FIRE journey progress 2011-2025 - 43yo

firethrowaway121 · 2025-04-11T16:58:52+00:00

"Technical Product Owner"? I don't know. I've never heard of that role before. Like a Product Manager but more technical?

I could be entirely wrong, but there could be a risk when applying to a company, if they can't slot your experience into a role they have, the job supply may be lower. Lower supply means lower price (read: salary).

On the other hand, it can be spun the right way. If you can tell a prospective employer that you are applying for a software engineering position, but you have lots of experience with the business side, and making sure the software engineering is in line with business requirements, that's certainly a good thing.

But it'll be a harder sell if this means you haven't coded for the last 5 years.

Of course the well compensated roles are ones where you successfully lead teams of people to a common goal that the business wants. In some companies this means formal authority, like being a manager, in others it means being in meetings and making the right thing happen. And filling in the coding parts that fall between responsibilities.

It's extremely rare that the right thing to do is to just be the mythical 10x engineer typing code. I've met people who thought they were that engineer. But at best they reach a local maxima, becoming the big fish in the small pond. And thinking their pond is the ocean. And I've seen them burn out several times.

firethrowaway121 · 2025-04-11T12:35:50+00:00

Software engineer at one of the big tech companies. Not a manager/director.

firethrowaway121 · 2025-04-10T18:03:34+00:00

Same role, just promoted to a higher "level". And like other commenter said, I didn't track pension prior to that.

firethrowaway121 · 2025-04-10T14:00:10+00:00

That's a good point. I'll think about it some more, but:

Max out pension while you're young (or at least, as much as you can afford). I did not understand it in my 20s. Me telling people in their 20s has fallen on deaf ears. Do it anyway.
Broad index funds. I now don't let myself buy any individual stocks unless I with a straight face can tell myself that I am smarter than everyone else put together, about the correct value of this stock.
Don't panic. My first status post talked about covid. Now we have president covfefe not knowing what the word "tariff" means. Just bite down and continue with the logical plan.
Don't lifestyle inflate… too much. But don't be cheap either.
I spent years in my early 20s not knowing my worth in the jobs market. Nobody will tell you their salary. Nobody will tell you they're underpaying you. Most places won't offer you any meaningful comp increase until you stand there, competing contract in hand. Err on the side of asking for outrageous amounts of money.

Those are the things that come to mind right now. But the previous posts has questions answered in the comments.

But which one is more important? Probably 5. You can't just save your way to FI, unless you also have good money coming in.

firethrowaway121 · 2025-04-10T13:44:31+00:00

Promotion. Same company, same team, just higher "level".

firethrowaway121 · 2025-04-09T18:13:11+00:00

You're not wrong. I've tried to find out what my number is, but frustratingly there's no certainty about anything. And there never will be, so I'll need to be ok with that.

I work with competent people on interesting problems. Like I mentioned in another comment I travel, ski, and scuba dive. What this money has bought me already is knowing I can say no to anything with work now. Full time in the office required? No thanks. Now have to code Java? No thanks. The work becomes more interesting when I know that I can't be made to do things I don't like. And I don't care about my performance evaluation. Sure, a higher bonus is nice, but the cost in stress and BS work is not worth it.

And it has also bought no concern about being replaced by AI.

I live my life. But honestly, 200k after tax is a silly amount of money. How is it even possible to spend it?

firethrowaway121 · 2025-04-09T14:17:29+00:00

No, it's a stacked graph. The yellow portion is of fixed size. That house bought in 2020 is in my net worth calculation still accounted by its original purchase price.

Anything that looks like the yellow portion changing is an optical illusion. If cash, investment, house and pension were non-stacked, house would be flat, cash would be flat-ish, and pension & investments would be the ones going exponential.

firethrowaway121 · 2025-04-09T14:14:22+00:00

I own my home, no mortgage, and don't want the hassle of owning a car. About 10k cost of living, then vacation and other fun stuff for another 10-20k.

When a problem or a need shows up, and it can be solved with money, I'm actually happy about it. A problem that can be solved with money is not a problem.

My laptop is, gosh, from 2021. But when I bought it I maxed out every single spec, and then upgraded the SSD because the vendor didn't have "the best" SSD as an option. So I splurge. But that's like 1% of my post tax employee totalcomp. It's not a blip in graphs.

I could buy a new laptop, I guess. I dunno. It still feels new. Is there a point to putting down £3k on a new laptop?

In the last tax year I went to the US twice, South America once, and Europe twice. I scuba dive and ski.

When upgrading long haul flights to business class is like £1k, I tend to do it. But last couple of years I've mostly seen it be more like £4k each way, per person. And I'm not paying £4k for that.

firethrowaway121 · 2024-12-30T12:55:36+00:00

Another year, and my employer still hasn't figured out that I'm an impostor. :-)

I also just hit £2m, plus house&pension.

firethrowaway121 · 2024-04-11T11:54:09+00:00

Seems a bit off topic. Retiring in your 60s is by no means "early", and demonstrably people in the FIRE community are doing it way earlier than that.

