Tech Professionals in the UK — What You Need to Learn About Personal Finance for your FIRE planning?

A Journey Through the Trenches for Fellow Tech Brothers and Sisters

This post has been brewing on my mind for so long now. As someone who spends their days working with neural networks and optimization algorithms, I’ve realized that managing personal finances isn’t too different from training a model — it’s all about optimization, understanding the parameters, and making data-driven decisions. But the whole tax and investment landscape complicates it just so much. I have wasted countless hours going through various posts and resources and coming back empty-handed. But fear not, I won’t let those hours just go to waste like that. Here’s what I’ve learned navigating the UK financial landscape as a tech professional.

Alright, let’s get into the trenches and try to create an algorithm that you could use given the current market conditions.

How would you even think about investments? I suggest going to the whiteboard and coming up with all the expenses that you do monthly. This would include your rent (or mortgage payments), council tax, utilities, food bill, and YOLO expenses.

Once you get done, you come up with a figure and that is the amount you could invest…