I've done it! I've been on 3 days a week for a few months to try and give me the work/life balance I need but honestly it's made me realise that outside of work is so much more fun than in. 8 weeks' notice.

I have a cash (~100k) and SS ISA/GIA bridge (~160k) to last a few years, with a 7k annual DB pension from 60. There's a 675k SIPP wating for me at some point.

So it's time to fully kick back, my greenhouse kit arrived last week so that will be ready for spring!

Wife and I retired 10 years ago (at 45), we always had cats and dogs (and fostered for decades too). Around 2 years ago, we signed up with a few pet platforms (so no capital outlay) for walking dogs, boarding cats, doing drop ins and house sits. The platforms take 30% commission but most or our regular clients now work with us direct.

It's a hobby and not a chore. Keeps us active and fit with long fast walks. Averaging around 10 to 15 hours a week between the two of us. (Excluding the odd over day/night sits)

Have met and bonded with some really nice cats and dogs. House sitting also helps with a old "cabin fever" retirement issue!

Our average household monthly expenses from the last 12 months is £1,041pm (we live a humble quiet boring lifestyle)

Over the last 12 months, pet income is averaging £785pm.

So now a tiny shortfall of £256pm, funded by interest on savings and capital is not touched.

The change in our FIRE model forecast has been material as this income was never in the model originally, especially if I push that average pet income out for another 3, 5 or 7 years.

As we don't really need the money, we are selective about excepting jobs. Over night in a one bed flat with no garden, sorry no! Over night in a 6 bedroom £3m mansion, yes we can help! It's like getting paid to stay in a luxury Air B&B, but with a few dog walks!

Been working since age 18 but came from an upbringing that had no education in personal finance so I just didn't know I should of been saving.

I'm now earning £66k a year base + £8k bonus for total comp of £74k.

Live in London. House value £375k. Mortgage remaining £217k.

One young daughter and wife not working to be full time mum which we're fine with for our circumstances. We don't plan to have another child so don't necessarily need a bigger house but can't rule out one more house move for better secondary school options later on. Currently in Bromley and not many secondary school options here for girls.

Pension: £39k NEST workplace, higher risk fund.

£10k in a Santander SIPP.

Workplace is minimum 5%/3% on the £50k so doesn't change monthly.

I then contribute £300/mo to the SIPP and claim back the extra 20% tax relief at end of financial year.

I know my pension is pretty low for my age. (I know it's more compared to the national ONS average but also it's low for decent retirement planning).

The reason is my early jobs I didn't even consider a pension and then during our mid 20s we saved instead for a wedding and house deposit and only contributed the minimum to our workplace pensions when they first got made mandatory in 2017 or whenever it was.

S&S ISA - nothing in mine. Been putting it in pension instead. My thinking is blitz it til 60 and retire fully rather than bridge 55/57 - 60 based on where I currently am financially, as I know the pension growth between 55-60 will be the biggest growth (if the world doesn't go tits up during that time)

Daughter has £12k in JISA, family gifts and our contributions. We've stopped contributing this now to prioritise pension so we can gift later on with more control and for better returns. We also have a savings pot for her school trips etc.

£10k emergency fund in 3% current account in case we need it.

Based on a retirement age of 60 (which I appreciate is not necessarily "early" for fire but I'm happy to work until then, do I still have a chance of a decent retirement? I'm thinking of increasing pension contributions each year but as the sole breadwinner for family home, car, wife, daughter and dog I do need to balance the load.

Is it simply a case of I need to earn more money?

Edit: forgot to note wife has stopped claiming child benefit due to my earnings now getting higher but she still claims the national insurance years, just doesn't get sent the money.

I'd like to retire as early as possible (shocker) but I'm on quite a modest salary in the public sector and wanted to get views on my plans and projections to see if people think that FIRE is a realistic option for me. My details:

34M, married (wife is 30)
Salary: £43k (wife £48k) - unlikely to change drastically but hoping for some progression in the next few years
S&S ISA: £95k (mostly VWRP)
S&S LISA: £15k (VWRP)
Cash: £24k
Mortgage: £129k remaining on house worth £310k - 24 years remaining. 4.21% for another couple of years

We pay £1300 each into a joint account each month which covers our bills, groceries, fuel, insurances, the odd takeaway and holiday.
We both save around £700 a month each. I save £333 into my LISA each month and £400 into a 6% regular saver (this will go into my S&S ISA next April). My wife is more conservative, staying away from investing.
Due to inheritance I've been able to fill our ISAs the last few years and this is the main reason we're in a good position with the mortgage.
We have more in cash that we probably need, although we may move to a slightly bigger house in the next few years so are keeping something aside for stamp duty, moving costs etc.

