Spring Budget 2023

I’ll defer to others for a summary of the overall budget that Jeremy Hunt announced today (e.g. MoneySavingExpert or the Guardian), but a few bullet points relevant to investing for Americans in the UK: I had hoped for some mention of the reforms to the KID/KIID requirements that prevent UK residents from buying US ETFs,

News Alert: Chancellor to allow UK residents to purchase US ETFs!

For those UK residents who haven’t seen the news today, the Chancellor has announced a package of reforms. Reading into them, one is of particular interest to many UK Bogleheads (especially US citizens in the UK) – an intention to repeal the requirements for a KID/KIID, and quite explicitly to enable access to US ETFs.

Bridging to Retirement – Splitting SIPP & ISA Contributions

Edit 06Dec21: I realized that this is all completely wrong! You can get the same effect, without paying National Insurance, by just putting part of the money to the pension, then taking the 62% hit on the take home cash for an ISA. For example, for £1,000 of pre-tax income, put £475 in your salary

A Phased Approach to Emergency Funds

In my recent post on my approach to bonds and cash, I mentioned that I don’t have any dedicated emergency fund at all. I know this flies in the face of conventional personal finance wisdom, but I think I’ve got a pretty sound justification. My personal approach is not quite so aggressive as somebody like

Practical Thoughts on the New Health & Social Care Levy

By now, we’ve all heard of the new Health & Social Care levy – but what does it really mean in practical terms? I’m not going to talk about the politics, or whether the levy is actually fit for purpose to improve the NHS and social care – I’m mostly keeping this blog apolitical. However,

My Approach to Bonds (and Cash)

I wrote about my overall asset allocation a while back (Part 1 & Part 2), but have been doing a fair amount of thinking late regarding the bond part, particularly in light of some more substantial cash savings from our remortgage that are eventually planned for home improvements/extensions, but with no clear timeline (at least

Buying Index Funds – 2 More Options

In the last few weeks, I’ve run across two more options for buying index funds, the key building blocks of my portfolio (and of anybody taking a passive, buy-and-hold, Bogleheads-ish approach). I haven’t implemented either of them yet, but wanted to share what I’ve found and I’d be very interested to hear if any of

Tax Management in Traditional Retirement (Phase 3)

This is Part 3c of our Retirement Withdrawal Strategies series. Quick summary so far: Part 1: When can you access your retirement savings? Part 2: How to avoid paying US and UK tax again (or at least minimize them) Part 3a: Putting it together in Early Retirement Part 3b: Putting it together in Middle Retirement

Estimating Social Security for Americans in the UK

I’m back after a short break – a week on holiday in Cornwall, and another week just catching up. I’ll continue my withdrawal strategies series in due course, but this is another quick aside, which is related but not central to that series. A lot of people in the FIRE community, especially on the younger

Tax on UK Pension Withdrawals

A relatively quick one today, on a topic I’ve been trying to nail down for a while. Disclosure up front – as always, I’m not a professional. This topic is particularly complex, and I invite discussion and disagreement; I’ll happily update this post if anybody finds any inaccuracies and call out any alternative viewpoints. Just