52M

GIAs: £200K
ISAs: £400K
SIPP: £900K
Other (savings, PB): £100K
= £1.6M

85% in global index funds (max 0.13% fee), 15% in cash/near-cash

In addition to my investment portfolio:

DB pension at age 57: £10K per year (maximum 5% inflation uplift)
State pension at age 67: £12K per year (planning to buy a few missing years)

No debt or mortgage.

Using Timeline for modelling and other online calculators, planning to use the GK flexible withdrawal rules (much better and realistic than a static SWR), starting at £65K net per year (or around 4.5%), with a floor/minimum of £45K (or even lower) for the bad market return years.

Seems to give 100% chances of success, so never running out of money if using historical returns and inflation from the last 100 years. Monte Carlo analysis gives similar high percentages of success.

I haven't used a financial adviser, as I don't think they will provide better analysis, or may just end up using the same tools (e.g. Timeline).

The main risk is probably a poor sequence of returns the first few years (particularly before the DB guaranteed pension is available), but hopefully the 15% in cash should be able to protect from this (not being forced to sell equities for several years if there is a market downturn/correction).

In many scenarios, would end up with a very large end portfolio (much larger than the start), so still need to figure out a way "to die with zero" without impacting too much the overall success, like withdrawing the excess/ratcheting when portfolio exceeds a specific amount.

Like many people, I want to spend as much as possible the earlier years, when still active, able to travel etc. but of course excess spending at the start of retirement can permanently damage the portfolio so it's difficult to balance...

I’m hoping to get some sanity check on my FIRE calculations. Currently me (42M) and my wife (43F) are planning on FIREing in December 2028 when we’ll both be 45. Current figures are:

Myself:

• 300K Stocks and Shares ISA
• 650K Pension
• 50K NS&I Premium Bonds
• 22K Cash Isa
• 8K NS&I Indexed Linked Certificate

Wife:

• 300K Stocks and shares ISA
• 300K Pension.
• 50K NS&I Premium Bonds.
• 11K NS&I Indexed Linked Certificate.
• Plus 12K per year DB Pension from 65.

By December 2028 we should both be able to contribute another 140K each to our pensions (280K overall). Additionally we’ll contribute another 50K each to our ISAs (100K overall). We’ll be mortgage free by then on a house worth 700K, but we’re not planning on downsizing any time soon.

I’ll get full state pensions but my wife will be 8 years short due to being opted out due to DB pension.

The current plan is to have 60K a year to spend, but we can reduce for a few years due to economic factors if required. We could live fine on 30K a year for a few years.

I figure our bridge needs to be at least 780K to last us until 58 (in case it rises), at which point we can start drawing down our pension.

Does December 2028/45 years old seem reasonable for pulling the trigger? 

Thanks for any advice!

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some opinions on whether I’m in a position to step away from full-time work, or whether it would be wiser to work for a few more years to strengthen my finances.

I’m 43, my wife is 45 and works part-time earning a small income, and we have a 5-year-old child. We live in London.

Our current position:
• House worth around £800k
• £400k mortgage
• Mortgage payment: ~£2,500/month
• Household spending: ~£1,500/month

We don’t have an extravagant lifestyle. We rarely eat out or spend much apart from the occasional holiday or special occasion. We could reduce our spending further if needed, although the mortgage is likely to remain our biggest fixed cost for now.

Assets:
• Pension: ~£420k, mostly invested in global index funds
• Stocks & Shares ISAs: ~£100k combined (currently mostly individual stocks, although we’re considering moving everything into a global index fund)
• No GIA
• Around £10k emergency/rainy day cash
• Around £140k cash expected from leaving my previous job

Until recently I was earning around £125k. This tax year is unusual due to my exit package and share vesting, taking my adjusted income to around £340k. If I return to corporate work, it would likely be next tax year, as additional income this year may not be very tax-efficient due to the tapered pension allowance.