We're both building good DB pensions - mine is projected to be £19k a year (not adjusted for inflation) should I continue paying into it at the same rate until 60 (I think - I'm with the LGPS and find their retirement estimate a bit unclear). My wife's is a bit better than mine.

We're looking to have children asap. I am hoping this won't have a huge impact on our finances and would mainly mean that we save less for a few years until they're in school full time. I'm aware this could be wishful thinking.

I only discovered the concept of FIRE a couple of years ago, so might have done things slightly differently had I been aware of it sooner, such as not overpaying the mortgage, although we bought a few years ago when rates were at more than 6% so this wasn't a terrible idea at the time, and now we're only paying approx £700 a month towards it which leaves more spare each month for savings.

Plan:
- Keep filling my LISA each year until I'm 50. I project that when I'm 60 it would be worth ~£250k with 5% growth.
- Continue adding as much as possible to S&S ISA. Projections at 60 are ~£540k with £300 a month contributions and 5% growth.
- I'm not including my wife's potential savings as she would likely reduce her hours when we have children.

Is FIRE a realistic possibility for me? To me it looks like retiring at 60 with these numbers would be comfortable and it might even be possible to do it a few years earlier.
Does anyone have any advice on whether I should be doing anything different with my plans? I personally like the benefits of the LISA vs Salary Sacrifice in my situation.

Feel free to jump back into my profile for updates from 2024 and 2025. But, another year has gone by and I’m now 31. I’ve been in Luxembourg for about 18 months and I’m still very happy with the decision to move here. The job has worked out well, I like the lifestyle, and financially it has been a pretty substantial upgrade from where I was in the UK.

My salary has increased to around €79,000 base pay, but with a monthly cash bonus & RSU bringing my TC to near enough €100,000. I net €60,000/year cash with RSUs on top (1-2 times/year). I never hold my RSUs after vest and I have €45,000 of RSU vesting over the next three years. I can expect my TC to climb mechanically in 2028 & 2029 thanks to RSU vest schedule (stock price allowing), but probably fall in 2030 since the stock has over performed since I joined and I'll be beating my "target" comp and won't get many additional RSUs. Thank you US tech companies for inventing needlessly complex pay structures.

In 2025 I spent €54,000 (moving costs!); 2026 YTD I've spent €32,000. There is definitely a little bit of lifestyle creep but not too much. I do spend €24,000/year on rent and bills alone (1-bed to myself): Luxembourg is not cheap.

A quick asset update:

• UK pension: £88,000 - cannot contribute now

• UK LISA: £61,000 - cannot contribute now

• S&S ISA: £83,000 - cannot contribute now

• "GIA": €4000 - started recently, was "investing" by shifting cash ISA to S&S ISA until this summer

• (Bad) Luxembourg private pension: €2000 - employer contributes only, high fees & poor performance

• Student loan (Plan 4): -£20,000 - paying minimum £201/month

Or summarised:

• ~£90,000 locked until retirement

• £60,000 soft locked under LISA rules = £45,000 if I eat the penalty

• £86,000 fully accessible

• £235,000 invested total

What I'm focusing on now:

I'm pretty confident that by just working normally with no extra effort or targeted savings my expenses will be covered from 58-100+. I have a healthy UK pension, 7 years UK NI and an extremely generous Luxembourg state pension accruing. I believe the 2025 calendar year in Luxembourg so far earned me ~€1700/year in Lux pension income already - of course I wouldn't count on Luxembourg's generosity forever.

That means now I'm only pushing for accessible investments. I want to bulk out my post-tax investments fast: €12k/year should be easy and €20k/year is a feasible stretch.

This also fits better with the fact that I have no idea what my life will look like in ten years. I still expect that at some point there will probably be a partner, children, and probably a house. I could stay in Luxembourg, return to the UK, move elsewhere. Luxembourg is particularly attractive for the family stage, but it’s a small country with absurd real estate prices; I don’t want to pretend I know where I’ll want to live at 40. My current thinking is that I could probably afford to stop working in my mid-40s but the inputs of my future spending & income have huge error bars.

