Don’t worry, I haven’t divorced Mr YFG! Nowhere in Mr YFG’s recent announcement did he mention how we’ve been navigating his new working life as a couple, so that falls to me. I’m so happy to see my husband feeling fulfilled again: tired, but fulfilled. He has an energy and a drive which I haven’t seen in the past year or so. It’s also lovely to see him enjoying his work. His recent project completion was a high point for him (we even went out for dinner!). However, I have been struggling to adapt. We both worked full-time for years before he quit, but this time it’s different. I didn’t quite ..read more

I’m back! At least for now. I’ve been pre-occupied you see. There’s a consumer goods company in Eastern Europe that needed valuing. I was just the man to help. It has been great fun. Challenging, interesting. Just enough annoying bits to satisfy my masochistic need to have some bad dudes to moan about. It’s some of my most enjoyable work. The end product is beautiful (if I may say so) – to the extent that a 100+ page expert witness report for court can be. My new colleagues are friendly and a pleasure to work with. As a contractor, no admin faff to deal with. In, out and now a break whilst I w ..read more

It has been a long time. A month since the last post on this blog. Nearly three months since I last posted. That’s a reflection of two things: I’ve been off doing lots of other things. I’ve started a new job. Of course, those are excuses. The reality is, I write on the blog when I enjoy doing so. I haven’t written on the blog because I’ve been enjoying other stuff more. Anyway. Point 2 is what I want to talk about today – going back to work. The why So, for a pseudo-FIRE blog (let’s not pretend I’ve been writing solely about FIRE for a long time), isn’t it kind of a big deal that I’m back ..read more

I was recently promoted. Not through any particular exciting process. I’m now a Senior Associate solicitor – through a combination of being qualified enough and good enough. It’s amusing, because when I was a trainee 6 years ago I thought the Senior Associates knew what they were doing. I definitely know more than a trainee. But I’m not particularly senior in life to pretend I somehow did something special to survive the years to promotion. It just happens and you wake up one day and realise you’re further down the line. There are, however, some pearls of wisdom I wish I was told when I was a ..read more

Mr YFG’s favourite day of the year is April 6th. Not his birthday, nor Christmas, or our wedding anniversary, no – the start of the tax year floats his boat. He even woke up early on April 5th only to realise what day it was and, disappointed, crawl back into bed. He likes this day because (other than portfolio reorganisation and maxing our ISAs) we get to decide our savings plan for the next year. Once we max our ISAs on April 6th, the question is what to do with the remainder of earnings saved. Mr YFG offered to open me a SIPP and I refused. He was initially confused, as he has a couple of p ..read more

At the weekend I had the great pleasure of watching Playing with FIRE. The hot documentary film about the Financial Independence Retire Early movement. I really enjoyed the film. I’m grateful to my friends, who backed the Kickstarter, for inviting me over to watch their pre-release copy and eat all their pizza. My friend teased me about writing a film review on the blog. I warned them that it’s been about ten years since I last wrote a film review. But it’s the least I could do to repay their generosity. So here goes nothing! Playing with FIRE Playing with FIRE documents the journey and experi ..read more

Life is good. You finally did it! You pulled the plug on your day job after reaching financial independence. You never have to work for money ever again. But, you’re bored. You need something to do… You need a project! You grab a piece of paper and a pen and start thinking. Now that you’re financially free, what projects do you want to complete? However ambitious, however small, you now have the time to pursue anything that you like, what will you accomplish? – Saving Ninja This is the #5 of Saving Ninja’s thought experiments. I wasn’t initially going to have a go. But having read his and a fe ..read more

Warning – unstructured thoughts ahead. It feels that barely a day goes by without the relentless banging drum of audit reform in the media. Yesterday was no exception with the FT reporting another article. This time about ‘breaking up’ the Big 4. For some reason, people think I’m a knowledgable and reasonable chap(!) and ask me my thoughts about this topic. My answer is that the proposal for breaking up the Big 4 is stupid. It would actually make things worse. Here’s why. The proposal In short, the idea is that the accounting firms would separate their audit functions from the rest of the busi ..read more

Contributing to a Financial Independence blog kind of makes it appear like I have my stuff together. Like I’m frugal, organised and careful with money. I’m like that sometimes. But I’m not going to pretend that I don’t make poor financial decisions on a regular basis (mostly daily). I was listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast this week – the episode on Impulse Shopping Twitch. The guest on the podcast, Anthony Ongaro, author of Break the Twitch, was completely right. He had changed his life and imposed a shopping ban after realising his “one click” purchases on Amazon had cost him £12,000 in ..read more

Over the past week or so there is growing media reporting on the impact of the pensions Annual Allowance, and in particular, the Tapered Annual Allowance on doctors.[1] The reports are quite troubling. Many doctors reducing hours to avoid punitive tax charges, leaving health services critically understaffed. Enormous tax charges that leave doctors with difficult financial choices. So why is this hitting doctors? What is special about them? In this post, I explain the particular circumstances why it affects doctors. First, let’s look at what the Annual Allowance and Tapered Annual Allowance are ..read more