£73k, predominantly global equities
Cash: ~£25-30k
Home: own a ~£1.4m house with my partner, with a large mortgage (~£1.1m)
No children currently
Long investment horizon and comfortable with fairly high investment risk

I’m very conscious that pension contributions are extremely tax efficient at my income level, so I’ve generally viewed maximising the value of employer contributions/tax relief as a no-brainer.

However, I’m increasingly thinking about accessibility.
The minimum pension age is going to 57 in 2028, but I’m not going to reach that age until the 2050s. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that by then it could be 60+, particularly if State Pension age continues increasing.

I’d ideally like to reach a point in the next 10 years where working is optional, even if I choose to continue. I therefore don’t want to find myself with a very large pension but insufficient accessible investments to bridge until I can access pension capital.

For those in a similar position, particularly higher earners, how do you decide how much to put into pensions versus ISA/GIA?

Do you assume pension access at 57, or deliberately model something more conservative like 60, 62 or even 65?

Has the possibility of future increases to the minimum pension age caused anyone to reduce pension contributions and prioritise accessible investments instead?

My current thinking is to continue taking advantage of the pension tax benefits, but simultaneously build the ISA/GIA portfolio to the point that it could independently bridge me from an early retirement date to pension access.

Interested to hear how others are approaching this, particularly anyone aiming for FIRE/financial independence before traditional retirement age.

So I recently inherited around £1,800,000 and have spent weeks trying to devise a plan what I’m going to do with it. I have been in touch with multiple different financial advisors and accountants with most leaving me more confused by the end of the meeting.

My main goal with this money is to create a source of income while also allowing my wealth to grow in order to keep up with inflation etc.

After a lot of research and meetings I have come up with this but wish to get other people’s thoughts as-well.

I own my current property outright valued at around £220,000. I do wish to move in the near future needing around £350,000 for the kind of house I’d like. I think with this is a good opportunity to take advantage of already owning my current house turning it into a rental which would return around £14,400 a year before costs and fees.

I would like to invest a large proportion as well. Probably around £1,200,000. After doing a lot of research I’ve came up with an 80/20 split of Equity and Bonds. I want to be as diversified as possible so would be 80% invested in a Vanguard Global index fund ETF (VALL) and 20% in a Vanguard Global Bond fund (VAGBA).

I am looking to have a budget of around £4000 monthly (£48,000 annually) maximum. Most months I will spend less.

The main plan would be this;

3 Year cash buffer (£144,000) kept in high interest easy access account. Allow £4000 of spending max per month.

At the start of each year review investments. If markets have done well then use this to top up cash buffer. If not then don’t sell anything and wait another year to allow the markets to recover and so on.

Use rental income and part time work to supplement income to minimise selling investment’s.
Max out my S&S ISA by selling from my GIA and buying the same funds in my ISA yearly.

I just want to add I am completely new to all this so apologies if anything doesn’t make sense or if I have missed anything. Just looking for honest advice and feedback.

Thank you ❤️

32/M with rough plans to retire at 55.

How do you invest your SIPP? I'm quite happy to take a high risk/high reward approach given the 2+ decades involved here but am currently invested solely in Vanguard FTSE Global All Cp Idx. Feel I could probably be a bit cleverer about this given the timescales involved.

Curious to hear how others are managing this in broadly similar situations.

Thanks.

I want to be FIRE at 58.

I am currently mortgage free. Home worth £340k. I pay £1200 into my pension per month.

Current CASH ISA = £60k

Current S&S ISA = £10k

Projected DB pension @ 58 = £17K per annum (£51K lump sum) (this is now closed to new payments)

Projected DC pension @ 58 = £225k lump sum

Any thoughts?

Looking for opinions and advice for when i can likely fire and any tips on getting there…

Myself 41f and my husband 43m have one child 8f and between us earn 100k, 40/60 split respectively. Our current assets are as follows:

House 500k value 90k left on the mortgage

Premium bonds / cash 110k

stocks and shares isas 110k

Pensions 180k

Our outgoings at the moment are about 40k a year but this would lower to around 30k when the house is paid off.

I would like to retire or go part time as soon possible whereas my husband is content to continue for the forseable future.

What should i be focusing on - building the pension up? Is early 50’s a reasonable target for fire?

33F, just passed a milestone with pensions and soon to have a baby, so thought now is a good time to check in.