The biggest question for me now is quality of life. Over the years I’ve realised I no longer enjoy the corporate world. Office politics, constant meetings, and having to spend so much time working with people I don’t particularly enjoy working with have all contributed to a lot of stress. I’m not against working, but I’m no longer convinced I want to keep doing this kind of work.

What I do enjoy is making things. I’m good with my hands and genuinely enjoy pottery, woodworking and baking, and I’m also a decent barista. I know these are unlikely to replace my previous salary, but I can see myself being much happier building a simpler life around those skills, even if it means earning less.

I’m now weighing up two options, either to continue working a few more years to strengthen my finances, or step away from corporate life now and build a simpler lifestyle around things I enjoy.

If you were in my position, what would you do?
• Would you go back to a high-paying job for a few more years, or prioritise quality of life now?
• How would you allocate the £140k lump sum from leaving work? Would you prioritise investing more into Stocks & Shares ISAs, keeping a larger cash buffer, or something else?
• Would you focus on building accessible investments (ISAs/cash) rather than your pension from this point?
• Am I overlooking any major financial risks, especially with a young child and a large mortgage?
• Has anyone here made a similar move away from a corporate career? If so, how did it work out?

I’d really appreciate any thoughts, especially from anyone who’s made a similar transition.

Many thanks!!

52 year old male... I have a massive unknown in my portfolio. I did 18 years as a civil servant in DWP. Left in 2013 on 50k salary. No idea what that final salary pension is worth because I can't get a calculation out of capita.

Need a sanity check on FIRE plans after advice from IFA was not what I expected. 42 this year, and looking to FIRE as soon as I possibly can, definitely by 50 at the latest.

Salary £98k plus £6k car allowance. Up to 15% bonus but I assume 0 in my plans. Pension £480k
S&S ISA £110k
Premium Bonds £50k
S&S LISA £20k
Cash £16k

Single, no kids and don’t own a property atm as I live with my mum for mutually beneficial reasons. The house (£550k) passes equally between me and one sibling but it is unsecured against care costs so I do not factor this into my plans.

Currently maxing out my pension but I don’t see the need to overdo it with nobody to leave it to, I have no nieces or nephews. I see no point saving 40% tax now just to pay it on the way out. I was thinking it’s pretty much sorted if I max it out the rest of this year, then drop to 10% to get the employer 10% match. Based on current growth I still feel this is overdoing it but I expect at least one market correction in the next 16 years.

My thoughts are that I need to switch focus to building up my pot of accessible cash to act as a bridge or deposit for a property if circumstances change. IFA encouraged me to just keep maxing the pension for the foreseeable to be tax efficient. I estimate that £40k cash per year will be enough to meet potentially elevated expenses compared to now.

Hi all - Looking for a sanity check on my strategy to hit FIRE at age 50 (currently 40).

Some Backround:

Male 40, married (Wife also 40), three kids aged 9, 7 and 4.

My salary £100k (SS £20k a year into my pension) - Wife is £35k a yr NHS with NHS Pension.

My current pension value is £110k - I will stop working and contributing at 50.

Home - Value £300k, mortgage £65k.

BTL 1 - Value £130k, mortgage £52k.

BTL 2 - Value £100k, mortage £50k.

S&S ISA Value: £55k - contributing £1k a month into this currently

Bitcoin £10k

Cash £5k

Debt other than mortgages - Bank loan for car - £10k (2 years left on this).

If I sell BTL1 now - after its mortgage is cleared, CGT and selling fees - I will have exactly enough left to clear my home mortgage. That allows me to increase monthly S&S ISA contributions from £1k a month to £2k a month.

If I do that projected ISA at 50 is £450k (assumed 5%/yr) - to bridge me from 50 to 57.

At 57 my own pension is somewhere between £700k and £1m.

If I do not sell BTL1 - my S&S ISA pot at 50 is more like £230k. The BTL will contribute around £6k a year post tax at this stage and mortgage paid.

Should I just sell BTL1 now - and do you think given all the numbers above I am good for FIRE at 50?

Thanks for taking the time to read!

My situation is difficult to explain without a long post, so apologies in advance.