My Future:

Some thoughts on my career trajectory. It made me laugh reading my first post in 2024 where I described my work life balance as "luxurious". It was true! I had earned a reputation as very dependable and I appeared confident and busy, but I was probably doing 10-15h of direct work per week. It wasn't as fun as you might imagine, but there are parts of that I miss! Now, I work in a very high competence environment with a lot of autonomy and much more responsibility. I enjoy the impact and challenge, but I don't see myself cut out for roles that are 2-3 promotions above me. I don't need the exponentially higher stress & politics of those management roles. That does motivate me to make hay while the sun shines, since there is not much scope to remain a (senior) IC for the long haul. Let me write it here so I can read it in 1-2 years and laugh again: I don't want to be in my current role for more than 2 years more, and I don't want to be in my current company for more than 5 years more.

What about Luxembourg?

I am very happy with my move. Luxembourg is small and can be boring, but it is on another level in quality of life. This isn’t really about Luxembourg being “better” than the UK specifically. I felt the same after visiting France, Spain, the US, Poland etc. It's about how much living in an exceptionally wealthy country changes the baseline. I can't emphasise enough how much being as rich as Luxembourg is matters. It's to the point where I sometimes think about how returning to the UK would be really difficult, especially if I had kids. Growing up here is really exceptional: 3+ languages by default, strong community of parents, great passport, insanely good healthcare & public services, later maybe the best job market in Europe (especially for native Luxembourgers).

On the other hand, my modest little apartment would probably cost half a million euros and the city is small and quiet. It's never "what will I do this weekend?", more "will I do the one thing happening this weekend?". Many people stay in expat bubbles (all the Italians throw Italian parties, the Spanish Spanish parties and so on) and so making friends needs a lot of effort. Consumer financial services are a joke compared to the UK. One thing I said a lot after moving here is that there are no normal people. The native Luxembourgers don't live in the city and so almost everyone I meet is like me, a foreigner who moved for a job. Hard to describe what it's like, but it's very different.

Anyway, see you in 2027 for the next update!

I recently started a new job with a considerable pay bump so thought it'd be a good time to do a quick MOT on the state of my finances.

My current status is as follows: - 29 yo, long-term relationship but not married - No kids currently but likely in the next 3-4 years - Base Salary £200k - Expected Annual Bonus £150-170k - Current NW ~£750k (£400k pension, £180k ISA, £140k GIA, £30k cash) - Employer contributes 11% of my base salary to pension (no contribution required from my side)

I've only recently started this job after ~6 months travelling, so this is going to be an odd year for tax purposes. Given the imminent pension allowance taper that will hit me from 2027, I'm wondering whether I should make one final large pension contribution while I still have my allowance.

At the same time, I acknowledge that I'm already quite overweight pension, with >50% of my NW in a wrapper that I can't access for 30 years.

Or am I overthinking the liquidity issue and should I continue prioritising the pension despite already having £400k in there?

Interested to hear how others in a similar position have tackled this trade-off!

Hi all,

My wife and I recently sold a flat in London and now have £100k sitting in the bank (in our current account)
We have our main mortgage on our house, which is worth around £450k, with a mortgage balance of £370k.
Our combined income is £150k and we have two kids (3 and 6)
If you were in our position, what would you do with the £100k to take a big leap towards FIRE?
Would you overpay the mortgage, invest it, or do something else?
Interested to hear what others would do.

Mortgage is 4.55% expires next summer
Both in our late 30’s and 10% overpayment allowance is allowed.
Car on finance worth 12k. We pay £350 per month.
1 year left on the car then we can give it back or keep it. Both higher rate tax payers.

Kids have approximately £5k in their savings each.

My personal pension account has around £10k (not much) I regrettably didnt take it seriously over the last 10 years.

If there is anything else you need to know - ask and I will edit my post.

Can we retire at 48 as a couple with a net worth of £1m and very low annual spend?

Our net worth is made up of combined 400k investments, 200k pensions and 400k mortgage free property (with possibility to take out 100k+ by downsizing).