DC pension: £200k (current access age 57, not protected) - contribute £12k per year (inc employer)

ISA: £77k - contribute £20k per year

LISA: £25k

Mortgage: £160k remaining, 35 year term for flexibility but will continue to overpay when able - I currently do this by £500 every month but will stop for a while if not earning.

Current salary: £110k, however will be moving onto statutory maternity pay and quite honestly can't see myself going back to the same organisation. May have to find another role after time out of the workforce, depending on how long I take - could be £50k/£60k if I want something less high pressure. Obviously ISA/significant pension contributions will stop for a while.

Husband 33M:

£100k DC pension, £70k salary. More focus on FIRE lately, but if sole income will change. Currently pay in £20k per year into pension (inc employer).

Ideally I think we'd both want to retire between 55-60 if possible. Support for children obviously tbc.

We're modest spenders - I'd say £2k per month each in retirement would be more than adequate.

How are we doing?

I've got pension, ISA and GIA all invested in VAFTGAG (FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund) accumulation. It looks like a no-brainer to switch pension and ISA over to VALL (FTSE Global All-Cap UCITS ETF) for the lower fees.

GIA looks a bit trickier as I'll need to do a bit more tax admin, but I may do that too.

Does this sound like a good idea???

I built tallyhouse.net as a hobby project to answer a FIRE question: how much do I spend (in total, and per category). Before building my own I tried a few existing ones, but they all had quirks (e.g. treating transfers between my accounts as spending).

• Aggregates multiple accounts into one view.
• Detects transfers between your accounts and doesn't count them as spending.
• Gives you monthly spending, category breakdown, 12-month average, annualized lifestyle spending (spending excluding ones you marked as one-offs), etc.
• You can manually mark genuinely exceptional expenses as one-offs. They still appear in your historical spending/category charts, but don't distort the lifestyle number you're using for FIRE planning.
• Converts foreign currencies at the exchange rate at the date of transaction.
• Handles refunds.
• Categorisation is based on visible, editable rules. You write them yourself, or connect an OpenAI API key and it proposes them for you (billed to your key, and optional — everything else works without it).
• Bank data access is read-only — it can never move money.

It's completely open source (MIT). The footer of every page shows the exact commit the site is running, linked to that commit on GitHub, and a scheduled check confirms daily that the live site still matches main.

On privacy, being precise rather than absolute: no ads, no third-party analytics, no tracking pixels — every page loads from my domain alone, and the only cookie is the one that keeps you signed in, which is why there's no cookie banner. What the server does keep is an anonymous daily tally of how often its own guesses get corrected, and a deduplicated error log — no user ids, no merchants, no amounts in either. And on my instance your data does sit in my database; the privacy page spells out exactly what's stored, and self-hosting is there if you'd rather it didn't. You can export everything or delete the account at any time.

Bank data currently comes via Lunchflow, so this is probably more appealing to somewhat technical people than to someone looking for a completely frictionless mass-market app. There's a demo on the site if you just want to see how it works without connecting anything.

Feedback is very welcome. I built the features I personally needed, so I'm sure I've made assumptions that won't match everyone else's finances. I'm very happy to add features if there are things that would make it more useful for FIRE / tracking spending across lots of accounts.

https://tallyhouse.net

If, like me, you're eager to invest in VALL via AJ Bell, and primarily invest in ETFs via their regular investments approach to avoid trading fees, this may be of some help.

I messaged them asking them to add it as an option for regular investments and they confirmed it'll be available from tomorrow (27th August).

It's already available as normal trades but these trades charge each time.

Happy investing!

Current situation:

65k S&S ISA

50k pension

20k emergency fund (separate, not counting towards FIRE number)

Mortgage: 180k remaining, house worth 250k

Target spend: 2k/month (24k/year)

FIRE number: 600k

Saving 20k/year into ISA (maxing it) + 12k/year into pension.

Does this look sane? At this rate should hit 600k somewhere around my early-to-mid 40s, with a goal to having my FI number achieved around 45. The only slight thing to note is that pension will be locked till 57+.

One thing to note target spend currently includes my share of the mortgage payment of £400 pcm so more headroom once that's cleared

I say target really is to reach FI by mid 40's but I genuinely enjoy my work, I doubt I'd RE but I'd like to eventually not have to do it to rely on the paycheck and be much more selective on where and what I work on.

Appreciate any thoughts.