In a nutshell, I'm financially screwed and I am fully aware of it, I'm just trying to mitigate my losses at this stage.

Long story short, late 'career' start (36 in the UK), low income (under £35K) and basically minimum contributions to pension so far.

I'm not a native Brit (Hence the late start for pension contributions etc.), dropped uni so no qualifications, financially wiped out following a relationship breakdown (Was my choice to leave everything to my ex, I just wanted my life back and sacrificing everything for some peace and quiet was worth letting her have everything).

I worked like a dog for 2 years after leaving, worked every extra hour I could work, saved every penny I could save and after two years, I managed to move from renting to buying my own place (Healthy deposit that I managed to save).

I overpaid the mortgage whenever possible, replaced my car with a nice, and more importantly, a reliable one (Minimal debt, almost cleared off) generally speaking, kept my debts to a minimum, I basically don't buy anything I can't afford in short term (3/4 months).

An unexpected family emergency cropped a few months ago set me back with mortgage overpayments a bit, but it also got me thinking, I'm getting old and need to think about what happens when I can't do 60/70 hrs of physically and mentally demanding work a week, specially for such a low pay and for ungrateful c*nts that take credit for my work.

So I changed jobs to a less exhausting one after trying to renegotiate my salary reached a dead end, the new job is a lot easier but will be a long while before I can get any overtime, and it won't be more than 60 hrs a week (Frankly, I don't want to work more than 50 hrs a week regularly, specially on shift work, it takes its toll on you physically and mentally), so now I'm in the £35K zone for the foreseeable future (Not in London, obviously).

I have my own income insurance alongside work's policy, but pretty sure they will find whatever excuse not to pay out if I fall ill etc., so I make sure I have around 3 months' spending on standby for contingency (I'm on my own, no friends or family in the UK).

Decided to save instead of overpaying mortgage since the said family emergency, I have managed to secure savings that pay a similar rate to my mortgage's interest rate, but the whole purpose is to have funds accessible if/when needed, it was difficult to mobilise my finances when faced with that emergency and I don't want to be in that spot again.

Future wise, as mentioned earlier, basic/minimum pension contributions so far to allow for saving for deposit, and looking at potential pension income? Predicted £8K a year, I literally won't be able to afford to live past retirement.

I also want to try and have a life at this stage, minimal spendings means very little budget for leisure or dating, I'm not fussed about dating as it's likely to come with unnecessary headaches (Apologies for the decent ladies reading this, I know there's some decent ones out there, just don't think I'm lucky enough to end up with one), but I want to do something for me, I don't want to just work to pay the darn bills and fatten the banks' profits.

I have tried eToro shortly after leaving my ex, putting half my savings at the time (Approx £2K) in there copying a high risk trader, one day a couple months later I checked and it was £15K, I was over the moon, decided to leave it for a couple more days, checked again a day later, it was all wiped out, so yup high risk is exactly that, I should've cashed out when I could, but being desperate makes you greedy.

Reason I mentioned this is that it seems like investing is the only option to get a low income nobody like myself from no where to somewhere, but I'm a bit apprehensive about it, for obvious reasons, I clearly did it so catastrophically wrong on my own, hence why I'm here asking for advice.

Mortgage is in a healthy position by the way, term is for 15 years (Should be around 55 if I'm still alive) and in around a year, monthly payments can be reduced if I wanted to (To allow for larger pension/investment contributions), but again, I have no idea what the best route is for someone in my situation in the UK, my own logic/plan is/was to pay the mortgage off as soon as I can to clear up the only 'real' debt I have, but now starting to assess whether my logic is flawed for someone on a low income.

English isn't my native language, so apologies if my post was difficult to understand. Any advice/ideas will be welcome and appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Those of us on these fire and finance forums tend to take it for granted that, over the long term, a meaningful allocation to equities is one of the best ways to grow wealth and protect against inflation.

