r/FIREUK

I've been tracking my finances properly for years, ever since I first discovered FIRE. Every month I log my income, expenses, and savings rate. Felt quite smug about it too, my savings rate climbed from around 25% in year one to about 52% last year. I assumed that meant I'd got progressively better with money.

Then last week I dug into the actual numbers properly instead of just glancing at the headline rate. Turns out, of that 27 percentage point increase, roughly 20 points came purely from salary growth and a couple of promotions. My actual spending habits had barely shifted. I was just earning more and saving the difference almost by accident.

When I broke it down further, it got a bit uncomfortable. My essential spending (rent, bills, food, transport) had stayed roughly flat as a percentage. But my discretionary spending had actually gone up in absolute terms, I'd just been masked by the income increases. Things like more takeaways, upgrading subscriptions, and generally spending a bit more freely because "I can afford it now."

The scary part: if I'd maintained my year-one spending habits and put the income increases entirely into investments, I'd have roughly an extra £40k in my portfolio right now. That's not a small number. That's potentially 1–2 years off my FIRE date.

I'm now going back to basics. Actually budgeting properly instead of relying on the savings rate to flatter me. Automating more of the surplus rather than spending it by default. Looking at where I can be more intentional, not depriving myself, but making sure each spending decision is deliberate rather than habitual drift.

Curious if anyone else has had this realisation. I suspect it's quite common, earning more masks a lot of spending creep. For those of you who've successfully kept spending flat (or even reduced it) while your income grew, what actually worked? I feel like I need a system rather than just good intentions.

Hi

So a bit of background below:

• Single. Early 30s. Living in London
• Saved up around £90K and earn about £70K in a tech related role
• Looking to get on the property ladder
• Been at my current company for around 3 years and in the tech space for 6 years

I am starting to not like the tech related stuff I am doing even though I have a degree in all of it

I am not sure what else I now want to do and whether I want to get into sales or estate agency

I am working towards long term FIRE as well and not sure if it worth taking that risk and leap

Any thoughts?

Hi everyone,

My wife and I in our early/mid forties have £690,000 to do something with from a house sale.

We have two children in their early teens.

We have no other real investments or retirement plans

We’re currently renting an apartment in South West London so our children could get into their local school.

£135,000 is my gross annual income (take-home pay is £83,000) plus there’s always overtime.

£690,000 is what we have from a house sale

£38,000 combined in a New Zealand retirement savings fund

£7,000 in an Australian Superannuation fund

Money in each month from my job is £6,400. Our monthly rent is £2700 and then there’s utilities and food.

We were initially thinking we’d buy a nice house in the area for just under £1,250,000 and have a big mortgage that we’d have into our mid seventies and nothing else to show for it other than the house.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Is this a better plan?

Buy a £500,000 3 bedroom apartment, put £50,000 down as a deposit, repayments are £2281 per month at 4.5% over 30 years

Invest £600,000 in something? Hargreaves Lansdowne, Trading212 etc

Invest £1000 per month into wherever the £600,000 ends up

Keep £40,000 as an emergency fund.

When I type a £600,000 lump sum into the Hargreaves Lansdown compound interest calculator with £1000 per month invested, the total is £1,500,000 after 15 years at 5%

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Or do we play it safe?

Buy the £500,000 apartment outright, have no mortgage.

Invest £190,000 into something.

Invest a larger monthly amount into wherever the £190,000 ends up.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Is this the correct subreddit? Happy to be directed somewhere else.

What are your thoughts everyone? Thank you!

I keep track of most of my finance-related things like income and spending, but I'd like to start a snapshot spreadsheet and I'm interested to know how you do yours.

I'd like to keep track of all business and personal accounts, investments etc: how do you track them over time, with changes? Any fun formulas?

So, I’ve been all in on VWRL last year. The only reason I chose it vs VWRP is that I like seeing dividends coming to my account and I always reinvest them back (usually buy the same index or some other stock). I usually also add some more money to buy more and have a round number. So this habit incentivizes me to invest more. Am I doing any mistake here long term (I wonder if it’s more efficient to just switch to VWRP)?

>

I’m trying to get my head straight on a decision and would really value some perspective.

We’re in our early 40s, married, with two kids. Combined income is about £90k, though my wife’s is freelance so it does vary downwards.

We currently live in a house worth ~£750–775k, with about £600–625k equity. We also have ~£100k in ISAs/SIPPs (adding ~£2k/month), and ~£20k in Premium Bonds as an emergency buffer.

We’re moving in the near future due to secondary school options locally being poor enough that we basically have to do so. So I have a reset moment I wasn't expecting, and I’m torn between two directions:

Move to a similar (or better) house and take on a bigger mortgage Or deliberately step back, buy something cheaper outright (or close to it), and invest the difference.