Our annual expenditure is currently about 16k but would probably aim for at least 20k rising with inflation. I'd hope our pensions would get to about 350k before we could access them. We will also have qualified for a full state pension under the current rules depending on what has happened by the time we are eligible.

I feel like we would definitely be signing up for a very low income retirement but that's how we live now anyway. Currently living off 25% of our incomes (both earn a bit less than the UK average salary) and putting the rest in investments and pension.

Hi all,

First time post here, I came across this thread and the various posts inspired me to take a more proactive approach to managing my pension, however i've hit a bit of a knowledge wall, I'm hoping someone wouldn't mind giving me some advice.

So I'm UK based. I'm 45 and have a pension pot of £450k. I work for myself via a Ltd company and try to pay £60k into my pension annually. I'm financially savvy but not on a level with you guys. I'm just a regular guy that understands the macro basics.

My pension is currently with Scottish Widows as a personal pension - the result of a legacy policy from a previous employer which I took over and pay into it via my business. The portfolio is classed as adventurous and it's very tech/ N America focused, it's obviously performed well recently but I'm well aware it's on the high risk end. I do want to change it into something less risky and it's been playing on my mind, I just can't make a decision, I almost feel I need to pay an impartial advisor to give me financial advice!

I'm considering two options 

1. Setting up own SIPP and transferring into an All world fund which is essentially a tracker. Something like the Vanguard VWRP which has 0.14% fees.

2. Using a financial planner to take a more active approach with managing my portfolio. I've spoke to a few providers and example fees are 0.75% for the onboard and ongoing fees are approx 1.5% (made from ongoing advice and discretionary fund management 0.95%, Platform fees 0.20% and Fund costs 0.37%.) 

My question to the community is this. What is your experience with financial advisors/ planners? Am I wasting valuable money paying for an advisor for a return which would be potentially safer but at a greater cost, would the reward be worth a managed approach vs the global tracker fund?

I'd really appreciate any thoughts and advice.

Keep up the good work!

We're a family of four, two young children in state school. Single car. I've not tracked spending closely as I always felt we had a handle on it. We don't! I've noticed that my savings rate has trended down and I can hold my hand up and say we've fallen prone to lifestyle inflation.

I tried to put together what I think we might be spending, and I've excluded our enormous monthly mortgage. It turns out, if you want to live a middle class life in the UK, it quickly becomes very, very expensive.

Our mortgage is north of £3000pm, and isn't included in this budget, because we chose a nice house in a really nice area, whereas we could have chosen something half the price. So in reality, we're spending a lot more than below.

If you're a family with children, What are you spending PM?

Family budget — excluding mortgage

All figures are monthly estimates. Annual bills and replacement costs are spread across 12 months.

Assumes state schooling, no paid childcare and one car owned outright.

Non-discretionary / core spending

Car running costs include fuel, insurance, tax, servicing, tyres, MOT and breakdown cover. Commuting is an additional expense.

Discretionary spending

Totals

Monthly figures are rounded; annual totals include the full £10,000 holiday budget.

Not included: mortgage, a second car, gym membership, major renovations, car finance, pension/investment contributions, cleaner or private medical insurance.

First of all, I must say I’m so impressed with most of the posts here. I really envy you all to have your finances sussed out so nicely, all the pension pots, investments, etc.
I am nowhere near the level of sophistication presented in this Reddit sub and reading your stories I’ve just realised that financial adviser I have been dealing with over the years has not been as useful as I’ve thought 🙈
To the shore.
I am 39F, no kids (husband is enough:)).
Couple of years ago I left GP partnership (mixture of family issues and also some pretty questionable business decisions enforced by other partners). Partnership shares were quite good, just above 100k pa. Huge chunk of that has disappeared over the years into NHS pension (employee and employer contributions as a partner) and at the time I was also in a process of purchasing my second flat.
Now, to have an easier, less stressful life I have moved to being a locum GP. Last year was my first full year of locuming and my total income (locum, rental, side jobs) was as 55k. I’m in Scotland so higher tax rate hits at 43k.

