Nine FI blogs, reviewed from a UK perspective

The financial independence internet is overwhelmingly American, and a surprising amount of it simply doesn't apply here. 401(k)s, Roth conversions, HSAs, the mega backdoor — none of it is a thing in the UK. Meanwhile the accounts that matter most to a British saver in their twenties, the Lifetime ISA above all, barely get a mention.

So over the last few years I've read a lot of this stuff with a translation layer running in the background. These are the nine blogs I keep coming back to, what each is genuinely good for, and where a UK reader has to be careful.

The UK ones

Monevator

Multiple authors, different perspectives, and a very long publishing history — which matters, because you can read someone's opinion and then read what actually happened to it five years later.

Best for: choosing a broker. It is quite product-focused, and the broker comparison table is the single most useful page in UK personal finance. If you're deciding where to open an ISA, start here and stop reading blogs.

Watch out for: the product focus cuts both ways. It's less useful if what you actually need is a reason to spend less.

The Escape Artist

The one that combines the three halves of this properly: cutting spending, index investing, and the mindset underneath both. The recurring theme is that it's about the journey, not the destination — which sounds like a fridge magnet until you've watched someone hit their number and discover they have nothing to do.

Best for: the psychology. This is the blog to read when you're doing everything right on the spreadsheet and still feel awful.

Watch out for: the prison camp framing that runs through the site. It's a strong metaphor and it lands hard for some people, but it means this is one to share carefully rather than forward to a colleague who's just mentioned they might start a pension.

Banker on FIRE

UK/US mixed, and the only one in this list that takes high earners seriously without either apologising for them or assuming everyone gets one.

Best for: the bits nobody else covers. Bonus structuring, Save As You Earn, Share Incentive Plans. If your compensation has more than one component, this is the only blog here that engages with it properly.

Watch out for: very mild on reducing spending. You will not be talked out of anything.

FIRE v London

Fat FIRE — aiming at a large post-retirement income rather than a lean one. Big portfolio, spread across US, UK and Australian equities and bonds, plus illiquid holdings including angel investments.

Best for: seeing what the other end of the scale actually looks like, in numbers, from someone who publishes them.

Watch out for: this is an active investor. There's no frugality content, and the approach comfortably breaks both the KISS principle and the low-information diet. Read it as a case study, not a template.

Financially MINT

Aimed at UK and European students and people in their twenties, and pitched at general personal finance rather than FI specifically. Active roughly 2017 to 2019, so it's an archive rather than a live blog now.

Best for: an absolute beginner who finds the rest of this list intimidating.

Watch out for: it targets a 15% savings rate, which is low if FI is the goal — fine as a first step, not as a destination. The ads are a bit much.

The American ones

Mr Money Mustache

The famous one. The core argument isn't really about money, it's about consumption — and the environmental case sits alongside the financial one rather than being bolted on afterwards.

Best for: the back catalogue. He posts irregularly now, but the older posts age unusually well because they're about principles rather than products or tax years.

Watch out for: widely considered extreme on car use, and there are no UK specifics whatsoever. Nothing on LISAs, nothing on ISAs, nothing on our pension rules. Take the philosophy, ignore the accounts.

Early Retirement Extreme

As the name suggests, he makes MMM look like a complainypants. The vision goes past financial independence entirely and into being as close to self-sufficient in life as possible — the goal is being able to do basically anything yourself. He's lived out of a suitcase on about 7k a year.

Best for: having your assumptions about what's necessary taken apart. Even if you reject the conclusion, the exercise is worth it.

Watch out for: not much investing content, and what there is — in the 21-day makeover — is active individual stock picking, which sits oddly with everything else here. He's stopped posting new material.

Mad Fientist

Detailed analysis aimed at squeezing out the best result rather than a good-enough one. Also a podcaster, and the interviews are often better than the posts.

Best for: the general lifestyle FI writing, which is genuinely applicable anywhere, and the withdrawal strategy work.

Watch out for: a chunk of the archive is US-specific legal tax avoidance and travel credit card churning that does you no good here. Portfolio is 90/10 stocks/bonds, which is a choice, not a default.

Financial Samurai

Strong US focus. Dislikes the stock market and prefers real estate, plans with very conservative safe withdrawal rates, and has essentially nothing on reducing consumption — at one point describing it as cheating.

Best for: arguing with. It's a coherent, well-argued position that contradicts most of the rest of this list, and reading it is a decent test of whether you actually believe what you think you believe.

Watch out for: the property focus doesn't transfer well to UK taxation, and the conservatism will talk you into working several years longer than you need to.

If you only read three

• Monevator for anything involving a product decision.
• The Escape Artist for the mindset, because the mindset is the hard part.
• The Mr Money Mustache archive for the consumption argument, which is where the actual money is.

And then stop. There's a principle in this corner of the internet called the low-information diet — the idea that obsessively following financial news makes your decisions worse, not better. It applies to FI blogs too, this one included. Reading a tenth blog is not progress. Increasing your savings rate is progress.

I'm not a financial adviser and nothing here is advice — I'm someone in their twenties saving into an ISA and a pension, writing down what I've read. Every blog above is linked so you can go and disagree with me at the source.