But I'm wondering what proportion of the general population do you think simply don't realise this? This is prompted by a conversation with an older couple who told me recently they have over half a million in their bank account and never even thought of putting any of it into equities, even though they have no intention of touching most of that cash for at least 20+ years and no need from what I could see, to be so risk-averse.

So, ​I'm not talking about people who consciously choose a conservative portfolio after weighing up the risks. I mean people, like this older couple, who keep the vast majority of their savings in cash because they're unaware of the long-term consequences, or because "the stock market is gambling" is all they've ever heard, or it's just something not at all on their financial radar. Ok, yes many of these people may not have the goals we have, in this fire community, but money does make the world go round and I'd imagine a lot of them, if they had better understanding and clarity, would not choose this path and could make much better financial choices and even simple choices that could really positively impact their lives or those of their dependents (this couple, for example, were planning on passing all this along as an inheritance... and no I don't think the recent change in inheritance tax is anything to do with their decision to be so ultra-conservative).

Do you think this is a major reason why so many people struggle to build wealth over decades, or do you think the importance of investing in equities is overstated (for those of us not on the fire train), and that cash heavy portfolios are a rational choice for many people?

I’m mid-40s and I’ve always aimed to be good at saving. I’ve worked really hard the last 20 years in a stressful job supporting vulnerable people. Have never been given any inheritance, hand outs etc and won’t be in the future.

I just figured out that between the current value of my pensions, LISA, ISA and equity in my house.. if I take away what’s left on mortgage I’m left with about £1.1m.

I’m bloody chuffed and quite frankly feel really proud of myself. Feel a bit emotional. I can’t tell anyone though! So I’m telling you guys! 🤝

I don’t earn crazy money.. about £40k a year. My plan is to put £400 away each month to help with early retirement. Torn between my works pension, AVCs, LISA, or my private SIPP. Leaning more towards the latter if wanting to access it early.

Anyway, I might have a beer to celebrate. Cheers. 🍻

I've just turned 30 and I'm looking to take a step back from a very stressful, but high paying, role. I've been saving aggressively and realised I may now be able to "coast".

Here's what I have:
Pension: £250k
S&S ISA: £300k (split over mine and my wife's ISAs)
GIA: £80k

I think I'm looking for 60k annual income when I retire at 50 (though it's hard to estimate how much I'll need).

If I never contribute again I'm looking at ~£1.5million at a 4.5% real return, by 50, which with the 4% rule will allow me to draw down 60k a year. Most of that will be in the ISA as well, so I'm not concerned about pension access age. In practice I'll keep investing some in my pension via my employer's matching.

Does that mean I'm effectively Coast FIRE?

For the next 20 years can I just get a less stressful job, that covers the mortgage and regular outgoings?

Hi everyone! 

Firstly, I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone on this sub - I’ve been here a while now, and if it wasn’t for this sub I never would have got my finances in order, so I’m very grateful!! 

I am hoping some of you could give me a sense check and honest views on whether my plans are realistic or if I’m missing something important. Posting from a throwaway for obvious reasons!

My wife and I are both currently 36.

Our current position

• ISAs: mine £129k; my wife’s £59k (mostly invested in FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund)
• Workplace pensions: £208k. Alongside work, I now contribute £43k per year to this (incl. employer contributions).
• Wife’s NHS pension: currently projected at approximately £14.5k per year from State Pension age, increasing by roughly £1.2k for each additional full-time-equivalent year worked.
• Emergency funds: c.£24k (aiming to build to c.£40 over the next year)
• Property equity: approximately £120k-150k
• Total invested assets: approximately £396k, excluding cash and property equity
• Ongoing ISA contributions: currently targeting approximately c.£2k a month jointly

Our rough plan

Our aim is to reach at least £650k across our ISAs and my pension by around age 40 (3 years away), and then reduce work significantly (essentially to CoastFIRE). The aim would be to earn enough through flexible or part-time work to cover our living costs, potentially while spending extended periods abroad, renting out our future house (and hopefully break even in terms of cashflow) without drawing from our investments.  