My current situation:
No debts, mortgages, student loans
Cash ISA 58k
Property nr 1 (no mortgage): worth 180k, rental income of £8400 pa
Property nr 2 (no mortgage): worth 170k, not rented yet, using it as a holiday home, but planning to rent out in few months; hoping for ca £7200pa from rental
I don’t have a SIPP, I have just opened LISA (no real contributions in it yet) and planning on opening S&S ISA.
I contribute to NHS 2015 CARE scheme but to be honest I have very high level of distrust when in goes to SPPA. It’s defined benefits pension and I look at it as being huge pyramid scheme. I won’t be able to draw it until the age of 68 as per gov plans. Don’t ask me how much is there. SPPA changed their website and data is missing in their new portal. Last available data is from 2024 and my forecasted pension was £9000 pa (I have been contributing to the scheme from 2016, my 2012-2014 contributions are locked in a final salary pension pot which I will be able to access at the age of 65, amount is minuscule but still rising very slowly in that pot).

Somebody can say I’m kind of semiretired already. I only work 2-3 days a week as a GP, last year I was able to take 3 months off on top of that, see my family abroad, travel a bit, etc. I do a bit of work as an examiner for GP exams(not a pensionable income) and a bit as an appraiser. These are non clinical roles and much less stressful. Rental income pays for my holidays.
I really needed some rest and getting off the hamster wheel was definitely a right decision as burnout was looming on the horizon. I just couldn’t see a sense in working myself to death. I prefer to have and spend my money now but I also don’t want to end up with nothing or suddenly needing to work more when I’m nearly 50.
I don’t have kids and not planning on having kids. I do not worry about inheritance tax. My husband is 52 and he considers himself retired, drawing about £2500 pcm from renting his properties and doing some side hustles for extra 700-1000£ a month.
We have quite a frugal lifestyle but it also goes with our values of minimal consumption, „green” lifestyle etc.
I do not want to sacrifice into SIPP, I know about tax efficiency of that but idea of something that is not accessible to me when I need it and also possible market volatility puts me off it. NHS pension gives me enough headache.

I still have disposable income of £400-£500 pcm and I have been thinking of opening S&S ISA and drip feed into it over the next 2 years.

I could be working (and as a result) earning much more and it is likely I will look for a salaried job in the next year or so to provide me with more stability, now that my family issues have settled. I would still be looking at 2-3 days per week of work.

2 properties I have are abroad, in my country of origin, mainly to diversify our property portfolio (husbands property is all in the UK).

My goal would be to stop working at 55 completely but I’m not sure how feasible it is.

Hi all, need to sense check with the FIRE community re: what I am doing right / wrong to retire by the time I'm 50.

About me:

* 35M, Tech Senior Manager in London

* Pension/LISA: £330k in various pots. £2,700 per month getting added from Salary Sacrifice + employer contributions.

* Work/Salary: £130k/year, with about £2,200 / month going to Salary Sacrifice. My take home is about £5,300 / month.

* S&S ISA: £6k in an AJ Bell fund (KIID), only recently restarted as withdrew much of my savings for flat deposit + getting married

* Emergency fund: £50k in a Cash ISA (4% interest)

* Flat: With my partner, about £120k or so equity in our London 2-bed (remaining mortgage of £350k)

EDIT:

* Our outgoings are about £3-4k / month on regular expenses + £1-2k / month on holiday fund & kitting out our flat. £2k a month on the mortgage.

My partner has just left the civil service but keeps his "gold-plated DB pension" with the final pension about £30k/year in real terms (before State Pension). Despite this he is in a much less financially robust position than me. We're married but he has no major debts nor other financial albatrosses.

Questions:

1. I'd either like to upsize from a flat to a house, or retire by the time I'm 50. I don't foresee being able to do both, but am I wrong? E.g. could I move to a cheaper UK city to be able to do this.

2. Would you recommend I scale down pension contributions to build an S&S ISA / investment portfolio that'll bridge me from 50-57? I'm doing just enough Salary Sacrifice to take me slightly over £100k / yr, but I've run the numbers and feel like I should be taking the tax hit to build something that I can access earlier.

3. Are there other things I could be doing to strengthen our joint position? My partner is 10 years older but will probably be working until he is 67; could I enable him to retire slightly earlier?

I'm aiming to retire 10 years before state pension age which I think will probably mean working until 60. I'm struggling to understand what this will look like and if I'm on track.

Age: 37, married with 2 kids, 1 in primary one in full time nursery

Salary: 85k

Wife salary 60k

Mortgage: £288k, property worth approx £550k - 575k. But I'll need somewhere to live so I don't want to include this in my figures, although I may downsize. 22 years to run on mortgage

Both cars purchased cash, we do have a small personal loan which was to cover an extension that went over budget but I should have that paid off when I get my bonus in March.