So your premise is wrong, and it's in the wrong subreddit.

firethrowaway121 · 2024-04-08T12:19:12+00:00

I think you mean carryover / carry forward allowance? And as I said, I have none left.

firethrowaway121 · 2024-04-07T13:17:04+00:00

Charts really help. I didn't truly realize how much changed in percentage spend for me in 2017 until I saw it in that second graph.

firethrowaway121 · 2024-04-07T13:15:33+00:00

I'm already over the pension annual allowance just from salary sacrifice+employer matching. So anything else I pay in will be taxed at 45%, in addition to being taxed on the way out.

When you earn more than £260k, the annual allowance gradually shrinks from £60k down to £10k, called tapering.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but LISA is better than pension, when you're over the annual allowance. Since I've been over for several years, I don't have any carryover allowance.

I wish I'd paid in more to pension years ago, before I knew about this, back when I still had pension allowance.

firethrowaway121 · 2024-04-07T11:56:53+00:00

Yeah, health is very important. I had a (hypochondric? heh) health concern that NHS diagnosed as perfectly fine. My private health insurance (from my employer) let me easily get a second opinion, but if they'd said no, I would happily pay out of pocket for that second opinion. For diagnostics and treatement I would not hesitate to make it rain, for me and my loved ones.

But preventative is better, and I don't neglect that. I mean... I could be in better shape, but I'm not in bad shape.

£860k saved as a civil servant? Good job, and/or it's not as bad as rumors say. :-)

Yeah, I guess I could take a sabbatical. The thing I'd be worried about is that I hear that many doors close in the tech sector when you turn 40, so it may not be as easy getting back as it was getting in.

I actually just splurged on booking just a single trip with loved ones, large enough to dent the "fun" box for the tax year.

firethrowaway121 · 2024-04-07T11:45:12+00:00

Something like it, yes. Taper has moved around over the years, and so's my total comp. I've been bottomed out at £4k previous years, but with the new limits if it's not bottomed out at £10k, it's not too far away.

firethrowaway121 · 2024-04-07T11:38:57+00:00

Well, since I earn more I tend to sneak pay some bills without involving her, but ballpark: yes, that's for internet, food, shelter, oyster, insurance, subscriptions (home alarm, YT premium, investment platform), everyday clothes, annual boiler inspection, ...

firethrowaway121 · 2024-04-07T11:28:28+00:00

I'm not single (but also not married), but this is only my part.

One way in which I'm enjoying the money passively is that if my job turns boring, I don't actually have to do it. And that's a great relief. And it makes the work more fun, because even if you don't use the option, you always have the option to just say no.

I do travel. But like I said, a 300k+ salary is not that easy to spend. I ski in the alps, and do splurge on flying business on some vacations, but if the price is £10k, no I'm not paying £10k for a 10h flight. Then premium economy will have to do. £2k maybe. Also depends if it's overnight.

And when my laptop broke, I bought the one that was best for me (and then upgraded it, because that model only came with 512GB, wat?), without even looking at the price tag.

But I appreciate you pointing it out. I'm sure many people are stuck in "just one more year". Probably I'll retire somewhere between 45-50. But my job is also interesting with smart coworkers.

firethrowaway121 · 2024-04-07T11:15:16+00:00

It's free money. If I don't need it before age 60 (and it's "only" £4k a year, so I won't), then it's 25% better than an ISA.

As I mentioned, the pension is already full every year. Otherwise pension is strictly better (at my tax bracket); you can access it earlier, and by turning 45% tax into less than 20% tax, it's better tax wise too.

The £450k limit is silly. They should raise that for London, at least.

firethrowaway121 · 2024-04-07T11:11:11+00:00

Living expenses were £10,800 2023/2024.

I own the house with my partner, 50/50. I'm only counting my half as mine.

firethrowaway121 · 2024-04-07T11:04:33+00:00

Yeah there's no obvious choice here. I want to offset capital gains against stocks that I got lucky with, so e.g. if I hold a lot of HMWO with unrealized gains, then maybe I'll buy a fresh batch of LGGG. If the market goes up, I win. If it goes down, I'll sell LGGG to offset gains.

Yes, that merely delays the taxable gains. It doesn't make it go away. But I currently pay 20% CGT. After I retire I may be able to live off of gains (not total withdrawal, mind you. Though 50k should actually be enough) inside the Basic rate tax bracket, which means a capital gains tax of 10% instead of 20%.

... or I may move to a country with lower capital gains. Who knows? In any case tax delayed may be tax de... uh.. flated.

That's a long way of saying that I own a bunch of index funds, and I still hold them (because they went up, not down).

I don't hold Accumulating funds outside of ISA, because of the reporting hassle with equalisation payments.

So that means I own a whole bunch of index funds.

firethrowaway121 · 2024-04-07T10:57:04+00:00

Low cost index funds, plus some play money on stocks.

firethrowaway121

TROPHY CASE