Obviously a question only I can answer, but it's the question I'm asking myself.

With the changes to inheritance tax with pensions now being included as part of the estate going forward, I keep thinking to myself, where is the balance?

I'm 32 and wife is 36. Mine and my wife's SIPP's total 315k. Meanwhile our total ISA balances sit at 38k. I've just made the decision today to flip the way I fund my pension and ISA's. I've cut my monthly pension contributions down to 6% from 18% with a 6% employer contribution. (Salary 100k)

I used to fund my pension first and the fund my ISA from bonus each year, but I'm now funding my ISA first and letting my pension contributions be a roll of the dice from the bonus I receive (up to 40%) I will still contribute everything over 100k into my pension, but it will be solely from the bonus. Personally I feel I've put enough in that come what may, I will still have enough money in that pot in retirement to live a comfortable life and also support our children. Now it's time to build the bridge.

Really, I'm asking the question of you all. When is your enough? What are your loosely held plans for balancing the living and potentially gifting of your hard earned wealth? Do you plan to emigrate? If so, where?

Curious to see others future plans.

Burner account. Just wanting some input on my plan. M55, looking to stop the grind next year and focus on creative interests which could end up not making any £, but even if it does it'll be uneven. So let's assume £0 from that! Meanwhile I have DC pots totalling £500k and a stocks and shares ISA of £40k, plus about £10k in savings. At age 60 I have a small DB of £2.4k kicking in. There is another DB of £6.5k at 63. These are both inflation protected. Full SP to start at 67 (maybe!) My wife (F54) wants to stop work also next year, taking £15k per year from her SIPP (£100k) and ISA (£50k) until her £15k teacher's pension kicks in at 60. She gets another £4k DB at 67 along with full SP. She also plans to do a bit of part-time work maybe. We own our home mortgage-free. Kids grown up and moved out, and we would help them get on the housing ladder in a few years maybe by downsizing.

Basically we are burned out after doing our respective careers for 30+ years.

Now, here is a part I need input on. I am thinking seriously about buying an annuity with £410k of the DC money, to start next year when I finish aged 56. Rates are comparatively very attractive right now, and if I can get near the £29k to £30k I have been quoted, that will do me. That is a flat annuity that does not increase with inflation, so obviously it will be progressively worth less. But that is where the DBs and SP come in, and they are nicely staggered. Taking a flat annuity allows me to maximise what I get now to help bridge what seems like a scary gulf to the SP. Retiring at 56 also means more "go go" years so we get the financial benefit at the right time. (Saying that, we are frugal and do everything on the cheap as much as possible.) £410k is a big amount to hand over, but it would be a weight off my shoulders not to have to worry about markets.

What would you do? The annuity or drawdown? Or put the whole thing off for a few years?

As title says, I turned 50 this week so am doing a proper overview of the finances to see where we are.

I currently earn £62k as a Social Work manager in NHS in Northern Ireland and I've been paying into the NHS defined benefit pension for around 18 years. If I continue in this role for the next 5 years I will be able to draw a yearly pension of just over £13k from 55. My wife is currently working part-time in a minimum wage job (20 hours) which brings in around £1k per month.

We also own 2 rental properties (mortgage free) which bring in around £1300 per month before taxes and expenses.

So to break everything down it looks like this:

At 55- incomings:
DB NHS pension: £13k

Rental income (before tax and expenses) £15k (so probably around £11k net)

ISA (currently £34k but will pay in max every year): £130-150k depending on markets

at 55 - expenditure:

Aiming to be mortgage free (current mortgage is £44k and we overpay)

Average family expenditure for basics is around £16k per year

So I'm aiming to achieve income of £30k per year until we hit state pension age at 67 when both myself and my wife will get a full pension.

My plan is to use the ISA to top up rental income and pension for potentially 12 years so I could possibly take £10k of that per year if I wanted but in some years I wouldn't use as much. So aim isn't really to maintain the ISA amount, rather to drain it while we are still young enough to enjoy it and then aim to hit 67 with perhaps £40-50k left when the state pension kicks in.

We live fairly frugally but would hope to get at least one holiday a year and live in relative comfort.

