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,

FYI: 2022 FBAR Exchange Rates are Out

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/treasury-reporting-rates-exchange/treasury-reporting-rates-of-exchange Just a quick PSA, for those of us who were “eagerly” awaiting them so we can wrap up that particular bit of annual US silliness. First time I’ll have to do FBARs for the kids, will write something up if that turns out to be any more challenging than mine (hoping not, it’s only

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

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,

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

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

Tax Management in Middle Retirement (Phase 2)

This is Part 3b 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 Today, we’ll look at “Middle Retirement” or Phase

Putting it Together: Tax Management in Early Retirement (Phase 1)

This is Part 3a of our Retirement Withdrawal Strategies series. In Part 1, we looked at when you can actually access your retirement savings, dividing retirement roughly into three phases: In Part 2, we explored the tax-free buckets that you can use so you never pay US or UK tax again (or at least keep

RMDs vs Lifetime Allowance – Which Alligator Should You Focus On?

Fair warning: this post is for people who have reason to be concerned about both RMDs and the Lifetime Allowance. If you don’t have a Traditional 401k/IRA/etc. balance or you have no concerns about exceeding the LTA, you can skip on past – just focus on the one that affects you. Also – this one