Dad on FIRE

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?” And yet over the past 13 months my children (now 10 and 8) and I have travelled all the way from the Shire to Mount Doom together. It turned out to be one of the most rewarding reading experiences we’ve ever shared as a family. What started as an experiment became something much bigger: a year-long shared adventure that strengthened their attention spans, sparked their imagination, and gave us a story world we can return to again and again. If you're wondering whether The Lord of the Rings is possible with younger readers, the short answer is: yes. But one small trick made all the difference. How ...

  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...