Up to now I’ve always taken a fairly simple view: house first, investments second — i.e. make sure the family is sorted and stable, then invest. But that also assumed we weren't moving, which is no longer true.

I appreciate that leveraging could mean better house and we have room to do so, but being mortgage-free in your early 40s with kids would be a very stable baseline, at least on paper.

I’m not looking to massively compromise on the house/location side (given the reason for moving in the first place), but there’s definitely a spectrum within that.

So really just asking: what would you do in this position, and why?

Particularly interested if anyone has gone “backwards” in housing (i.e. reduced equity / gone mortgage-free) with a family — how has that played out?

I am a big fan of trying to come up with a clear narrative of savings goals. Not just for me, but for my partner - without getting too bogged down in details.

My current thinking is the following

We have broke down our retirement needs into two numbers (rounded them a bit for convienience)

£26k Bare minimum figure. Pays the bills, food etc, but not much else

£47k "Luxury" retirement figure. We tried to brainstorm all the sort of things we'd like to do in retirement (spa days, budget for our hobbies, holidays, etc). I don't think we'd in practice spend that much per year, but it's good to be ambitious here.

We also have £155k left on mortgage

We are both 41

Then, break down the milestone as follows

4% rule. Absolute bare minimum pot required, very risky though, likely need to find more money somehow

(£26k*25)+£155k =£805·K

3% rule, safer, but still a miserly retirement

(£26k*33.33)+£155k =£1,021.58·K

4% rule on luxury spending, still risky, but as its luxury, we have some flexibility, could cut back on spending if required

(£47k*25)+£155k =£1,330·K

3% rule on luxury spending, our real goal. Should be comfortable with this pot. Saving significantly beyond this starts to trade amassing tons of money against years of life

(£46k*33.33)+£155k =£1,688.18·K

Other info

• No dependants
• Leaving an inheritance to some family is nice, but not a priority. If we have to use home equity for care later in life, that's fine

Essentially I have this modelled in a spreadsheet, where it has columns deducting our total savings/investments vs the milestones so we know how much more to save (and have a slight endorphin hit when our savings go past a milestone), and I update the mortgage number every month.

Hi everyone,

My wife and I in our early/mid forties have £690,000 to do something with from a house sale.

We have two children in their early teens.

We have no other real investments or retirement plans

We’re currently renting an apartment in South West London so our children could get into their local school.

£135,000 is my gross annual income (take-home pay is £83,000) plus there’s always overtime.

£690,000 is what we have from a house sale

£38,000 combined in a New Zealand retirement savings fund

£7,000 in an Australian Superannuation fund

Money in each month from my job is £6,400. Our monthly rent is £2700 and then there’s utilities and food.

We were initially thinking we’d buy a nice house in the area for just under £1,250,000 and have a big mortgage that we’d have into our mid seventies and nothing else to show for it other than the house.

Now we’re thinking this is not a good plan.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Is this a better plan?

Buy a £500,000 3 bedroom apartment, put £50,000 down as a deposit, repayments are £2281 per month at 4.5% over 30 years

Invest £600,000 in something? Hargreaves Lansdowne, Trading212 etc

Invest £1000 per month into wherever the £600,000 ends up

Keep £40,000 as an emergency fund.

When I type a £600,000 lump sum into the Hargreaves Lansdown compound interest calculator with £1000 per month invested, the total is £1,500,000 after 15 years at 5%

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Or do we play it safe?

Buy the £500,000 apartment outright, have no mortgage.

Invest £190,000 into something.

Invest a larger monthly amount into wherever the £190,000 ends up.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

We’re obviously incredibly late to the investing party, but aside from winning the lottery at this late stage of our working lives we’ve got no other tricks up our sleeves.

What are your thoughts everyone?

Hi everyone,

My wife and I in our early/mid forties have £690,000 to do something with from a house sale.

We have two children in their early teens.

We have no other real investments or retirement plans

We’re currently renting an apartment in South West London so our children could get into their local school.

£135,000 is my gross annual income (take-home pay is £83,000) plus there’s always overtime.

£690,000 is what we have from a house sale

£38,000 combined in a New Zealand retirement savings fund

£7,000 in an Australian Superannuation fund

Money in each month from my job is £6,400. Our monthly rent is £2700 and then there’s utilities and food.

We were initially thinking we’d buy a nice house in the area for just under £1,250,000 and have a big mortgage that we’d have into our mid seventies and nothing else to show for it other than the house.

Now we’re thinking this is not a good plan.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Is this a better plan?

Buy a £500,000 3 bedroom apartment, put £50,000 down as a deposit, repayments are £2281 per month at 4.5% over 30 years

Invest £600,000 in something? Hargreaves Lansdowne, Trading212 etc

Invest £1000 per month into wherever the £600,000 ends up

Keep £40,000 as an emergency fund.