Thoughts?

I read about many smart, highly educated professionals like engineers, scientists, and public sector workers with years of experience who stall out around £40k to £60k. Meanwhile, others cross £100k+, how? And why many can't do it even though they're experienced, educated etc.?

What career tracks offer a realistic path to £100k plus without needing C-suite management?

Is it about industry switching (e.g., traditional engineering to tech/finance), or specific high-value skills?

How much comes down to job-hopping, contracting, or corporate politics versus the traditional promotion ladder?

Curious to hear why some make £100k and most don't and what are differences between people making below £100k and those making above it.

36 female. Married with a son in nursery (fees is paid by grandparents). Definitely won’t have more kids.

Private pension: £220k
Stock and share ISA: £75k
GIC: £50k
Premium Bond: £50k
Annual PAYE salary: £95k + £10k bonus
Pension contributions: £40k/year
Mortgage 27 years left: £3.2k/month shared with my husband
My half of living cost including mortgage: £2.5k
National insurance years: 12

Husband’s salary is £80k/year with NHS pension. He virtually has no saving but his salary will increase every year as he progresses. Apart from sharing bills 50/50, we have separate finance. He likely will have a decent size of inheritance but could be really far down the line - not something we count on.

What can I do to improve my situation/ investment? When can I realistically retire….

I’m mid 30’s with 2 kids, I have a construction company that just about puts bread on the table, I have 0 savings and 0 pensions. Will never be able to retire etc. other than dying early (high possibility with the amount of things I’ve inhaled on site) and the family getting some sort of insurance pay out. How else could I possibly make enough to retire? Let alone early

I’ve seen people at either end of the spectrum - with most net worth in house equity vs living in a cheaper place but millions in ISA/GIAs. So am just curious really.

If you answer, please include any house equity in net worth calc for consistency. Thanks!

After following the FIRE community for a while and seeing all the discussion around hitting a £1m pension pot, I decided to model my own numbers. I’m not 40 yet and have roughly 30 years of work left ahead of me, so I plugged my pot balances, ongoing contributions, and projected ROI into AI tools to see where I stood.

​The projection showed I’m currently tracking toward roughly £982k at retirement if everything continues as-is.

​Right now, I contribute £305 a month net across my pensions:

- ​£130/month net into an existing private pension (which receives £32.50 in basic tax relief to make £162.50 gross)

- ​£175/month net into my workplace pension (which receives £43.75 basic relief plus a £131.25 employer contribution to make £350 gross)

​That puts my total current gross inflow at £512.50 a month. To comfortably close the gap and cross the £1m milestone, I need to up my monthly contributions by another £70 net.

Because my private pension operates under Relief at Source (RAS), paying that extra £70 net into a pension/SIPP triggers an immediate £17.50 basic-rate top-up from HMRC, making it £87.50 gross invested before market compounding.

​My question is: do I pay the £70 into my private pension, or invest it?

​The instant £17.50 head-start right out of the gate is hard to turn down, but investing it in a Stocks & Shares ISA (like Trading 212 or Vanguard) gives total liquidity if life gets expensive.

How do others weigh that immediate tax relief boost against ISA flexibility when closing that final gap to £1m?

​Side note: For anyone reading this who pays CMS (Child Maintenance Service), please DM me. I’ve recently found out they do not automatically factor Relief at Source (RAS) pension contributions into their liability calculations. Happy to share how and why to get it fixed so you aren't overpaying.

Hey everyone,

If you lived and worked abroad and, hypothetically, had £250,000 GBP sitting in a bank account, no pension, and were around 40 years old, what would you personally do with it?

Would you invest the majority of it, look at property, start building a pension, keep a large amount in cash, or take a completely different approach?

I’m interested in hearing what people would genuinely do in that situation, particularly from anyone who has lived abroad for a number of years and had to think about long-term financial planning.

Assuming you didn’t need the £250k immediately and were looking at the next 20–25 years, how would you structure it to give yourself the best chance of being financially secure later in life?

Interested to hear everyone's thoughts and experiences.

Hey. Interested to know how anyone who has followed this rule of thumb for like 10 years has got on.

