This is so simple, I almost wrote a clickbaity type headline. But this is a really simple tip that can save you 20% on (some) of your SIPP fees (the platform ones), but as with anything, there are some assumptions: This only applies to the platform fee (percentage or fixed) You are currently paying this platform fee from your bank account/card/direct debit All you need to do is switch your platform fees to come out of your SIPP account. Because you get tax relief on all/any money that goes into your SIPP account, your fees have suddenly gone down by 25% (or more if you are a higher rate ..read more

Firstly- this is no “get rich quick”, these are just some of the loopholes that you could use to get to your FIRE number earlier than not using them. That, of course, doesn’t mean that you have to use them- they might not work for you. Increasing your savings rate is the quickest way to FIRE- if you earn £200k but only save £1k, you are never going to retire. MrMoneyMustache has this great article here that goes into more detail- but this table shows it all: Source: MrMoneyMustache article linked just above Increase main income first If this isn’t obvious- then you must be very early on your F ..read more

Ahhhh, another one of those bloggers looking back at the past year. Well, it’s not just for my readers, but also for myself to see what went well, and what didn;t. Let’s start with a graph: Net worth increase If you don’t already, I highly recommend taking monthly snapshots of your accounts/investments so you can produce graphs such as the above. You can see the dip of covid in March 2020- but ever since that its been growing ever since. Spending Was down. A lot. Mostly because even with many of the Covid restrictions removed for much of the year, we still didn’t book a holiday nor do a lot of ..read more

This post is a bit different to my normal posts- I spoke to Logan who is working on a FIRE app called “Topia”. This is only my personal option & I haven’t been paid or otherwise sponsored to publish this etc. I’ve had a preview of the app- and it looks really polished, anyway- instead of me talking about it, over to Logan: Tell us a little about yourself? My name is Logan, I’m originally from Scotland (& play the bagpipes ) but I currently live in London. I’m big on my outdoor activities, usually, if you can’t find me I’m most likely out kitesurfing on the south coast of England or on ..read more

If you look at the short term weather- there always seems to be a storm either here right now- or there are news reports of another one on the horizon. If you look at the financial news in the same way- you would think that there is always a storm going on. This week (well, past couple of months) it’s been Evergrande and their insane debt mountain. Brexit has been an ongoing concern for well over 5 years now, and that’s forgetting Covid that’s been with us for the past 18 months as well. Stop looking at this week/month and even year Imagine if you made money each time it was sunny- and lost mo ..read more

Nobody really likes paying their bills- be honest now, do you really like all those direct debits (or credit card payments) that go out of your account every month (or year)?. Nobody really does, especially when on the route to FIRE you want to reduce your outgoings- as it has a two-fold effect. You both reduce the amount you spend (so require a lower FIRE number x25/33) and you also keep that money to invest and reach your FIRE number faster. Energy costs have gone through the roof recently I’m not going to talk about the why (many others already have)- and it’s a number of factors that you o ..read more

I’ve written before about how pensions can be the best investment that you can ever make. But what happens if you are self employed and you don’t have an employer that is going to match your pension contributions? Is it still worth having a pension? Short Answer: YES! Longer answer is that there are lots of different ways for saving for your retirement- and they aren’t all just “save in your pension”, for example you could build a But to Let portfolio, Gold coins, Wine collection- I mean any asset that you can later sell (or get income from) could form part of your pension! In this article I w ..read more

Seems like I have started a series of posts that looks at individual topics and then applies them to the FIRE lifestyle. If you haven’t already, see last weeks post on Automatic Enrolment pensions and FIRE. Cars are expensive Even cheap cars, are not really cheap cars. Let’s get that out of the way now- they are not going to save you money (well, they could make you money if you use it for work/job), but they definitely do not save you any money. I’ve written before about how running a car could make you retire 5 years later. However, for many people- running a car is a requirement of either t ..read more

Before reading this article- if you don’t know anything about pensions, please read the articles here & here first. I’ll assume that you now have and I’ll only be talking about automatic enrolment (defined contribution as it were) pensions in this article. Should I use Automatic Enrolment pensions to FIRE? Well, assuming that you plan on living longer than the current (private) pension age of 57 or so, then yes! I won’t go over the earlier post I linked– which says that you are more than doubling your input money. The only (slight) issue is that you cannot access any of this money until yo ..read more

Before I get into the details of tax avoidance, I just want to clear up the difference: Tax Avoidance– totally legal schemes, encouraged and supported by the UK Government to avoid paying taxes. These are entirely legal- written into legislation, and will never get you into trouble Tax Evasion– these are “shady” schemes at best, that involve you doing things like investing in dodgy “film making” schemes, or other types of loans that incur losses that can be offset. These are usually illegal- but can be presented as legal by the people/accountants that sell them to you. I will NOT be talking ab ..read more