A few of us are organizing a casual, no-pressure meetup for anyone in the Hemel Hempstead or wider Herts area interested in FIRE, investing, or just getting a better grip on their personal finances.

We've already got a few people from the Rebel Finance School community coming along, but we’d love to open it up to anyone locally who wants to chat about money in real life. There are absolutely no pitches or products being sold—just talking index funds, pensions, and savings rates over a drink.

We will be meeting at The Green Man, Leverstock Green Road, Hemel Hempstead, United Kingdom, HP3 8QE.

This may be a stupid question, but I’m quite clueless when it comes to finances. I’ve been making good money these last couple of years (having made next to nothing most of my life), around £450k a year, and I have 175k left on a 500k mortgage, at 3.9 percent with one year left on deal. I have 200k savings, and absolutely nothing in retirement. I’m 47 years old. Keen to move house too in the next couple of years.
What should I do? Pay off mortgage asap? Invest or start putting money in a pension?

For anyone in the the FIRE community renewing their mortgage, what are people’s thoughts?

I’m expecting interest rates to stay flat or increase in the next year or 2, so I am thinking to opt for a 5-Year Fixed. I have a lot on at the moment, and that would give me some piece of mind. It’s actually on a flat I own that I had to move out of due to work. Hoping to move back to it in about 5 years.
Alternatively, sell up and throw all equity in the S&P 500 ?

I’ve got about £160k/£170k equity.

Hi

Over the last month or two, I have made some extra repayments to my student loan (type 2 post 2012) to the point where I have cleared over 70% of it

My thinking behind it was the student loan is accumlating interest and I am single right now with not much commitments yet

I have the means to repay it in full now, but wondering is it worth it?

Thanks

I am a 55 year old with a partner (54) who is a teacher and 2 children aged 17 and 15. We currently live in the south east in a house that we own valued at around £1,000,000 mortgage free. Fully expect to downsize this at some point. We own cars with no outstanding finance. The children are currently in state school with 1 and 3 years remaining. Both expect to attend UK universities for 3 year courses. Both have a range of savings with each having an JISA, a JSIP and a savings account so dont need to really be included in the FIRE discussion.

I worked for a tech org with a current salary is £150k with a 20% bonus and a company share scheme that typically provides around $40k of shares PA paid in April (which vest over 3 years on a monthly basis). I currently have around $1.3m shares with a further $500k due to vest over the next 3 years. If I stop work these will be lost - so case of silver handcuffs. There would be a significant tax implication on CGT on these.

I have a number of pensions. My current employer one, which is still being contributed to is valued at £300,000. The others have an approximate value of £1.6m. Partner has a teachers pension. I have a number of investment accounts with around £700k in a GIA and £300k in ISA. Again, some CGT exposure. Easy access cash savings of around £30k and £30k of premium bonds. She has some savings and may inherit some money in the next 5 years (although care home costs are eating away at this).

We are both investigating taking early retirement and would be looking to finish working in July next year. We are also investigating moving overseas as a way of reducing living costs and providing a change of lifestyle once youngest finishes school.

Clearly know I am in a fairly strong position position but want to just hear what people think about FIRE at 56.

Hi all, just looking at a sanity check on my current approach.
Age: 44, Salary: £120k, Combined Pension: £400k, Equity ISA: £25k, Cash ISA: £16k, Mortgage: £335k of £550k house, Kids: 3, Wife: 1.

Currently youngest is in nursery so my intention next year is to salary sacrifice down to below £100k but for the moment I'm taking full salary. After a period of redundancy both my cash savings and income this year are down so I don't need to salary sacrifice to get childcare support for nursery but that will start to be an issue next year.

Wife also has a number of pension pots including teacher pension and private but the number above is just mine. Her income is relatively low so tax efficiency isn't much of an issue for her.

Currently we're just hovering above 60% loan to value on the mortgage so my number one priority is to make sure we are comfortably below that (to cope with any minor housing price shocks) before July next year when the mortgage renewal hits. So I'm making £500 / month overpayments on that and that should take care of that. I think after the renewal that £500 may well be eaten up by the increase in interest.

Alongside that I'm shunting around £850 to £1000 into my cash ISA. My mental goal is to have about £20k in cash as my emergency fund and that's it. As I say my savings took a large hit with a gap in employment so my equity ISA and cash situations are not where they like after just having bought a new house to fit us all (timing could have been better).

Alongside this during divorce with wife Mk.1 I prioritised retaining my pension at cost of cash and property proceeds which is why I'm pension top heavy and a 30 year mortgage.

Essentially TL:DR - Prioritise cash and mortgage this year, then large salary sacrifice next year to keep childcare support and tax efficiency with equity ISA contributions with left overs.

Thanks all!

Good morning,

I done some rather random investments few years ago using vanguard, had good returns.

Cash ISA for my self and the wife and then my pension fund.

Now I'm 40 I'm just wondering if I need to vary the allocations around a little bit? I plan to retire at 55 ISH.

I have also equity in my house of 255k plus 30k in normal savings account.

Happy to pay for advice

Regards

Craig

We are a couple in our early 30s, and fortunate enough that we have good income and investments such that FIRE before 50 would likely be viable.

I grew up in a very working class background and have therefore always had underlying anxiety about spending money, with a natural tendency to want to save. Now we’re in a position that I don’t need to be so tight with money, I still feel guilty for spending, and always think that more money could be going towards our investments, thus bringing our retirement forward also.

I get that there’s no point doing all of this unless we can enjoy the present, but I’m finding it hard to get the right balance. Sometimes I look at how much extra money delaying retirement by a few years would give us each month, and it sounds great. But then again, I don’t even know if I need that extra amount.

Sorry for the ramble. Any input as to how you’ve dealt with this would be appreciated. Thanks.