Say...

stating point iro 1m of cash / pensions in 2016

Drawing 30 - 40k pa

No esoteric investments. Just a routine 70/30 or 60/40 that you have overseen yourself

Periodic discretionary spends of holidays, car, gifts to kids etc. amounting to say 100k over the 10 years

How has your capital held up?

How close to retaining your 1m have you got?

Ballpark figures absolutely fine!

Wil appreciate any real life examples

Thanks y'all

Can I invest in funds in a GIA and not pay tax on it until I cash out? I’d like to invest in a GIA (not pay tax on tbe funds as I’m not receiving any profit from it) and then eventually move the fund to ISA when I retire early. How can I achieve this?

If not possible, whats the most tax efficient way to invest my savings?

I earn around 130,000 a year with bonus. I have around 100,000 just in an account not invested anywhere for 6 years! I feel so stupid for not investing this amount sooner. However, I have heard that if I invest in a GIA, I need to pay tax even if I invest in accumulative funds. I don’t want to put all in pensions as I’d like to retire or work 3 days a week within next 10 years.

Expenses have increased due to having a kid and my salary will reduce to 102,000 from next year due to reduction in hours.

Here is my current portfolio:

Pensions value: 220,000 GBP
ISA: 145,000 GBP
Other savings: 115,000 GBP

Homeowner, with a mortgage.

Huge thanks for any advice, tips and thoughts.

I see so many milestone posts in this subreddit and I don't have anybody I can really share this with in real life so I reckoned I would throw my hat in. For context, I recently 27 making £90k, thought I would do some life admin and assess my financial position - end up contributing around £1215 into pension every month between myself and employer.

Pension - £128k

GIA - £93K (I'm a dual US UK citizen so I can't use ISAs, which is really unfortunate)

Cash - £35K

Various other investments / assets totalling around £6k, and £60K flat equity in London (big mortgage of around £310K which I'm overpaying slightly, will clear at age 52)

Currently around £322K including flat equity which I know some people don't count - I'm hoping to be able to at least cut down on work in my mid-40s. Working since 19 and built the pension and cash myself - the GIA is from an inheritance of £16K back in 2016 that I just left invested and never looked at again. I am looking at it now lol

Hi all!

Just need a sounding board, really.

Unfortunately, my grandmother died last year. She left me a considerable inheritance. And a part of that inheritance is just under £150k worth of HSBA shares (when she passed they were worth around £80k). I was pretty shocked when I had looked at the share price recently as I didn't think to look.

I haven't submitted a form of intention yet (waiting on another party's decision). I have just created a memorandum of appropriation with other beneficiaries as a way of using our own CGT allowances (£12k) instead of just the estates measly £3k.

I was thinking of selling 95% and transferring 5% into my name. My reasoning is keeping 150k in the same stock would make me feel uncomfortable - too risky.

Maybe it is silly transferring/keeping the 5%? I guess my reasoning for this is to defer the CGT to another tax year (and 5% is probably the amount I feel comfortable keeping in one stock).

I was thinking of adding an amount into my old workplace pension (maybe 20k - might reduce CGT a bit). Current workplace pension is with NEST (relief at source) so I don't want to add to that (funds are terrible).

Some more information about me... my salary is £40k per annum. I am 40 years old. Other inheritance assets are around £150k in life assurance bonds (already being sold). A flat that will have a CGT gain when sold, but I am not sure how much - maybe £25k for my share (hopefully will be sold next year). There is some cash too.

Anyways, does anyone have opinions on what I'm doing? Are there any better ideas? Curious to know what you guys think.

Well that's it - Notice at work ✅, Pension Forms completed and posted today ✅. Roll on January to hand in the work laptop and pass.

Time will tell if I have/had enough FI saved but RE done (2 out of 4 ain't bad 😄)

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.