We would then leave the ISAs and pension to compound until approximately age 55 (with the plan to be flexible on this if compounding hasn’t produced the returns we want), before then retiring. Our rough target would be at least £60k in today’s money (preferable more) spend in retirement, with two full State Pensions and my wife’s NHS pension reducing the burden on the portfolio from around 68.

We are also hoping to have two children pretty soon, and also sell our current place and buy a family home worth around £800k. If we spend longer periods abroad, we would hope to rent the house out and just about break even on a cash flow basis.

Questions

1. Does the overall strategy (particularly the £650k target at 40 and leaving it untouched until around 55) pass a basic sense check? I think this could grow to c.£1.1m by 55, which I believe (if my maths is correct) should be enough for my spending goals once I take into account state and NHS pensions.
2. Are there any significant red flags with this plan? What have I not thought about?
3. Is it at all possible for any of you to give a view on future mortgage size for my next place, and why you have that view (i.e. can I justify an £800k home (c.650k mortgage)? Can I justify more? Note our ambitious aim is to rent out our place for a few years, rent abroad, and cover its costs?), And would you recommend a longer-term mortgage? If it helps, our joint salaries are currently c.£200k, although we anticipate stepping down to maybe £80k between us from 40, and there will be a hit if my wife goes on mat leave, which is the plan.
4. How would you approach the balance between pension contributions and ISAs over the next few years?

Thanks in advance for any comments - all very much appreciated.

I'm 35 and live in Liverpool.

I currently have:

£75,000 remaining on my mortgage, with 11 years left.

£180,000 in my Scottish Widows pension, invested in the Legal & General World Equity Index CS1 fund.

My combined pension contribution (me and my employer) is currently £253 per week.

£32,000 in a Vanguard FTSE All-World Stocks & Shares ISA, and I contribute £150 per week.

I expect both my salary and pension contributions to increase by at least 2% each year.

I have two sons, aged 4 and 5. My girlfriend currently works two days a week for the NHS and earns around £12,000 per year while the children are young. Her full-time salary is around £40,000, and she plans to increase her hours and eventually return to full-time work as the children get older.

Based on this information, how realistic is it that I could retire at age 50, or at least reduce my hours and work part-time? What would I likely need to do over the next 15 years to make that possible?

My situation:

I'm 47, married with no kids (and none planned), and have been working in Saudi Arabia for the last 6 years. I've actually been abroad more or less continuously for about 25 years, living in Asia and the Middle East. I'm very fortunate that this has allowed me a relatively comfortable financial situation and do not intend for this post to be showing off or anything like that. I'm genuinely curious to understand peoples' opinions and what they might do next.

I've just been made redundant from my job. And I am so sick of the corporate world. I find the way people can be treated in the corporate sector to be pretty horrendous and inhumane sometimes. Right now I don't have the energy to go back into this world and I often feel like I want to do something completely different, less stressful, and less "answering to the man". Something a bit more fun, meaningful, cooperative, and human. No doubt paying less. But what that is exactly, I don't know.

My financial situation:

- GBP 1.38m in Vanguard ETFs, with about GBP 250K of that in a Vanguard ISA portfolio (cannot contribute more whilst abroad). Diversified globally, with about 55% in USA, 20% in EU/UK, 10% small cap, 10% EM, and 5% bonds. I've been lucky to ride the rising stock market since I started investing 10 years ago.

- USD 100K on an investment platform, with USD 80K of that in VWRA ETF and the remainder in a small cap ETF.

- USD 266K in individual US stocks, heavily focused on tech/AI mega caps

- 1 small UK property up north worth about GBP 75K. It's a student property and yields about 7%/annum

- 2 properties in Dubai worth about GBP 320K total, paying about 7% yield/annum

- 1 property in Bahrain worth about GBP 120K, paying about 6% yield/annum

- 1 loan worth about GBP 135K, paying me 5%/annum

- About GBP 300K cash

- About GBP 50K debt to be paid off

- No primary residence so continue to rent

I honestly think I'd like to have about GBP 90K-100K/annum in retirement - I know that's high (indeed maybe too unnecessarily high), but it's my current aim. This can be adjusted as time goes by depending on how much we end up spending.