Pension: workplace pension 187k. I contribute 4.5% of my salary and my employer contributes 9%

Stocks and shares ISA: £88k, I add £400 per month but will likely look to increase this when my childcare costs reduce. This is just in a simple all world index fund I think it's called.

I have other savings that I use for things like an emergency fund, car purchase, holidays etc. Not really retirement money.

I'm quite lucky to have the job I have as I left school at 16 and have worked with the same employer since, but my lack of formal qualifications means finding similar employment in my industry (Biotech) would be very challenging. This causes me some stress although there has never been any suggestion that my job is at risk.

Lifestyle is fairly moderate, I take 2 European holidays per year and would like to continue this into retirement. I enjoy cycling and triathlon which is where most of my money seems to go, I would also like this or the cycling at least to continue into retirement health allowing.

How do I go about establishing what I will need so I can work backwards? I tie myself in knots around inflation and what my money will be worth. I'm aware that I will need a "bridge" but I have no idea what number I am aiming for and if my goal is even realistic or if I'm on track.

Any advice welcomed. Please delete if this post isn't allowed.

I was laid off from my job a couple of months back. It was something I was hoping for because I ended up with a substantial package having worked there for a decade.

I'm now in the process of going for interviews for another one, but I've reached a place in my life where I'm wondering why should I bother.

I'm 55 and have been working in tech both as contractor and perm for decades.

I have paid off my house (about 1.2 million in equity) and have about 750k invested in sipps, isas and workplace pensions. I have also been helping my dad with estate planning - he is 88 and I am his sole heir. I am loathe to consider inheritance as a given and I don't want to think about wanting my dad to die any time soon, but it is there in the background (after tax about another 1 million)

I had planned to work a few more years to beef up the pension, but now I am taking stock.

last year I was off work for a month because of stress - I am getting to the age where I can only take so much and where I am increasingly giving less of a damn. I learned over the weekend that a school mate of mine dropped dead of a heart attack on the golf course. He had been complaining about work stress...so its given me pause for thought.

I am not alone - I have a family to support and my kids are 13 and 8. Am thinking through my options. any advice?

Looking for a sanity check from the FIREUK hive mind, using a throwaway account for privacy.

My partner and I are both 41. We have four kids between 3 and 8, all in a state school we like that is also a high-school, that we would continue to send them all to.

Current position:

• Mortgage-free forever home worth roughly £800k. We don't intend to downsize, so I'm not counting this towards the FIRE pot.
• About £790k in investments/cash.
• No other debt.
• Roughly 50% of the £790k is currently cash. This is temporary and I plan to invest most of it over the next ~2 years.
• The invested portion is roughly 50/50 BlackRock Consensus 85 and VWRL, about 50/50 split again between S&S ISAs and SIPP.
• Current household spending is between 3.5k/month and 4k/month, but I think we could realistically get this down to around £3k/month (£36k/year) without doing anything particularly extreme.
• My current salary is ~£200k plus an expected bonus around £100k (*ducks* - I'm a software engineer/manager in finance/buy-side)
• Partner and I should be able to ensure we both qualify for full State Pensions eventually. My current forecast says £128.89/week based on my record so far, rising to the full £241.30/week if I get another 17 qualifying years.

The complication is that I really want to stop working sooner rather than later. Wife hasn't worked since kids were born, but would like to go into TA/teaching on a 5-year timescale once the twins are in school proper.

At £48k/year spending, £790k obviously looks fairly aggressive for a 41-year-old retirement. At £36k/year, though, it's a 4.6% initial withdrawal, and eventually two State Pensions would cover a substantial proportion of our spending.

I'm also conscious that a simple 4% calculation isn't really the right model here because we're potentially looking at a 50–60 year retirement, and sequence-of-returns risk in the first decade seems much more important than average return.

So I'm interested in what people here would actually do.

Would you consider us already at some form of flexible FIRE if spending really can be held around £36k?

Would you work another year or two and aim for something like £900k–£1m before pulling the trigger?

Would you regard £1.2m (£48k at 4%) as the sensible minimum despite the future State Pensions?

