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Category: Retirement

Times not to discuss Finances and Early Retirement

Times not to discuss Finances and Early Retirement

I had an awesome Saturday this weekend at Huw’s FIRE Escape meetup in Devizes. While being a great opportunity to finally meet some of the many faces behind blogs I regularly follow and hear some of their stories first hand, it also provided a rare opportunity to discuss personal finances and early retirement in an open way I’ve found impossible to do elsewhere. If the British are infamous for being reluctant to discuss money, even basic personal finance areas.. it’s…

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The Top Ten Downsides of Financial Independence & Early Retirement

The Top Ten Downsides of Financial Independence & Early Retirement

A regular reader of this site;  Jim took the FIRE exit in January 2015 at the age of 51, a situation somewhat planned for, but in reality an issue forced through departing from his employer. Although Financial Independence had been a partly considered and achieved objective, no real plan had been put in place for what to do with the Retiring Early part of the FIRE equation. Thus, following thirty years of moaning about work, he now has time to…

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Reasons to retire #2 – There’s a whole other world out there

Reasons to retire #2 – There’s a whole other world out there

Following on from last time’s Reasons to retire #1 – Appraisals and targets and the excellent discussion it generated, I thought we could continue with producing a list full of reasons to retire. Many of us take for granted our belief that early retirement is something good to work towards, indeed most of the personal finance information and blogs I come across go into great lengths about how to save money and retire earlier.. without giving too much consideration into…

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Reasons to retire #1 – Appraisals and targets

Reasons to retire #1 – Appraisals and targets

Back when I was at university studying Business Management I wrote a lengthy research based article on the motivational aspects of workplace target setting. Ever since we first enter the schooling system we’ve been continually exposed to targets against which our achievement has been measured. Infact almost all jobs I’ve worked in have attempted to use targets as a method of assessing and motivating employees (with the exception of when I was a lifeguard; the only target then was to…

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Who wants to be a Retirement Millionaire?

Who wants to be a Retirement Millionaire?

Although (hopefully) readers here will be aware that they don’t need an enormous pension pot to retire; reaching a cool million still remains the goal for many others. What better feeling than hitting that 7 figures? However there are several things to consider before you get knocked over with a huge tax bill at the end. As the pension freedoms were introduced back in April, there also came a controversial announcement of a reduction in the lifetime allowance – from…

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Retirement investments you may not have thought of

Retirement investments you may not have thought of

Following on from being asked to feature in my first ever article last month on key actions required to retire early, I asked Ryan to contribute towards an article here and he provided one looking at some of the alternative investment options you might consider for retirement. Obviously everyone should do their own research and if in doubt; speak with an independent financial advisor, however it is interesting to hear about some of the other possibilities beyond the typical shares/bonds/BTL….

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Can you afford NOT to save?

Can you afford NOT to save?

I first saw this photo a few months ago on a finance forum in a thread about starting a pension fund. The thread starter was roughly my age and asking whether he should begin saving into the company pension scheme. The details were roughly that the company would double his own contributions at 4% salary sacrifice.. however like most young people there was the constant draw of nights out and flashy gadgets all battling for a slice of his income…

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Why it’s important to set yourself goals towards retirement

Why it’s important to set yourself goals towards retirement

I’m a big believer in setting yourself measurable targets and goals throughout life in order to motivate and monitor progress. It’s one of the main reasons why I started this blog and continue to invest the time each month to calculate and list every expense and income category. Even as a child I would monitor my savings and set a specific target to reach. Money wasnt just disappearing into a dark hole to be saved for a ‘rainy day’, it…

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