Financial independence, but in pricey London
July has been quite a busy month.
I’ve been getting about a bit. Some South Coast action, some Mediterranean fun, a trip up to Oxford, a visit to one of England’s great Cathedrals, and more.
And July saw some fine times in London. Both outdoors and inside.
And of course we had the UK election. Not much news there, really. Labour won, the Tories were routed. Next?
Continue reading “July ’24: New UK government”From: Taz
To: FvL
Hi FvL
I’ve read your blog on and off for the past year or three. I graduated from the London School of Economics in 2017 after which I went through the hardest few years of my life mentally and ended up unemployed or in dead-end low paid jobs.
I currently work in the motor trade for Jaguar Land Rover earning £35,000 which I can save most of as I live at home.
I’m now 28 and can’t seem to figure out how to begin my FatFIRE journey, in terms of a job/career what would you do in my shoes?
Continue reading “I’m 28, and can’t figure out how to start on FatFIRE – what would you do in my shoes?”The temperature in the Middle East got even hotter in April, with Israel and Iran trading attacks on each other’s sovereign buildings/territory. Somehow World War III has never really seemed in danger of breaking out but it is a reminder that only change is constant.
Over in New York Donald Trump was falling asleep in court. You have to hand it to him he knows how to stay in the headlines.
Meanwhile the UK stock market continues to fill newspapers for the wrong reasons. Amidst all the doom and gloom – heightened at the end of the month by the takeover of Darktrace, a rare UK tech stock – you might have missed that the FTSE-100 is not only at a record level but in fact outperfomed other markets significantly in April.
All the markets seem to want to know now is when interest rates are coming down, and how fast. April saw expectations of cuts dampened / postponed, which appears to have dampened valuations of both equities and bonds. In the US this was heightened by an increasing sense that the AI-driven tech boom may have got a bit ahead of itself – there is still little to show for concrete extra revenue / cost savings (bar a few notables such as Klarna) but plenty of increased infrastructure spending.
Continue reading “April ’24: Juggling cash as new UK tax year begins”
FIRE v London 