On the road to financial independence and beyond
Having a car can be a significant benefit to an individual or family but can represent significant costs being incurred. A car can be one of the top five household expenditures but it is one where we can have and make some choices. A car incurs an initial purchase cost, and an interest cost or…
The 4% “safe withdrawal rate” (SWR) is often mentioned on financial independence blogs (e.g. Monevator) or in books (e.g. Reset). I view it as a guideline based on a specific historical model. I prefer to use natural yield as my guide. Having ceased paid work just over five years ago I have now calculated how…
The news is full of Brexit news this week with various parliamentary votes happening. There is much concern about whether we leave or postpone or remain, and whether we have a deal or not. I don’t want to get into all that but I do want to consider the investment situation. There are many global…
These thoughts are inspired by a post from a US blogger I follow on four things he gave up to retire early. According to him the four things given up were power/influence, big beautiful house, international travel, and guaranteed financial security. I will comment on these four and two more of my own. I feel…
New (and old) investors are often advised to buy equity index tracker funds rather than actively managed equity funds. A tracker fund will hold shares in order to closely replicate the index it is aiming to track. This avoids any good or bad choices of which shares to hold. It is claimed that trackers beat…
Who wants to be a millionaire? Even today a million sounds like a lot of money to most people and even unimaginable to some. It is still the largest prize available to Premium bond holders. It still implies a certain lifestyle although it is a lesser sum than it was after decades of inflation. The…