When I type a £600,000 lump sum into the Hargreaves Lansdown compound interest calculator with £1000 per month invested, the total is £1,500,000 after 15 years at 5%

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Or do we play it safe?

Buy the £500,000 apartment outright, have no mortgage.

Invest £190,000 into something.

Invest a larger monthly amount into wherever the £190,000 ends up.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

We’re obviously incredibly late to the investing party, but aside from winning the lottery at this late stage of our working lives we’ve got no other tricks up our sleeves.

What are your thoughts everyone?

Me and my husband are 40yo, we have two kids (10 yo, 7 yo). I worked in tech for 15 years with a £100k+ salary, got laid off and actively looked for jobs that were a bit slower paced as I was really burned out and not an outstanding performer in the FAANG world. Now earning about £50k (with my husband's encouragement) and much happier.

Husband currently earns ~£130k at a big tech firm, fully remote. He's amazing at his job and finds the work is really interesting and cutting edge, but it is long hours and stressful. He doesn't like it and is worried about missing out on time with the kids when they're little. He recently got offered a job at £65k at a charity (1 day in the office - 45 minutes commute) which he thinks sounds relatively interesting. It will definitely be less hours and less stress.

At this salary (+ mine) we'd be pretty much breaking even. We might be able to save £300 a month if we cut back on childcare and we took less holidays away. We are fairly well set up with pensions and we have over £100k in savings and investments on top of that. Our mortgage is average for London as we've overpaid in the past and we have a fair amount of equity (£330k mortgage on a £1m house)

If he stayed at his current role, and we cut back as planned we could probably save at least £30k next year, and then he would look again.

He is really torn on what to do. I am supportive either way - I would like us to have more money saved in case of redundancy, AI job losses etc but have definitely seen that he is unhappy, and would like him to relax more.

Should he take the charity job, or stick to his current role for another year?

Hi all, 

Long time lurker, first time poster.

Since we’re in the new tax year, like many of you I’m reviewing my current approach towards FIRE aspirations and some housekeeping.

Some headline stats and considerations for this year:

Age: 39
Job: perm £120k (including bonus which is c. 10%) - Engineering Manager
ISA: c.£265k
GIA: c.£70k
Cash: c.£125k

SIPP/DC: c.£275k
DB (previous public sector): est £10k p/y at 67

Stock allocations are largely world, US and some money market funds.

Outgoings - minimal - c.£600-700 p/m as I have no dependents, live quite simply and live with a partner who inherited their house (which is basic but functional) and contribute towards bills. Outside London.
Other than month-to-month spending I spend c.£8-10k on holidays, everything else at present goes to GIA and a few occasional purchases but I don’t consider my life to be spartan. I have quite simple needs.

I currently max £20k ISA per year and salary sacrifice full £60k p/y to take advantage of employer contributions (who fortunately also pass on NI savings) and well documented tax cliff edge at £100k.

I generally enjoy my job, so not targeting a specific date for FIRE but more so the FI flexibility to pursue other options or hours etc if I can. Plus this also helps me deal with the uncertainty of transformation in service-based jobs/reskilling/redundancy etc.

Future considerations

• No plans for children;
• Unmarried;
• Possibly buy a house jointly with my partner with joint equity/split (I previously sold my house 1.5 years ago), so likely increase in outgoing costs since I recognise mine are currently low;
• Contract market appears dire but have considered contracting in future but staying firm at the moment (won’t rehash uncertainty/AI arguments);
• Have held financial discussions with partner and believe in transparency. They have reasonable savings but also a (relatively) high earner just below £100k. Their house ownership means lower direct costs but they have higher outgoings due to lifestyle. I’ve considered contributions to their SIPP since they fill ISA and make use of employer match but do not exceed this for pension.

I realise I’m cash heavy (£20k of this will shortly be going into ISA related products).

Decisions/intentions

• LISA? Whether to open a stocks and shares LISA since I’ll have an opportunity to do this before I turn 40 in September. I think my future planning is reasonable with mixture of DC and DB but I’m wary of losing the opportunity to not take advantage of being able to open this and hedge against future pension age raises which take DC further away (my thinking is this would provide an earlier buffer/release at 60). I wouldn’t be using this for a house purchase since I’ve already bought one so I’m uncertain whether the value/trade off is worth it here for locking the funds away. Also I understand that LISA is being reformed so it’s not clear whether this grandfathered arrangement will be hnoured or t’s and c’s changed (such is the way with any investment). I’d also likely have to open another account with DODL or similar, when my intention is to rationalise - so would welcome opinions.
• Rationalising providers - I’m currently split across II, Vanguard and InvestEngine plus T212 so it’s sprawling and I’m thinking of consolidating to II.
• Same for SIPPs - due to different employers I have various providers for DC;
• Otherwise drip feed more money from cash into the GIA to dollar cost average, if these are up by at least £3k each tax year then sell this amount to rebase cost and wait or buy in a similar fund;

Welcome any comments/opinions from the redditor hive-mind on these

I am now thinking instead of my original plan of 100% equities which is high risk. I maybe better to have a diverse portfolio with more than 2 index tracker (using defensive funds) but I then realised that there may not be enough growth due to the sum of investment on that low side.

