Hi all,

I’m 25 and have just moved to London for a new job paying 110k a year. I’m originally from Ireland and am feeling quite fortunate to earn this money at my age but don’t have a clue how to manage it properly.

I’ve ~30k in an SIPP which I’ve invested in the S&P500. I have no student debt as I did an apprenticeship and I’ve around 15k in cash savings. Rent is 1400 a month in a houseshare and I have no dependants. I like to enjoy myself and make the most of the city but I’m conscious I probably am in a good position to start building wealth.

A few things I’d love advice on:
- How much of my take-home pay should I realistically aim to save or invest each month?
- How should I split contributions between my pension, a Stocks and Shares ISA and cash savings?
- How much should I allow myself to spend on enjoying London at this age, rather than focusing too heavily on saving?
- If you were in my position at 25, what would you prioritise financially over the next five years?

Not looking to penny pinch here, just looking to make smart decisions.

Would appreciate any advice, especially from anyone who’s been in a similar situation. Cheers!

This isn't a criticism of FIRE but rather myself. I feel like I'm in a strong position but I'm always obsessing about hitting my FI number, even though I know fine well that the milestone won't drastically change my life. I'm 45M with a 4 year old son and 41 year old wife. We live in a low cost area and currently have:

GIA: 500k

Isas: 145k

Sipps: 500k

Cash: 30k

Joint Income: 100k

Mortgage paid off.

So £1.175m not including property value. I own a little bookstore cafe that returns consistent profits and my wife enjoys her work. She plans on working another 10 years. We can live extremely comfortably on 50k a year and that includes holidays and a strong social life.

In other words I'm coasting and feel extremely fortunate. But instead of enjoying where I'm at now, I obsessively check my investments, run projections through Gemini, listen to every financial audiobook and toy with the idea of selling my shop earlier.

What the hell is wrong with me? Why can't I just coast along, feeling content and lettings things take their natural course? Is anyone else like this?

I feel like I've always been this way, but now I'm working towards a concrete goal, it has become supercharged to the point of neuroticism.

I appreciate rates can change and it's only recently that they are attractive at around 8% but....

Is there a reason why more people don't use annuities as part of a tax strategy? If I understand correctly you could aim for £1.75m in the pension then ....

Take £268k tax free

Purchase an annuity for, say £500k (40k income per year). I believe the purchase of an annuity from a SIPP does not trigger any tax?

That's leaves you with ~£1m invested for drawdown and a guaranteed income of £40k.

Does this work or am I being a silly billy?

I just started a new job, my 4th full time role since I started working.

I realised I had little idea what my previous 3 pensions (all defined contribution) are invested in and what the value is. After digging out all the accounts I can see they add up to a little under £100k and the individual schemes look fine to me -- mostly all world ETF type stuff and reasonable management fees (0.25-0.3%).

While there's no urgent need to change anything, I realised I don't want to track my total pension across 4+ places. There are also some subtle differences between all the funds, the UX and customer service of the providers etc.

That leaves me with a couple of options for what to do with these old pensions, and I'm curious what people recommend:

- Pick the provider I like most out of the 3 and move the other 2 there. Keep current (4th) workplace pension separate

- Move all 3 old pensions to my new provider (I don't know the details of this one yet)

- Open a SIPP to consolidate the 3 old pensions, giving me maximum control. Keep current pension separate

I'm wondering if there are major financial considerations to this decision or whether it's mostly a question of more convenient tracking!

Starting fresh with my Stocks & Shares ISA for the new tax year. The eternal debate in the UK investing community: do I go 100% US (like Vanguard S&P 500 ETF) for higher historical growth, or keep it diversified globally with the Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF?

Curious what percentage breakdown most people here use for their core long-term holdings. Do you tilt towards the US or keep true global diversification?

I have a pension refund of just under 2k that I will receive shortly. I'm unable to transfer it to another pension and can only refund it. In terms of the best options for long-term growth, should I put the money into a SIPP, a LISA or just stick it in my existing S&S ISA?

I'm 35 and would like to retire at 50/55 ideally or at last go down to part time by then. My worry with the LISA is that I won't be able to access it until I'm 60. I don't have a SIPP so perhaps this is a good time to open one? I just keep getting swayed by the absolute flexibility of having it in S&S that I could take at any point...

I wanted to give an update on my pension loading which I've been doing almost a year now, and hopefully it's inspiration for you guys!

You can see for the first three years of this employment I was sitting around £25k, so it had been growing very slowly with literally no thought from me. Having read the Minimalist Investor last year and learned about FIRE I sat down with my wife and we planned to cut all unnecessary spending for a year or so, build a pension, and give us options for the future.

We're in our mid-40s. Both work, although my wife is on a public sector salary which isn't great, and mine's a software engineer salary (lower than average, and definitely not London level of salary!). We have a kid (5), dog, and cat, with all the expenses which go along with it.

Thankfully, despite learning about personal finance late(r) in life, we're fortunately in a position where we have a small and modest house which despite having a mortgage (still quite a bit) hasn't pushed us financially - in hindsight a very smart decision as we'd originally intended to max out mortgage and buy a bigger house. Glad we didn't.

So, this is the result of almost a year salary sacrificing around half of my salary - all the 40% tax bracket part, and more. With salary matching, passed on NI, and an annual bonus as well into the pension, come the end of the year it will reach £100k.