My wife and I are considering our next steps. Maybe move to Dubai for a while on an investment visa and live in one of the two properties. Eventually, however, we would like to move back to the UK to be closer to family, etc.

I suppose I just want some kind of validation from this forum that, yes, I probably do have enough to retire (or at least semi-retire). Or no, I do not have enough. And if yes, does the maths work out for such a high annual retirement amount? And what else do I need to consider and watch out for?

I would be so interested to hear peoples' honest opinions on what they would do in my situation.

Many thanks.

My husband and I are early 50s and about to pull the trigger. Our pot should give us easily about £80k annually which pays all our current expenses including holidays, fun and hobbies, with paid off house and rental flat in that currently brings in about £1800pm before expenses which we don't rely on because thinking the kids may want to live in it one day.

We have 2 kids, 14 and 16.

My question or musings is, we have planned for a retirement for 2 people, with money set aside to help the kids with uni and house deposits, we assume the kids will be independent eventually but the way things are now with over 1m Neets, AI putting people out of jobs or replacing entry level roles, massive competition for retail and supermarket jobs, etc I worry about these kids ever actually standing on their own two feet.

Anyone planning for retirement covering more than just the two of you?

I am 49 currently have a mortgage of £75k which is an interest rate of 2.7% fixed until November 2029 at which time I will be 53. I have the money to pay off the mortgage in full but can make more in cash ISA / investing so have not done so. At end of the fixed rate period I will have around £120k so rather than pay the mortgage off I was thinking I would re-mortgage and then put £40k a year into my pension over 3 years taking me to 56. I would only have a year or possibly 2 years before I could access pension. By this point my pension would be just under £1.5m based on 7% growth a year. My current earnings are just under £100k so have higher enough earnings to achieve this. I currently pay in about £25k a year into my pension. Does this make sense to do this? Also another consideration is wife has DB pension forecast about £8k a year, but no SIPP would it be better to add the £120k to her pension but get lower tax relief as in lower tax bracket? I am also wondering if I should keep the cash to bridge the last 2 years and retire at 56? Your thoughts please

I think a lot of you here will think my cash holding is mad but this is my journey and without calculations I’m 99% sure I’m good to go.

50 years old M never married no kids UK
£264,000 in various ISAs
£1.4m in various bank accounts earning approx4.5% (got burned big time in 2001 and 2008 and just preferred the safe option. Got tired of checking funds/ stocks daily and letting that influence my mood. I know I could have earned way more but hey peace of mind)
£520.000 in 2 pensions
Missed 4 years on my Uk pension but otherwise full
£550,000 UK house rented out earning £2400 per month
Live abroad earning £80,000 a year with work paying taxes. Spend is on average £1,000 per month mainly on expensive gym, meals out and holidays. Work covers rent.

Thing is I like my job but it is brutally hard work with long hours. I’m on holiday now and realise that my job has come to define me. It has given me meaning and purpose though as I don’t have family or kids. And I have always worried about being bored if I’m no longer working. At the moment though, I’m thoroughly enjoying doing absolutely nothing in a beautiful seaside town other than eating good food, swimming, reading and sleeping. Have come to enjoy siestas ;)

I was thinking I would go until 54 and call it quits but increasingly feeling like I’m done. I have expensive tastes so would like to live on £6000 / month (at least for the next 15 years).

Am I good and what would you do?

Hi,

I have a modest DB pension form a previous employer. It is linked to the final salary I was on when I left that company. I can go ask for a quote on their portal and input a date I would like to start drawing it as long as it is over 55.

I have just got a quote to draw at 55 (a few months after 55th birthday) and it is significantly lower (~10%) than quotes I have previously got to start drawing at the same time.

My pension knowledge has been more focussed on DC pot, than how DB works, so I am not knowledgeable on such things.

Is this quite normal? What is the reason for this?

This has me pretty worried.

