We've been working towards financial independence for the last 5 years, after a bit of an existential crisis as covid kicked in, the travel industry collapsed and we'd just moved into a larger house with a much bigger mortgage.

We're pretty much ready to pull the plug on full-time work in the next 12 months.

At 46 its too early to contemplate retirement, I'll still need something to keep my mind active but looking forward to more time to pursue trips and adventures again.

Financial planning doesn't really need to be that complicated, its really just balancing how much you can comfortably live on with the assets you have and making some sensible assumptions around rates of growth - it probably helps that I'm a bit of a data geek so this stuff comes quite naturally.

I'd suspect most of us are pretty frugal, and have pretty basic needs other than frequent bike and kit upgrades ;-)

First book I read on it was RESET, its probably a bit dated now but the only book around focussed on UK financial independence at the time, its a quick read and its really cheap second hand.

Other bits I'd recommend:

• James Shack - financial planner with lots of great freely available info

• Reddit - FIREUK - great community with lots of solid advice

• Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman's great book on living a good life and accepting we have a finite life.

• Die with Zero - Bill Perkins great book - particularly relevant if you don't have kids, or don't plan to pass any of your wealth to them.

For a minimal financial investment, you'll come out the other side with some interesting perspectives and hopefully feel much more in control of your future.

Good luck!

Some other books worth reading if you're getting recommended Die With Zero; which I happen to have just started...

• The Psychology of Money : Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness by Morgan Housel
• Same as Ever : Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life by Morgan Housel
• Your Money Or Your Life : 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Vicki Robin, Joe Dominguez

books telling you how to retire ?? i for one couldnt be arsed with that.

simple maths works wonders.

I stopped work in July 2022. The only advice I can give is do it as soon as you can afford it. I’ve never been happier and still don’t have enough time to do all the stuff I want to.

Retired in 2013, do it before your body decides it has had enough. Now into12th year of going on long cycling holidays, on week 8 away cycling this year abroad.

Well Donald is about to feck any chance I ever had of not earning

One option for the rest of the world is cancel arms contracts . And for us insignificant people don't buy American products. America will feel it because cash is king . Cancelled Strava premium etc. Governments should fight fire with fire none of the appeasement like reducing US tech tax ,put it up to the level Trump wants. Free trade will return if US feels the pain.

Sajama wrote: ↑Wed Apr 02, 2025 11:36 am .... And for us insignificant people don't buy American products. America will feel it because cash is king . Cancelled Strava premium etc. Governments should fight fire with fire none of the appeasement like reducing US tech tax ,put it up to the level Trump wants. Free trade will return if US feels the pain.

Indeed: we must take a firm stand. For the Chilterns Winter Bivi Revival a few weeks ago I refused to buy Californian wine .

Some governments do fight with fire: the trick is to disguise it as reasonableness .

Years ago I had to visit an engineer occasionally to discuss finances in his department. Pretty simple stuff as he didn’t spend much. He was ~10 years my senior so late 50’s. Our pension allowed us to take the full amount at 60 but for every year before that you took the pension there was a discount of a few percent because you were taking your pension for longer. His view was he was waiting until 60 because he didn’t want to give any away whereas my view was that I would be out of there as soon as I could afford to not go to work. He was a Yorkshireman.

And we also avoided US wine last week when away for herself’s birthday.

Retired at 59 2 years ago now.

We went the financial advisor route and very happy with it. The only thing he failed to cater for was Trump ! The pot has taken a bit of a hit in the last few weeks but other wise all has been good..

If you have a few years to go & are mortgage free then my suggestion is totally max out your pension contributions. A few years of 40k a year top up makes a massive difference . We did this & just ate in to our savings in the mean time.