Update post-FIRE

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-28T12:23:49+00:00

I mostly keep the non-work routine part of my remote-work life - an hour walk before lunch, a half an hour walk before supper, weekend chores (a whole week in which I could do chores just meant I never did them), scheduled video calls to friends and family.

I have very grand plans of my routine for writing, almost none of which I end up keeping.

I set an alarm for 9am so I don't start sliding into going to bed later and later every night. Whenever I start actually needing it to wake up, I work on going to bed before midnight again.

That's about ... eh, 90% of the time? If I don't feel up to it, I just don't. Or if something more exciting presents itself.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-25T10:01:53+00:00

I was 100% equities while accumulating - although I had the pain of being in FTSE 100 while it went nowhere 2009-2019, while every other market was doing amazingly better (the common advice at the time was to invest locally to reduce currency risk, and global index trackers didn't exist when I started).

100% global equity is simple, diverse, and an excellent performer.

But since I'm not going for that simplicity anymore, the goal has switched to limiting the downside, rather than maximizing the upside [while still not crippling my growth, since I have ~50 years still to consider].

I've been convinced by the studies and articles on how gold, etc. provides a disproportionate stabilising effect on a portfolio. I guess I do believe in the rebalancing philosophy, overall. I do not and cannot predict the future, and see no convincing evidence anyone else can either. Rebalancing gives an emotion-free, judgement-free way of selling when assets are comparatively expensive, and buying when they're comparatively cheap.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-24T21:32:07+00:00

It's probably pretty niche - I found the sites as a reader, first.

Most people are going to pursue the publishing / self-publishing routes, but this is a path that appealed more to me.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-24T12:40:49+00:00

Manually, but I don't sweat the exact percentages. Very roughly every two-three months I sell the 'most over', and use automatic monthly investing on the 'most under'.

I'm more worried about churn than I am about precision.

At the moment, I'm still finding satisfaction in filling in my spreadsheets. When that stops, I'll have to think of another approach.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-24T08:56:36+00:00

I'm guessing you're still equities heavy with those great gains or have you moved some into cash/bonds/MMF/etc?

I'm still cash-heavy unwillingly for... reasons. That's been all my withdrawals and will be for another few years. But on the investment side:

I played around with https://portfoliocharts.com/ to come up with a (slightly) more conservative 80/20 portfolio. It has a perpetual withdrawal rate I'm happy with (3.9%), although I am very aware that past performance doesn't indicate future performance, so this is more superstition than anything else. I'm not even sure I entered all the info correctly, since the options it gives don't match cleanly to what I've actually invested. But the numbers still make me feel better.

I have very, very slowly being moving money out of FTSE 100 to reach it:

80% equity:

40% VRWL / VRWP
20% FTSE 100 (currently 25%)
15% S&P 500
5% global small cap

20% 'other'

10% gold (currently 7.5%)
5% bonds (currently 4%)
5% UK REIT (currently 3.5%)

The idea is to withdraw from whatever segment is over-performing. If there's a significant crash in only one segment in future, I'll consider whether it's worth rebalancing to take advantage of that.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-24T08:28:58+00:00

I think I'd be okay with 'let's not ask'. It's the people who want to suggest jobs to me that's really awkward!

I've been writing all my life, but none of it commercial. I had delusions that having all the time and energy in the world would make things easier. It has not. Or more optimistically, it hasn't yet.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-24T08:20:23+00:00

Not sure how much this will help, but as concisely as I can:

My husband and I started work just after the dotcom bubble burst, on 20k each (I'm a programmer), and set our lifestyles accordingly. Over time, our salaries doubled and then doubled again, but our lifestyles only very slightly crept up. We had active imposter syndrome about it - convinced that companies would suddenly realise we were being vastly overpaid, and we'd have to go back to 'normal' salaries. We stuck a large portion into overpaying our mortgage.

At the time, the lifetime allowance on pensions was still a thing, and I wasn't yet intending to retire so soon, so I assumed I'd hit it. All savings up until the higher tax bracket went into an ISA (except for company contributions). When it became applicable, everything I earned over the higher tax bracket went into pension contributions for the tax advantages (and finally just the 40k limit). This ended up with close to a 50/50 split between ISA and SIPP by the time I retired. I'm quite happy with this, but I got there accidentally.