I am Age 34, Civil Service, mortgage. £40k invested across ISA/LISA/SIPP.
Assuming 7% growth, and 450 invested into ISA pm. No investing after age 48.
My questions about my plan are:

• What part of this plan looks unrealistic
• Where do you see the biggest risks
• Would you retire at 48 on these numbers, latter or sooner
• I am open to various other options or ways of living

Expenses

Monthly expenses: £1,525/mo core expenses - lean FI
Future drops:

• Age 50: ‑£200 → £1,325/mo
• Age 57: mortgage ‑£270 → £1,055/mo

Bucket (48–50)

Covers first 2 years of retirement. Needs: £1,525 × 24 = £36,600

Bridge 1 — ISA (50–60)

ISA value is £207k 16 years of growth at 450 pm invested. Bridge 1 needs to cover 10 years: £1,325 × 12 × 10 = £150k

ISA £207k - £150k = £48k surplus

Bridge 2 — SIPP + LISA (60–70)

Current: £19.5k 26 years of growth is £113k. Bridge 2 needs to cover £1,055 × 12 × 10 = £126.6k

LISA/SIPP £113k - £126.6K = £13.6k short

Easy fix I have that 48k surplus

Bridge 3 — Alpha pension (70+)

Accrued: £4k year. Each year worked adds £750 x 14 = £10,500 +£4k = £14,500/year, there is costs of living adjustment each year, so flat numbers work.

Expenses £12,660 year, surplus £1,840

Around 5 years ago I started the journey of planning and investing to retire early.

Things are starting to look good and I see light at the end of the tunnel 🔥

On the way, I always liked to look at the numbers and make it easy (and pleasant) to check at least a couple of metrics (Net Worth and Financial Runway) for the daily motivation boost (some periods not so much, but that's ok).

I've been mostly tracking it on excel, but because I'm a developer, I also used a very basic private webpage so I could check on my phone any time.

Eventually, I ended up creating an app because I didn't find any other app doing it the way I'd like.

I'd like to ask, what are the metrics most important to you, that you'd like to easily see at a quick glance? Net Worth? Financial Runway? Years until retirement? Is that important to you at all?

How do you track your net worth and how manually do you update it? For me, I only care at a high level. x USD on stocks, x USD on crypto, x USD on home, x USD on mortgage, x USD on savings, x annual expenses and x annual income. With that I get the number I need.

I’m really torn between quitting my job and sticking it out because we’re planning to have a baby next year.
I had an amazing job at a big brand for two years. It was comfortable, I had a good work-life balance, and I was genuinely happy there. I left because I wanted to try something different and challenge myself, so I moved into consulting.
I’ve now been at this company for about 1.5 years and I honestly don’t know how much longer I can take it. I’m constantly stressed, I cry because of work far more often than I’d like to admit, client demands never seem to end, and we simply don’t have enough people. I spend so many weekends either working or thinking/worrying about work. It feels like I can never properly switch off.
I’m seriously considering resigning, even without another job lined up.
Financially, we would be okay for a while. My husband has a good job and we have savings, so quitting wouldn’t put us in immediate financial trouble. But walking away from a salary without having something else secured still feels like a huge and scary decision, especially in the current job market.
The other complication is that we were planning to start trying for a baby next year. If I change jobs now, I’ll probably have a 6-month probation period and depending on the company/policy/timing, I may not qualify for enhanced maternity benefits. That could mean delaying our plans to have a baby, which I really don’t want to do just because of a job.
On the other hand, if I stay where I am, at least I’ll keep earning a salary and potentially be able to go on maternity leave next year. But I’m genuinely worried about what another year in this environment will do to my mental health. And honestly, I don’t even know how I’d cope with pregnancy while working in a job that already makes me this stressed.
I feel completely stuck between the two options: protect my mental health and leave, potentially affecting our timeline for having a baby, or stay for the financial security/maternity benefits and somehow survive another year here.
Has anyone been in a similar situation? Would you quit without another job lined up if you had savings and your partner had a stable income? Or would you try to stick it out until maternity leave?
Also, how are people finding the London job market at the moment? I work in data analysis/customer insights and would ideally be looking for an in-house role rather than consulting again.
I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been through something similar, especially women who changed jobs shortly before trying for a baby. What would you do in my position?

Hi

I am fairly new to the FIRE journey and not the best at all.

However I am looking to improve my ways and was wondering what people in this sub reddit do for a living.

Do you guys also have any side hustles or additional sources of income?

Thanks