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.

Life Changes & Winding Down the ISA Experiment

Sometimes plans change, especially when we aren’t expecting it! Over the past few months, a few things have come together to cause us to make a decision to move next year. In short, we’ve always wanted to live further west (within England), further away from London. We only moved to our current area because I

S&S ISA Experiment – Mid-2022 Update

OK, a bit later that mid year, sorry! Let’s start with some pictures: Really, the explanation for my underperformance hasn’t changed from my January deep dive – my wife’s ISA, in smaller UK companies, has significantly underperformed the FTSE 100. Mine, in bigger companies more representative of the index, has actually slightly outperformed, but combined,

S&S ISA Experiment – January 2022

I don’t usually post about my ISA experiment every month (previous updates here), but January has been an interesting month. Obviously not just for my ISAs, but across the market. Some headline figures, to set the scene for those who haven’t been watching closely (good for you!): Market Representative ETF January Performance All World VWCE

Interactive Brokers ISA – A New Option?

I saw on Reddit yesterday that Interactive Brokers now offers an ISA. Potentially, this could be exciting news, opening up a new ISA option for Americans in the UK. Why? Because IBKR is both a) generally very low cost and b) friendly to US citizens outside the US. I already have Roth IRAs with IBKR

S&S ISA Experiment – December 2021

Now that the London market has closed for the year, it’s time for another update on my S&S ISA experiment – no huge changes since September 2021, but good to look back on 2021 and see how it’s gone. Very quick background – because of the PFIC limitations in holding index funds in an ISA,

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

S&S ISA Experiment – May 2021 Update

First update on my S&S ISA Experiment – I don’t know that I’ll actually do these monthly for the long term, but at least for now I’m curious to see how it’s doing. Quick recap of the experiment: Americans can’t hold index funds in a S&S ISA due to PFIC regulations 😦 But we can

UK Junior ISA (Account Options)

This is a really quick one for completeness. A Junior ISA won’t be part of your own retirement/FIRE planning, but maybe something you consider for your kids. They come in both cash and Stocks & Shares (S&S) flavors – the rules are almost the same as adult ISAs. I’ve only called out the handful of

UK Innovative Finance ISA (Account Options)

I’ll be honest, this isn’t one I’ve done a huge amount of research on, because I don’t see a good case for using one. I’ve just covered the basics below, for completeness and awareness. If anybody has found a good use for an Innovative Finance ISA in the portfolio of Americans in the UK, I’d