Here’s a collection of news articles and blog posts that I’ve found particularly interesting over the last week:
News
- Lifetime ISAs are recommended to be scrapped – MoneySavingExpert – ThisIsMoney
I understand that this can be a confusing product for most people that don’t spend their spare time reading personal finance blogs or lurking on the UK personal finance subreddit, but don’t punish those of us who do know what we’re getting into!
Good news for those people who don’t keep a close eye on their money and just leave it all in a savings account paying as little as 0.05%, but possibly bad news for those of us who move our money from one place to another every year.
- Bank of England raises the base interest rate to 0.75% – BBC
Potentially good news for savers, although it looks like most banks aren’t passing on the entire increase to their customers (having said that, shout out to Skipton Building Society, who announced a rise in the interest rate of their cash Lifetime ISA from 0.75% to 1.00% within a week of this base rate change).
Blogs
- This calculator tells you how long you need to save before you can retire – Engaging Data via FourPillarFreedom
I’ve been following Zach on Four Pillar Freedom for about six months, and in all that time I think he’s posted a new blog post every single day, which I find extremely impressive! This post in particular links to a retirement calculator that you can use to estimate a retirement year based on your income and saving rate. It’s in $, rather than £, but it’s still very applicable.
- How to build a personal brand, and why you should – Sam Priestley
Formerly known as the Arbing blog, Sam runs one of my favourite blogs that I’ve found so far. It’s much more focused on entrepreneurship, as opposed to most of the personal finance / financial independence blogs that I read. This post in particular focuses on the importance of managing your image online. Recruiters will google your name if they’re interested in hiring you, so it’s beneficial if you can ensure that the first page of search results links to your own website, linkedin profile, twitter, etc.
- Your part in the revolution is to pay it forward – The Escape Artist
- The creation mindset – Accelerate your wealth trajectory – Retire Before Dad
These two articles helped to push me into making this blog and trying to create something; rather than simply just reading articles, I wanted to try to write my own!