Dad on FIRE

  Back to routine after 6 weeks off. Back to school and back to work.

Welcome to the third iteration in my ‘Reel Freedom’ FIRE-related film series. It’s been a while since my previous ones but I'm back with a corker! Previously I explored consumerism in Fight Club and money vs meaning in A Christmas Carol.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about something that comes up occasionally in FIRE circles, but I don’t think we put nearly enough value on... the faff factor in different asset classes.

Summer holidays 2026 was a blast! Using 6 weeks of my UPL across the summer meant I didn't work a single day in August, essentially swapping a month's salary for a month's worth of family time.

  Feels like only yesterday I was writing last month's update, this summer is absolutely flying by! Having to consciously get this update out this week as we're off to France for two weeks from tomorrow, and it'll be September when we get back so time for the next month's post!

Very busy month, quite possibly the busiest I've ever been! I turned 40, lots of trips out, too many side quests from school(!) and an ISO audit at work! Phew...strap in! Also, apologies for the late posting of this, it was a bit of a beast to write and also July has continued with the business!

Bit more of a chilled out May compared to the previous month that kinda took it out me.

  April was an absolute rollercoaster; financially speaking, emotionally speaking, and at some times literally speaking!

So, I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole recently.  Having been an "index tracker and chill" kinda guy for the past 5 years, I've recently discovered the hidden benefits of owning individual shares. These benefits are aside from the usual (hopeful!) growth of the shares in question, as well as any dividends paid out, I'm talking about Shareholder perks!

A bit of an earlier one this time round, we're heading off to the Netherlands this evening for a week so thought I'd sneak this one in!

Most people give me a slightly puzzled look when they hear my children are reading The Lord of the Rings.  They're not entirely wrong. Tolkien isn’t exactly light reading for adults, let alone children. The books are long, the language is rich, and there are entire chapters where the plot pauses to wander through songs, histories and landscapes. “Isn't that a bit… heavy for them?”

  Hello again, February brought my first week of Unpaid Leave as well as a turn in the weather! Half Term First week of Unpaid Parental Leave came in February and after rain every day in January and the first couple of weeks in February, it was really nice for the weather to finally break and to get a few sunny days. I managed to get a night away at a Castle-fronted hotel in Bollington, just north of Macclesfield. The kids loved the hotel (Hollin House Hotel), it was very reasonable - especially given it was half term! - and very handy for walks in the area as well. We went on a 5k walk up a hill to see 'White Nancy', originally built as a summerhouse 200 years ago, and thought to have commemorated the Battle of Waterloo. We then walked down to a small hamlet with a waterfall, which the kids thought was absolutely fantastic.   Lord of the Rings After starting the first Lord of the Rings book just over a year ago, me and the kids have finally finished the last one! We finished ...

Switching things up slightly from this month going forwards, nothing major, don't worry. I'm just swapping around the finance and non-finance update. Over the past couple of years, as my numbers have compounded the numbers have mattered less and the lifestyle has risen to a priority. 2 months off work, again! Regular readers will know that I took 8 weeks Unpaid Parental Leave in 2025, taking off pretty much all of the school holidays to spend time with my kids. In January I've submitted the same again, and just had it approved (not that they can't not approve it, they can delay it under extreme circumstances but can't turn it down outright - see more in a previous post of mine here ). Lots of plans this year, so far we have booked a 2 week driving holiday in the French Alps, a long weekend in Salzburg, a biking holiday and Efterling in the Netherlands as well as a few days in Wales and the Peak District. Snowy Scarborough We had a night booked in Scarborough right a...

   Finance update Breakdown for December: ISA  flat Pension  up £2.3k GIA /easy access savings up £0.5k Crypto flat House price  down £10.5k Total : down £2.5k I know I used this meme during the November update, but it's staying in again for December, just swapping out Crypto for house price!   With my ISA and SIPP both pretty equal in terms of value, the difference in underlying performance is due to the funds underneath. My ISA (fully in equities) was flat for December, whilst my SIPP has a good chunk of Gold ETFs in it, which performed well during December. I tend to update house prices when Zoopla does about mid-month, and it looks like it fell off a cliff in December, not that it matters that much as I've no intention of moving anywhere. I was very pleased to see the announcement of Interactive Investor in December that they are changing their fees in Feb 2026. I swapped over to the platform because the flat fees makes a lot of sense when you have bigg...

Hello and welcome back to the second instalment of Reel Freedom , where I take films I’ve watched far too many times and try to extract something useful about money, freedom, work/life balance and meaning from them. With Christmas approaching, it felt wrong not to tackle A Christmas Carol. Obviously it’s based on a book - as was Fight Club in my previous blog post - but hey ho (ho ho), there are some absolutely fantastic film versions of it, my personal favourites are either the Albert Finney version (who played Scrooge when he was 33 years old!), as well as of course The Muppets Christmas Carol version. It’s one of those stories that gets retold so often we forget how brutally honest it actually is, especially when viewed through a FIRE lens. Because at its heart, A Christmas Carol isn’t really about Christmas. It’s about money, fear, time, and what happens when you get your priorities wrong, a cautionary tale that has the same sort of andedote to extreme FIRE mindsets as the...

  Finance update Breakdown for November: ISA  up £4k Pension  up £6k GIA /easy access savings up £1.5k Crypto down £25k House price  flat Total : down £9.5k My waterfall chart this month looks like someone climbing the stairs only to open the door at the top and step and fall outside of the house! Crypto absolutely kicked my ass in November, but given how long I've been in crypto this is par for the course and doesn't worry me at all, I'm a long term HODLer.   2025/26 tax year: Total change since the start of the tax year has now dropped slightly to +£164k. Interesting that I'm still up on Crypto for the year, important reminder to zoom out for better context. Non-Finance update Trip to Paris - Surprise for wife's 40th My wife turned 40 this year back in August, as part of her gift I got her a trip over there during the October school holidays. She used to live in Paris for a year during University so thought it would be an ace idea to do some reminiscing a...