Here is a list of recommended FIRE links for UK residents who are starting to get into Financial Independence (Retire Early). Also doubles as good financial management education if you’re not into FIRE.
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
Dr Seuss, the dude behind The Cat In The Hat. He’s not wrong!
I only recommend books, blog posts, website, videos or whatever that I have actually read/ visited/ watched/ used. I mean, otherwise I could just shill any old thing and it might not be useful.
The links to books are generally affiliate links to Amazon. The few pennies they generate will keep me warm in the cold, cold winter and come at no cost to you – only to Jeff Bezos. I mean, you could just use Google to search for them… but why?
If you find anything you think I should add, get in touch.
TOPIA financial independence app
When I started with the Financial Independence Retire Early concept, everything was about automating investments but manually tracking your progress with spreadsheets.
I’m still a keen believer in tracking. Fortunately, the powers of modern technology mean that you can have an automated mobile phone app that does much of the tracking for you!
Enter TOPIA.
I was one of the members of the focus groups/ research audience that the creator of TOPIA, Logan Leckie, approached with his initial concept. It’s awesome to see the current product, and I do use it myself.
You can read my first sneak-peak review of TOPIA on this site.
If you’d like to try TOPIA, be kind and use my affiliate link. If you like what you see and connect an account to the app, I think I get a few pennies for making the introduction.
Recommended FIRE reading
Here’s a shortlist. Why not check out my book reviews for more reads?
Your Money Or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Charles Dominguez is one of the classic, original financial independence reads.
I’ve written a full review of it if you’d like to know more.
Rich Dad Poor Dad is the most straightforward read in the list. There’s some good use of anecdotes to explain the core concepts. Sadly, a lot of the book is a sales pitch for Robert’s other products, but there’s still crunchy nuggets of wisdom hidden in there.
Andrew Craig absolutely nails the basics of investing for me. One of the few books on personal finance actually written by a professional!
I’m not sure I 100% agree with him on the portfolio but if you’re short on ideas and don’t like my blog/ want a second opinion, definitely give this book a read. It’s also written in plain English, which is a bonus.
Rob Moore’s book is a little preachy but I really enjoyed his story and flashbacks to his youth. It’s definitely worth a read after the first two books, but you’re definitely into extra-curricular learning if you’re this far into the list.
This book is definitely a self-help work, but it challenged the way I think philosophically about money and set me off on the path to FIRE. He’s not talking about FIRE but the premise is making your time more valuable to someone else.
My favourite bit is when he talks about who comes to mind if you ask someone to think about a bodybuilder… it’s a great way to think about things.
In fact, I liked it so much, there’s a video embedded below. It’s an hour long, so be warned!
Recommended FIRE Links to the internet
Not everything is for sale. I mean, at least not to you. Your time and information might be traded, but c’est la vie.
Here’s some cool stuff that you might like.
Recommended YouTube Channels
Here’s Money Unshackled. I really like their channel, they discuss a lot of investing stuff and explain it in simple, easy-to-understand videos of under 10 minutes. Even better, their videos are based on things they are doing themselves. They’ve got skin in the game.
They claim not to be into FIRE but then spend all their time talking about being “financially free”. Hmm… I think it qualifies for these recommended FIRE links.
They do sometimes get stuff wrong. For example, they hated the idea of buying gold at one point; but they at least admit when they’ve changed their minds.
Probably the best personal finance channel for UK investors.
You might also consider the Humble Penny. Ken and Mary own a blog which sells financial courses (“financial joy”… they, too, don’t like FIRE as an acronym…) and set up the YouTube channel to advertise the blog.
I’ve not really used their blog, but the channel is pretty good to get your started. Ken and Mary have actually achieved financial independence, which is pretty cool.
Recommended Financial Independence UK Community Links
It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this!
The Legend Of Zelda. Much inspiration, such deep, wow.
FIRE UK on Reddit
Probably a good starting point.
I took a lot of early inspiration from posts on here and it’s definitely a recommended link, but you’ll notice in the blog that I’ve taken a slightly different approach to the normal recommendations from the forum.
It’s nice to know you’re not alone, you know?
UK Personal Finance on Reddit
Another good community. Their payday flowchart is frankly genius.
Be warned: this subreddit can be quite polarised! Posters tend to be either broke and in crippling debt or multi-millionaires asking for tax advice (I call BS – if you’re really that rich, get a damn accountant and stop asking randomers to give you tax advice).
That doesn’t mean it isn’t brilliant – it is – just don’t be surprised if it’s hard to relate to some of the posts on there.