About

FIREvLondon

This is a blog about personal investing. 

I am interested specifically in financial independence; as I am well below the traditional retirement age, this technically means ‘retiring early’. I am proud to belong to the finance blog community dedicated to FIRE (Financial Independence / Retiring Early).

However, I am not typical of the FIRE community.  I have already amassed significant wealth.  And for me retirement does not mean to stop work. I want to ensure my wealth goes as far as possible; I want to enjoy my lifestyle without compromising (so-called fatFIRE, by some), and I want to have as much freedom as possible – for as much work or play as I want, where I want, when I went, with whom I want.

I am also a proud Londoner.  I did not grow up in London but have made it my home for over twenty years. London is famously an expensive place to live, or certainly to live well, but in my view this is the price of quality. 

One of the most common ways to achieve FIRE is through frugal spending.  Yet one of the hardest ways to achieve frugal spending is living in an expensive city like London.  I want to ‘have my cake and eat it’, as the English say – which involves balancing this tradeoff – frugal FIRE vs London’s lavish lifestyle.  Hence the name of the blog.  

The objectives of this blog are:

  1. To explore the issues around enjoying financial independence from the perspective of a wealthy Londoner.
  2. To seek wisdom and comment, but not judgement or advice;
  3. To share my experiences and opinions, but not provide answers or personal advice. I hope to be able to track my slow progress to my financial goals.
  4. To assist people fortunate enough to have ‘enough’ to make the most of what they have. Entrepreneurs, inheritors, divorcees, bankers, retirees in particular.

There is no advice on this website. If I find any comments providing personal advice I will remove them.

If you have a question/comment/suggestion please send a message using the form below:

16 thoughts on “About”

  2. Very interesting read. Having worked through a lot of the issues highlighted above over a nearly four year period, I can relate to many of Peter’s issues. I wrestled for a long time with the pros & cons of setting up a FIC and have (so far) found it to be the right choice.
    If my experience is any guide, there were no IFAs out there who could adeptly answer many of those questions that I had, which was the main cause of such a long gestation period for my chosen path. The problem being it is a relatively unusual situation and the issues don’t span one discipline but many. For example, I couldn’t find anyone with a good understanding of the tax rules around Qualifying Corporate Bonds.
    Happy to share my experiences with Peter or you if it helps.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Hi there,

    This is Mrs W from whatlifecouldbe.eu. I’m originally from Scotland but now I live in Romania.

    I’m writing to ask you if it’s ok for us to list your blog on FIREhub.eu – it’s a site a group of us started a few month ago to act as a kind of “home” for the FI community in Europe. We felt like there were so many American sites, and we wanted one for us Europeans. You can read more about it here: http://firehub.eu/start-here/ We have a blogroll of European FIRE blogs, a feed where we post the latest articles from the blogs, a wiki to collect FIRE information, an events section to list FIRE meetups happening all around Europe, and a section with contact information.

    I’ve added your blog to our blogroll. Please have a look and let me know what you think. If you don’t want your blog on our site we will of course take it off the blogroll. If you do want your blog to be included, could you please check your listing (http://firehub.eu/blogs/country/united-kingdom/) and let us know whether the picture, text and other information is ok? If you want to make any changes just let me know and I’ll update your listing.

    Yours hopefully,
    Mrs W

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Thanks for the support! Zou can help us bz spreading the word. We’ll be creating a “featured on FIREhub.eu” badge in the next few weeks that you can put on your blog. I’ll keep you posted about it.

        Liked by 1 person

  4. Hello,

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts throughout this blog => extremely insightful for a young (28 year-old) professional working and living in London.

    I was wondering if you could share a little about what industry you work in and how you balance the time between family, work and FIRE (in London). (If you have already posted the somewhere – sorry! Can you give me the link?)

    Thanks,
    Greg

    Liked by 1 person

    1. @Gregorij – Thanks for the feedback.

      Let me have a think about how to share a bit of how I manage work/life balance, without disclosing anything too personal. Watch this space….

      Like

  5. Hello
    Can you change your RSS/ATOM settings to include the whole post instead of just the blurb please? I use an offline feed reader to read your posts during my daily tube commute and it’ll make it so much more accessible for people who use a feed reader.

    Like

      1. Sure. Once you sign into WordPress, go to “Settings” and then scroll down to “Feed Settings” in the right hand side panel. You will see a toggle to “Limit feed to excerpt only”. If you untoggle it, that should do the trick.

        Like

  6. Great site, love keeping up to date with your trades etc. I wonder what broker do you recommend for your corporate (personal investment company) investment side? I know about HL but want to diversify. ii are being a nightmare to deal with. Any others that open company accounts?

    Liked by 1 person

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