In July I received a payment from work when my employer (fast growing firm in the fintech space) received some investment. It's £400k after tax. I have only been there two years so it was nice surprise. At the moment I've put the money in my savings accounts (£200k) and two of my wife's savings accounts (£200k).

What else should I do with it? Gilts? Bonds? Put more in my or my wife's GIA? My wife's pension? I'm wary of putting more into pension given the recent tax changes.

- £1m house in the Midlands with £150k remaining on the mortgage. The deal runs out in June

- I use up my and my wife's ISA allowance ever year

- I have nearly £1m in a combo of a SIPP and workplace pension; wife has £200k in pensions

- Salary £250k (in operations) with some options I will only get if we get more investment. Wife earns a fraction of this.

- £100k in GIA

- I'm 45 and want to retire by 55 (same for my wife)

- We might move house soon closer to family in London so don't want to lock it all away as will probably get somewhere a little more expensive

Thoughts welcome and appreciated!

I'm trying to decide between AJ Bell and Hargreaves Lansdown for a long-term family investing setup and would appreciate hearing from people who've used either (or both). What's been your experience with fees, service and ease of managing multiple accounts? Any regrets or things you wish you'd known before choosing?

Looking at:
2 SIPPs
2 JISAs
1 Stocks & Shares ISA
Cash ISA/savings

Hi

I currently work in a tech role which is quite heavily focused on networking and cybersecurity

Following recent layoffs in IT including the most recent one by Microsoft today - I am a bit concerned around my FIRE future

Should I start looking for roles outside of tech or actually specialise more in say cybersecurity and get certs?

Thanks

I have a LGPS which was active from 2017-2021, nothing is contributed into it anymore, and the yearly statements I receive add in the inflation rate of about 3%.

I currently work for the civil service and I’m planning on staying here for a while. The CS have an exceptional pension, contributing ~27% of my wage.

A few SIPP companies (JP Morgan, AJ Bell), as well as a couple of financial advisors have said they would not be willing to take part in transferring the LGPS into a SIPP as it is a defined benefit scheme.

As I am currently in a better DB scheme, and the LGPS pension is not doing anything at the moment, would it be worth trying to move it over to a SIPP, or should I take the hint and just have it sit there for 35 years collecting dust?

In my head I would like to move the LGPS so I have more control over how it is invested so I could potentially look at retiring early.

Just to reiterate, my current CS pension I would not touch with a bargepole!!

Really appreciate any comments or advice, positive or not!

Hi, I'm after some advice. I'm planning to sell my dream car in a few months and fully focus towards FIRE or coast FIRE and retirement. Is my current strategy viable or do changes need to be made? I have a love hate relationship with work and would prefer to retire/go part time by 40. Here is my "portfolio":

Car: £38-42k~ (I know, it's a silly purchase given it's a lot of my net worth, it's the same value today as what I purchased it for). Replace with a £5-10k runaround.

ISA: £66k. Planning to sell my car and put the sale towards my ISA and/or GIA this tax year within allowance.

Pension: £49k.

Emergency fund: £9-10k.

I contribute anywhere from £1k-£1.5k a month into my ISA. Pension contributions are around £750 a month (including company contributions).

Monthly outgoings

£1.3k rent.

£300-350 groceries.

£430 utilities and council tax.

There is the option to move back to my parents house and cut outgoings a fair bit, and contribute £2k-2.5k a month into ISA/GIA, but it's nice having my own space and peace. Moving back may be an option once I reach FIRE/coast FIRE.

Any improvements that can be made to my current strategy? Thanks.

Reading all these fire threads makes me feel poor. I’m 40, unemployed (quit old job due to a bully boss) and have ~£330k in investments. Is this poor? This year i’m up a fair bit (edited £ figure due to Luke having an issue with my post) due to getting lucky with my investments, and if i continue being lucky i’m hoping to get to half a mill in the next year or two with or without work.

Saw a post about a guy who was on £250k a year job, other guys in £130k+! Crazy good money! I don’t think i’ll ever get such a high paying job. When working i earn 60k-ish but save like hell, invest and am very frugal.

I don’t have a high capacity for stress. How do i get a better paid low stress job? And is it feasible to continue in relatively low paid job and try make up the difference through investing in undervalued stocks?

Hi Everyone,

I would like to reduce tech exposure, as my current two ETFs are quite tech heavy - SWDA and IWMO. IWMO even more than SWDA due to Momentum Factor that favours tech currently.

It's not that I need dividends (it will be set as reinvest or accumulating anyway), but when I was doing a research, I really struggled to find an ETF that isn't tech heavy. All Quality ETFs I saw were tech heavy, some popular Value ETFs had Micron occupying first spot. I don't really want Emerging Markets, I have got some small Small Cap Value exposure via AVWS ETF and don't want to increase it, so that leaves me with Dividend ETFs that haven't really got tech so they tick all the boxes I need.

https://www.justetf.com/uk/etf-profile.html?isin=NL0011683594

https://www.justetf.com/uk/etf-profile.html?isin=IE000MRIQ479

https://www.justetf.com/uk/etf-profile.html?isin=IE00BK5BR626

Is there any meaningful difference between them? VDIV had an excellent run over the last 5 years, LDGA is quite new, but doing ok so far and I like it's setup. VGWE is one of classics, not the best not the worst. I feel like there is no bad choice here really, but maybe I am missing something? Or maybe there is some other type of ETF I should consider?

Cheers

So just watched the budget and honestly I'm struggling to find anything worth getting excited about.

Everyone's patting themselves on the back that there's no headline income tax rise. Cool. But the thresholds are still frozen till 2031 and nobody's even mentioning it anymore. That's the stealth tax doing exactly what it's meant to do. Every pay rise you get drags a bit more of your salary into the higher band, and more and more people are ending up paying 40% who never would have a few years ago. They don't need to touch the rates when they can just sit back and let inflation do the work. We're paying more tax than ever and somehow it's not being called a tax rise.

Then there's the £100 energy payment. A hundred quid. When bills are meant to be going up something like 20%? That's tuppence, it'll be gone by the end of the first cold snap.

Only genuinely good bit for me was the cash ISA. Reeves' cut to £12k for under 65s has been binned, so it stays at £20k. Fair play, that one actually matters for people here.

But overall? Nothingness budget. Anyone actually finding anything in it that changes their plans?

FT Exclusive: https://www.ft.com/content/619978f5-4400-4bf0-8b1f-4cf62bee9774?syn-25a6b1a6=1 Not yet clear about other ISA rules changes mooted by Reeves. But the £20k Cash ISA allowance is staying.

Edit 14:15pm from Martin Lewis: Investment ISA circumvention rules have ALSO been scrapped In June 2026, the former Government also laid out a series of planned changes designed to stop people using investment ISAs as a workaround to hold cash. These included a 22% charge on interest earned from cash held in stocks and shares ISA, and a ban on transfers from non-cash ISAs to cash ISAs for under-65s.

However, the Government has confirmed today that these measures will NOT go ahead as planned. Source: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2026/10/cash-isa-limit-cut-cancelled/