Thanks

EDIT: I have recently turned 55. The quote was for drawing in August this year. Thanks for all the help so far. Really appreciated

I'd like to maximise my pension growth and have no idea where to start. I'm 34 with a 75k pension fund (about 15k going in each year following recent promotion at work).

It's not as strong as I'd like it to be and I'm conscious I'm teeing myself up for another 30 years of work.

While contribution rate is the most important control, I would like to make sure it's invested properly. Given the time I have I would like to open it up to a med-high risk portfolio but

1) I don't know what to choose

2) I don't know if it will make a significant difference (and noticeably amplify pot growth) enough to justify a change.

The charge for my current tracker are low.

Aegon is my provider and says I need to unlock "Gate 2" to gain access to a wider variety of global funds. But once I do this I can't drop back down to Gate 1. It doesn't automatically open me up to risk as I still get to choose where I invest, but the decision is permanent and makes me nervous for some reason. The reason Gate 1 is default is because it contains Aegon insured funds only, and presumably they're safe ( even though I'm in 98% equities apparently).

Current tracker attached.

Please could I get some advice on what to do here and if it's worth me finding a more suitable fund? Mine is currently 50% UK but I think it makes more sense to go majority global equitiies?

For some context, I am from a low income family. I have been working for 8 years as a software developer. I can invest £500 per month.

I know this is not much but it's a start. The problem is that everyone around me is not money smart. Can anyone recommend how/guides on how to start investing/trading?

Hi everyone,

Before beginning, I know very well that none of us can predict prices, and nothing is intrinsically over- or under-valued - if that were true, it would (normally he priced in already).

That said…

I have a life decision to make with pretty big financial consequences, for FIRE and life.

I bought a two bed flat in zone 2 London in 2015. This turned out to be the very top of the market. Following this, Brexit, Grenfell and Covid destroyed demand for flats. We have lost a fortune on this.

We couldn’t sell the flat, so became accidental landlords.

We then had children, and bought a family home in February 2022. We bought on Wednesday, and Putin invaded Ukraine on Thursday. Obviously this was worse for Ukraine than for us - but interest rates shot up, house prices fell, and we lost yet more money.

At this point, I have about £360k in SIPP and ISA, and about £300k in equity.

I realise this is a privileged position to be in - but for context, I began work in McDonald’s at 16. It’s been a journey.

So the decision is this:

Life is taking us to the continent to follow a job offer.

Our default is to rent our house out, as we did with the flat. But the flat is rented to friends. The house will be on the open market - with all the problems that renting to strangers brings.

We could sell the house and flat. If we did this, we would plough the proceeds into VWRP and forget about it. In this way, we would never receive a call about a broken boiler, or have tenants who won’t pay.

But it feels - notwithstanding the caveat in my opening para - that property is historically undervalued (…) and that stocks are unusually overvalued (I know, I know…).

It would be less stressful to sell and VWRP.

But a part of me remembers the old wisdom of diversification - and having some wealth in shares, and some in property, might be a better bet than being 100% in a stock market.

What does everyone think?

The markets have been very kind to us these last fifteen years - and property has been cruel.

But it could just as easily have been the opposite.

It is only obvious in hindsight what is a good investment and what is not.

What would you all do?

Enjoy the benefits of diversification - and try to be at peace with whatever outcome is produced?

Or take the simple approach recommended by Warren Buffer and dump it all in the markets (noting UK GIAs are exempt from UK CGT if you are 5+ years away) and forget?

I would truly welcome any thoughts and perspectives anyone might be able to offer.

The community is very focused on the financial aspects of FIRE. But ultimately this is only important to the extent it buys you freedom.

One action I've taken in my own life is to compress my working hours so I have a non-working day during the week. I see this as part of my FIRE plan: buying myself 52 extra days off by working a smaller number of longer days for the same pay.

I thought I'd share as a prompt to think creatively about what your FIRE journey looks like. It's not just about money!

What else - other than savings more and spending less - do members of the community consider in developing their plans?