We've used this episode to make a Q&A special to answer a number of questions that regularly come up with our guest John, who is a regular in our Facebook group.

We look at 'one more year syndrome', where it's very tempting to delay your retirement, along with dealing with how to generate an income to bridge the period between retirement and access to pensions. We then deal with how to optimise planning for your retirement and drawing down an income once you get there, including gifting money to dependents.

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This episode's News covers the planned rise in dividend tax rates for the 2026-27 tax year and

In the main section our interviewee is Evelyn from one of our Nottingham FIRE meet-ups. We talk about how you know when you've reached financial independence and finding a healthy work/life balance.

And in the Q&A we talk about using dividends as a source of income and whether the free investments platforms are likely to stay that way?

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Andy talks about the recent Nottingham meet-up in the news. What is a meet-up? Who attends? What do they talk about? And what do they get out of it? Meet-ups are a big part of our community and a chance to meet and chat to people in comfortable surroundings.

We then have Michael, one of the attendees, as this podcast's guest interviewee. He had a career in the forces but then decided to switch into the private sector and then retired early with a combination of a defined benefit forces pension and a defined contribution one from his time working after leaving the forces. What were the challenges? And what is he doing now?

In the Q&A we talk about some of the issues around end of year capital gains tax harvesting, which can be useful for people with substantial sums in taxable general investment accounts.

Take a look at our wiki with more details of the community here:
http://www.thefireplace.info

Support the show