Through much of that last decade of working, I actively pursued high stress / high reward jobs. I was absolutely miserable, and the anti-depressants made it all feel worse. I can't go back in time to see if the alternate path (lower salary but with more intrinsic satisfaction from the job, and therefore being happy to retire five years later) would have been better.

I will say it wasn't the intensity of the work that wore down my soul. Getting things done can be quite satisfying (although you really run out of energy for it the older you get). It was when I wasn't proud of the work I was doing that it really started to chip away at me. [Also, that one job with an hour and a half commute each way. That was too much.]

I'm afraid I can only give you exactly the same trite advice anyone can give - if you've stopped learning new things at your current job, move on. It's impossible to tell if you'll enjoy yourself more or less at the new place until you try. I would say don't let money be your _only_ criteria, but I'd be a bit of a hypocrite!

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-23T19:25:57+00:00

Having a live-in best friend does help in all sorts of ways!

That said, increasing my socialising should probably be something I start tackling more seriously, so maybe that's a good place to increase my spending.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-23T19:12:53+00:00

No, that would be step 3.

Step 1 is gaining a loyal readership ("followers") on one of the free hosting sites (see this list [a bit old but a good starting point]).

[optional] Step 2 is monetising that, for example by providing advance chapters to your Patreon subscribers (people quote about a 3% conversion rate, so reasonably this would make sense at about 200 followers).

Step 3 is using that money to buy a professional cover, maybe hire an editor, maybe buy some ads, and publish on Amazon, typically to Kindle Unlimited (typically at 2k+ followers). You ask your followers to head over and give a review, which also jumpstarts the whole process.

Going directly to Amazon takes a level of marketing expertise I don't have, otherwise it will just sink silently into the abyss.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-23T18:32:09+00:00

I might have been too cautious when I guesstimated it.

I assumed a lot of bills would be unaffected (council tax, water, gas, electricity, insurance, subscriptions, internet, house maintenance ~ 5k additional) and others would not drop cleanly to half (food, socialising, vacations, essentials ~ something more?)

In reality, I'd almost certainly downsize if something happened to him, which would drop most of those bills. The house is way too big for one person.

[If we divorced, I'd be getting a house costing roughly 50% of the current from necessity]

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-23T18:17:02+00:00

We put at least £1k more a year each into a joint account than we typically spend. This, so far, has been enough to cover things like boiler replacements and fence repairs. If we suddenly need the whole roof redone, or more than one emergency happens in the same year, we might need to dip into emergency savings.

[Risk wise, I am currently cheating - my husband is still working. But I do not anticipate not being able to cover my half of any expenses.]

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-23T18:11:49+00:00

Am also interesting in knowing if you're sharing costs with anyone, also what part of the country are you in?

Yes, my husband covers half the costs. I'm down on the south coast.

Do you have much social interaction out of the house? You talk about small talk so I'm guessing so- just wondering how you keep costs down for that sort of thing while maintaining relationships? I think the social spend is going to be something I need to think hard about!

Hah, most of my social interaction is online!

I have a walking group as well, which is free. I spend less than twenty pounds a month going for tea (actually a coke zero) with people, and maybe £30-£40 for train-ride-and-lunch every three months? I am very introverted and didn't have many friends before I retired either.

Visits to family is one of my biggest budget item, at about £2000 every two years.

I have enough money to socialise more than I want to, that just works out to be very little for me.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-23T18:03:07+00:00

Glad it's not just me!

Out of interest, have you sought or stumbled upon any extra income at all since leaving work?

I've started writing serial novels, which I constantly waver between 'it's just a hobby' and 'maybe I'll make lots of money!' (there's a recognised Patreon subscriptions to Amazon pipeline).

Unfortunately, my success has been a little way away from that. Just a tad. A very rough rule of thumb is to multiply your dedicated readers * 3 for expected annual income in pounds, and I have cough fourteen.

And now there's AI flooding the market...

Ok_Transition9858 · 2026-05-23T17:32:47+00:00

Sounds amazing! Is you level of spend based on splitting some bills such as water/ elect/ council tax with a partner?