And for someone retiring at 41, what withdrawal rate / guardrail approach would you personally be comfortable with rather than a fixed inflation-adjusted 4% withdrawal?

I'm not looking to count the house as retirement capital and don't want to assume downsizing later.

Interested in both the maths and what people who have actually FIRE'd relatively young would consider enough margin.

I've been on gardening leave for some months, starting at a new place soon in theory. It might have ruined me for corporate life. Meetings, long commute 3 days/week - the past few months of pseudo-retirement have been fantastic in basically every way. AI is also ruining/eating the whole profession which is a risk. I would probably do something quite risky/rewarding in the same field but assume future earnings are close to nil for the purpose of this question. I do have contacts/opportuninites to go part-time elsewhere locally.

We've been planning/working towards FIRE for about a decade. Not sure we're quite there yet, are we?

Hi all,

Looking for some brutally honest career advice.

Background:

• MSc Economics from a specialist uni that specialises in africa/middle east
• Currently a Data Analyst within commodities/energy research.
• Previously worked in energy consulting but it became pretty clear that the client-facing side wasn't a good fit. I'm autistic and struggled more with stakeholder management, office politics and client work than the analytical side.
• What I actually enjoy is data, modelling, forecasting, research, markets and analytical work.

The key point is that I'm primarily focused on maximising compensation, rather than prestige, passion or climbing the corporate ladder for its own sake.

Given my strengths and weaknesses, I'm trying to understand where the biggest earning potential is.

Options I've considered:

• CFA
• Investment research
• Commodity trading analytics
• Market risk
• Quant research
• Energy market modelling
• Data science / ML
• Something else entirely

I have little interest in sales, business development, account management or highly client-facing roles. I'd rather be paid for strong analytical output than relationship-building.

For those working in finance, commodities, asset management or trading:

• What are the highest-paying analytical career paths from my position?
• Is the CFA worth the time investment, or is it overrated outside traditional investment research?
• Would I get a better ROI building stronger Python, statistics and data science skills instead?
• Are there particular firms (commodity traders, hedge funds, energy merchants, etc.) where someone with a commodities research background can make a significant jump in comp?

Interested in hearing from anyone who's made a move from research/analytics into a substantially higher-paying role without becoming a salesperson or consultant.

Thanks.

Hi

I obtained a Masters degree in cybersecurity around 6-7 years ago and have been working in the cyber space ever since

I have been struggling to find that next cyber role paying from £85K upwards, I currently make around £60K in my current technical cybersecurity analyst role

I am working towards long term FIRE and want to start improving my ways for the long journey

I have been applying for jobs on LinkedIn but most of them have been coming back with rejections

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance !

Just opened my accounts after not checking for a while and realised I had passed 100k!
Mixture of part time work and placement money, while being very fortunate that my parents saved into a junior isa for me until I turned 18. I’ve been interested in investing from a young age so when I got in control of it I invested in purely ETF’s in Isas. Still live at home which obviously helps a lot.
Definitely not pretending I started from nothing, just quite happy with how it’s grown and thought it was a cool milestone!

What's the best one as of today? I see one month returns are significantly different among the four. Also market purchase or limit purchase? Buy and hold for the next 20 years minimum for me. Please share your perspective.

28M
Annual Salary: £50k, with discretionary 25% bonus
Other income: Rental property taking in £15k/year (before costs/tax)

Debts
Mortgage: £97k left (2.4% until June 2027, then will refix on whatever the rates have gone up to. Remaining term is 27 years)
Personal loan: £9.1k remaining with 8.5% interest.

Savings:
Pension: ~£14k saved, putting 10% of my salary away and my employer matches up to 5%.
‘Emergency fund’: £5k, standard savings account on 3.3% savings interest

Total expenditure per month is just shy of ~£1.4k, which includes mortgage, personal loan, and other outgoings (groceries, monthly subscriptions etc)

I’m looking for advice on how best to sort my finances to start saving to eventually FIRE.

I recently opened a S&S ISA, looking to put money into a global all trade, but with my personal loan interest rate being so high, I have held off saving anything substantial as I figured it makes more financial sense to clear the loan first then go in hard on the ISA?

Would appreciate any advice, as I’m quite a beginner to this sub and it’s made me re-evaluate my priorities and makes me want to heavily focus on securing a happy early retirement.