Hello world!

Most UK personal finance writing online is formulaic. Max your ISA, salary sacrifice down to £100k, hold a global tracker, retire at 55. It's fine advice for the median earner. It also doesn't describe anyone I actually know.

I think the UK pension is overrated for people in my situation, and I think the tax discourse on Reddit and Twitter flattens everyone into the same five archetypes. Once your numbers get a little weird, the standard playbook stops being useful. That gap is what I want to write about: where the playbook breaks, what I'm doing instead, and what I'm getting wrong.

A bit of context. I'm in my late twenties, living in London, working in finance, with total comp north of £200k. I write pseudonymously so I can still be writing this in five years. I've tracked my net worth in a spreadsheet for about six years, and the homepage of this site is that spreadsheet pulled into a chart. The line going up is mostly the last two years: a job change, a sign-on bonus, and a market that decided to cooperate.

Why start now? Two reasons. I'm getting married soon, and the household side of FIRE planning is materially different from doing it solo. The other is that the bracket I sit in (HENRY, additional-rate, into pension taper territory) is exactly where broad-stroke advice fails hardest, and I haven't found anyone writing about it the way I'd want to read it.

What I'll post:

• Monthly updates. What came in, what went out, what I changed my mind about.
• Long posts on specific levers: pension vs ISA vs GIA, the 60% marginal trap, what the LTA repeal actually changed, moving abroad math.
• The occasional puzzle. I keep a section of probability and quant puzzles on the site too. Same brain that does the investing.

Nothing here is financial advice. It's one person's situation, written down honestly. If something I write is wrong or just looks wrong from where you're sitting, the contact page is open.