My questions is will a '3 buckets strategy' be better?

1-3 years of spending in your CASH bucket. (I have 5 years cash)

3- 7 years CONSERVATIVE bucket holds investments that are more aggressive than cash, but still fairly conservative. (I hold a 100% All world index tracker)

7- 13 years growth and income (not decided yet)

13 - 19 year growth (not decide yet)

19 - onwards gradually rebalance more bonds heavy (gilts)

Your thoughts welcome

I graduated from a computer science degree in 2024 (with a first). I was on a 4 year course (with placement year) and went back to my placement role in 2024. I’ve since had a promotion from Jr SWE to SWE after (1 year) and am now on 36k. I live in Brighton with my girlfriend who is on around £1700 PCM (PIP and part time job).

Main outgoings that can’t really change :

Rent: 675

Bills: ~400

What do I do next?

I like my job a lot but after spending time on this subreddit I feel extremely underpaid, especially as I’m not far from London (I live in Brighton).

Only saving around £200 per month.

Firstly a bit about me.

46 year old male.

No children,not married but have a partner who I do not live with.

Work full time for NMW salary.

My financial goal is to be able to FIRE or at least reduce hours in approx 10/15 years time.

I currently own 50/50 split in my inherited property. I am in the process of buying out the other 50% from my brother who lives elsewhere.

I have the savings to do so.

I don’t live a lavish lifestyle at all, no new cars,expensive holidays etc.

I have been a saver most of my adult life.

My current portfolio is as follows.

I realise I am cash heavy and need to invest more into my pension to maximise financial gains but that is where I guess I’m looking for advice.

I will need approx £100k to buy out my brother.

I should get rid of cash as priority for the house purchase obviously.

I have not used my 20k isa allowance for this new tax year.

I only opened my personal SIPP in November 2026 so I could potentially use backdated loophole to fund more into it?

My T212 invest account I am currently down £1k so reluctant to use that cash at present. (It’s invested in VWRP)

My portfolio is as follows…..

Santander 123 current account £23000

Santander savings account £20000

Virgin cash ISA £96033 4.16% matures 24/09/26

Castle cash ISA £88701 4.2% 06/09/26

T212 S/Shares ISA £41089

T212 invest account £31845

Scottish widows workplace pension contributing 10%/10% averaging total £380/month (employer match maxed out)

Current value £37500

Vanguard managed SIPP pension contributing £125/month

Current value £4300

I’m thinking about creating a new FIRE tool, but I want it to be something people would actually use.

Before I start building, I’d love to hear from you:

• What kind of FIRE simulator or calculator would you find genuinely useful?
• Are there any features or approaches you wish existed that current tools don’t offer?

All feedback is welcome trying to make something free, practical, interesting, and engaging for the community!

Hi all! I was wondering what is the optimal route for FIRE:

1. Got my first grad job on 40k in London, so quite low for London. I had previous internships and a grad job but lost the grad job due to chronic illness. The chronic thing is now being managed.
2. Living at home with no rent or bills
3. After taxes and loan payments, I make 2.1k per month. I save up to 1k a month, spend the rest on Ubers, eating out, clothes etc.
4. Loan is student loan (100k since I spent 5 years in uni, 4 years undergrad, one year masters) and 4000 pounds borrowed from workplace
5. Pensions is 9% in total as I am prioritising my LISA/ISA. I have no idea the accumulated total yet (how do I find out)
6. LISA and ISA combined is 35k

I am not moving out anytime soon as my parents make enough money to keep me at home without me financially contributing.

I'm a 36year old trader that wants FIRE, been trading for around 5 years now. Mainly I do stocks, cfd and I've been saving for about 4 years now, these days I'm thinking about opportunities to save more, cut down my drinking habits by 50%, do home cooked meals and drink water instead of soda in my every day life, this has helped my increase my savings/investments but I'm not stopping there..

As a trader, I'm changing how I approach the market in relation to fees. I use Bitget, etoro and interactive brokers sometimes. They're popular in the UK with Bitget recently joining the stock and cfd market after transitioning to uex.

I'm trying to analyze and see which is the best in terms of fees for their VIP clients. That way I tend to sve cost too.. maybe they're some experienced folks here that could help out if they've tried all three or some. ive started my research, but outside opinion would help

anyone else noticed their CS ISA allowance didn't reset today? presumably it will tomorrow.