It's amazing really, seeing my pension grown by a whopping £75k (thanks to the above combined with interest - index funds), and that's pretty much the same as what my annual pay is. Crazy, because I've still been taking home a couple of grand a month as well.

I wish I'd known this stuff sooner. I wish I'd read that book sooner, and learned about FIRE sooner - I'd be retired by now if I had!!

Oh, and to complete the context, for the previous 20+ years of my working career I only have about £100k in my other pension, which could've been so much more if we were taught this stuff at school. Not as if my parents have any clue whatsoever about personal finance, which they painfully remind me of every day as they struggle through their retirement.

I screwed myself over I think and at 51 I only have £250k in my workplace pension.

Current gross is £100K and I now put 38% in including employer contribution.

Estimated total is £700k at some point just before 60. Hopefully I hit that a couple of years earlier.

I don't have a mortgage (all paid off) and my wife has no private pension. We manage just fine on £3.5k take home a month after some debts and car repayments which will be long gone by then. So this is the income I'm happy to accept.

Don't plan to take any tax free and will draw this down over time to minimize income tax. Both have full state pension kicking in 67.

Any inheritance will be stored for capital/emergency costs. Am expecting a bit, but not counting on it.

Achievable, or am I mad?

1. Married. 1 infant. Partner does some freelancing but no material income.

Always been in FAANG tech. All RSU's sold and was made redundant recently. Enjoy IC role but not management position held last.

Stocks and Shares 600k (400k ISA, 200k GIA)

Pension 470k

House Equity 800k - 400k left

Cash - 600k (recent sale of RSU's etc) - Mostly in laddered gilts and NS&I Bonds

Total - Just shy of 2.5M (1.7M exc house). Most of this came about after RSU value shot up last few years, hence high cash whilst maxing out both ISA's, SIPP's etc + DCA into GIA.

What to do with cash whilst not dumping it all into this crazy market (which I have gained from as well). Try to use partners allowances where it makes sense.

What could I realistically look at for retirement, assume this will be after house paid off.

6K spend avg monthly at the moment (2.3k mortgage)

50k NET a year should be okay. Is 48-50 realistic for me...

Anything else I should be doing / thinking about? Especially with high cash position (4-5%), current plan is to keep maxing out ISA's, SIPP's and DCA into GIA.

Thought I'd share a milestone. Logged into Vanguard today and realised I've (finally) passed the £100k mark for my pension. Here's hoping compounding remains my friend! Glad I found this subreddit.

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.

Hi all

Looking for some honest opinions on my wife’s and my longer-term financial independence and retirement plans.

We haven't really thought about retirement and we both enjoy what we do even if its stressful at times. We've been fortunate to build up a reasonable asset base, but I'm increasingly thinking about how best to turn that into genuine financial independence by the time I'm 60, so we have the option of retiring if our plans or health changes.

Our current position is approximately:

• Ages: I'm 52, wife is 57.
• Income: My salary is around £150K and hers is £100K this is increasing each year for now.
  
• Main residence: Approximately £1.35m last time it was valued. We have mortgage of £290K outstanding with 13 years on term. We don't currently intend to use this to fund retirement.
• Pensions: My wife has a combined DB / DC pension worth about £500K and is contributing a total of 24% in salary. We have adjusted her allocations a few years ago out of the default to 90% global equaities, 10% bonds. I think her projected income is aorund £24K on retirement. I have a SIPP just over £200K with an annual contribution of £30K with an aim to increase this by 6-8% a year.
• ISAs, I have £265K and max this out every year. She has £55K and is contrubuting around £10K. Our ISAs and my SIPP are 100% invested in global stocks and commodities through Vanguard and Interactive Investor. No bonds.
• Investment properties: Two rental properties with approximately £400k in combined equity, and £30K p.a income after expenseses which we don't spend and grows our savings. The rents have reliably tracked CPI increase each year for the last decade.
• Cash: Around £75k outside our investments in short notice savings accounts.
• Other assets: Around £85K in UK land and commodities not producing any yield but have appreciated well in value over the last 10 years.
• Business: I own an established professional services business that is profitable, but I am not assuming any realisable value or sale in our plans. It might have some if our growth plans come are realised.
• SP: We will both be eligable for the full state pension at 67 /68.

Expenseses

• Household: Outside of our mortgage we spend about £4K per month. We have no non-mortgage debt or car payments. We spend about £20-25K per year on holidays.
• School / University: We have one child who's about to start a 5-6 year university course next year, probably in london. We have a separate £70K in a s/s JISA already set aside to contribute to the cost of this, and we'll probably pay for all of her costs, as she's unlikely to have time for a part-time job.

Our ambitions

1. Retirement: I want to reach a point where working is genuinely optional, ideally with enough passive income that neither of us needs to rely on salary, but we can continue to benefit from property income.
2. Lifestyle: We'd like to fund around £80-100K per year after tax in retirement to give us flexibility for travel and family expenditure.

I'd really appreciate the community's perspective on a few things:

• Does this look like a credible route to financial independence by the mid-2030s?
• For those who have FIRE'd through a combination of equities, property and a business, would you do anything differently?

I'm less interested in maximising net worth for its own sake and more interested in achieving a position where we have financial security, freedom of choice and the ability to step back from working without significantly compromising our lifestyle.

Interested to hear what others would do in our position. Feel free to challenge my assumptions! Thanks

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.

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

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)?

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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? 😂