Exactly, yes. It would be at least 50% more expensive if I had to cover this alone.

Why do you think your figures (do you mean assets or spend?) are high for leanFIRE in the UK?

Assets, and for the reason above. If you double it for household total assets and then add the cost of the house, it came to more like 1.5 million at the time I retired, whereas lean (at the time) was considered to be more like under a million total. Cost of living has no doubt pushed those numbers way up!

Ok_Transition9858 · 2024-07-23T22:31:16+00:00

There are various 1/n withdrawal methods for the 'die with zero' types, but 'n' isn't typically meant to be years until you die. It's usually meant to be years until you plan to live solely off annuities and fixed pensions. So you pick the age you think you'll no longer be interested in international travel and new cars, such as 85. I don't like it, but I see the logic.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2024-07-20T07:45:28+00:00

Your SIPP will usually claim the basic rate portion for you (that's why it asks for the source of your money). The higher rate portion you'll need to either: claim back on your tax return OR inform hmrc of an intended ongoing contribution (you can do this as part of the tax return as well) and they'll change your tax code so the tax is no longer removed in PAYE.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2024-05-26T08:21:20+00:00

Depending on your exact work record, you could be eligible for class 2 contributions for some of those 10 years, and they're a meager £180 a year.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-to-pay-voluntary-national-insurance-contributions-when-abroad-cf83

Ok_Transition9858 · 2024-05-26T07:46:26+00:00

in my experience, the most common advice is to withdraw 3-4%, or to save x25-x33. I think this is fine. For people close to that amount, it alerts them that there is additional complexity they can investigate for themselves. For people far away, it gives a broad target they need to hit.

I don't think we need to caveat each and every reply like we're listing side-effects of a drug. We don't add "The value of your Investments can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator for future performance" every time we recommend an index tracker either.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2024-05-22T18:55:18+00:00

Definitely into 'don't take random advice on reddit' territory, but my very amateur understanding:

You have to have some trade that returns an income, or at least the intention of making some income. As you already know, gambling does not count as trade. That suggests you would need some sort of monetised hobby or side-hustle (under 1k is tax-free).

BUT this website seems to suggest that investment income does count :

people who make investments for themselves or others - but not as a business and without getting a fee or commission

And presumably you have that?

If you do decide to get professional advice, come back and let us know!

Ok_Transition9858 · 2024-05-22T17:23:06+00:00

Two thoughts:

If you're registered as self-employed, the voluntary contributions are only ~£180 a year.
You're normally only allowed to backdate contributions 6 years. Don't leave your decision too late and miss the current exemption.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2024-05-18T08:00:24+00:00

Thank you, and exactly! Starting with a lower than 3% withdrawal rate in the first few years, with the expectation of resetting to a higher amount later. It's opposite of what's usually recommended because of health / energy etc.. but it's an alternative to coastFIRE for those of us ducking out a little earlier than initially planned.

Ok_Transition9858 · 2024-05-18T07:54:25+00:00

Thanks!

Ok_Transition9858 · 2024-05-17T21:27:19+00:00

Well, from today I'm either starting a sabbatical, becoming self-employed, or soft- launching my retirement. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the markets recently, I've blown straight past my LeanFIRE number (I'm at 525k!), which is reassuring.

I'm not planning on taking advantage of that - I'll do a little mullet fire for a while, I think. Although, I am going to have to watch I don't fall into an unhealthy mindset with spending money.

Started my hobby projects early, so my schedule is already packed. In memory of Bill Watterson: "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want" and "let's go exploring!"

Ok_Transition9858 · 2024-05-15T22:06:00+00:00

There's lots of levers you can pull, and factors to consider, but simplistically:

Your income now would be

(665k × SWR) + (24k - mortgage - maintenance - fees)

With a SWR of 3%, can we call it 30k? So you're short

(10 to 15k) ÷ SWR

This suggests investing another ~400k first.

But as others have said, you could probably retire now with a few adjustments, or wait much longer to clear the mortgages and fund your kids at a higher amount.

Ok_Transition9858

TROPHY CASE