In our last post, we looked at the foundational laws of money: spending less than you earn, insuring your risks, and respecting the erosive power of inflation. These are the defensive structures of a good plan. But defence alone doesn’t build the life you want. You also need to move forward. Today, we look at another three “unchangeable rules”, the principles that drive growth, manage uncertainty, and keep you sane in a crazy world. The only […]
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Science for your money (Part 1)
In finance, as in life, there are opinions, and there are facts. Opinions are everywhere. You hear them at dinner parties, read them in the news reports, and see them shouted on cable news. “Buy gold,” “Sell tech,” “Property is dead,” “Crypto is the future.” These opinions change with the wind. But beneath the noise, there are certain principles that remain true regardless of who is President, what inflation is doing, or which stock is trending. […]
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The moat to your castle
Let’s be honest. Nobody wakes up excited to pay their car or home insurance premiums. It is the ultimate “grudge purchase”. You pay for something you hope never to use. Every month, you see that money leave your account, and if you are lucky, you get absolutely nothing in return but silence (and peace of mind!). Because of this, it is easy to view short-term insurance as a nuisance. We treat it as a commodity, something […]
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The boring basics
In the world of finance, it is easy to get distracted by the shiny objects. We hear about the next big tech stock, cryptocurrency, or complex hedge fund strategies. We are naturally drawn to the exciting, the new, and the sophisticated. Especially after the holidays, when we’ve sat with everyone who seems to have “done so much better” than us. But true financial success is rarely built on complex, exciting moves… and it certainly isn’t based […]
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The paradox of plenty
We tend to assume that the journey to financial success is linear. We imagine that as our net worth rises, our stress levels will fall. We believe that once we hit a certain number (let’s call it the “freedom number”), anxiety will simply evaporate. Yet, in our conversations with successful individuals and families, we often find the opposite is true. There is a strange gravity to success. As you accumulate more, the stakes feel higher. The […]
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Diworsification or Diversification?
We often talk about the emotional side of money, but sometimes the barrier to peace of mind is purely logistical. Over a lifetime of working, moving, and saving, it is normal to accumulate a “financial junk drawer”. You might have a pension from a job you left ten years ago, a savings account opened on a whim, an investment app you stopped checking, and perhaps an old policy collecting dust in a filing cabinet. Maybe you’ve […]
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Transformation takes more than information
(This is the last blog of three about biases and how they impact our financial planning, all published this month.) If you’ve ever walked away from a brilliant webinar or insightful podcast thinking, “Yes! I’m going to make a change,” and then done… nothing, welcome to the club! Change is hard. Not because we’re lazy, but because our brains are wired for survival, not clarity. In this final blog of our series on cognitive bias, we […]
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Being “rational” isn’t always the goal
If financial planning were just about logic, calculators would replace conversations. But as we all know, that’s not how life works. Your relationship with money isn’t built solely on maths; it’s built on meaning. And meaning is shaped by how we see the world, how we were raised, the communities we belong to, and what we believe makes us “good” or “successful” or “safe.” So let’s pack those calculators away for just a second. This second […]
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Blind spots we live with
FACT: It’s hard to see what we can’t see… One of the hardest truths to accept — in finance, relationships, and life — is that our thinking isn’t always as clear as we believe it is. We all have blind spots. Not because we’re foolish, but because we’re human. And, we don’t know… what we don’t know. Biases are the invisible forces that shape our decisions and filter our perceptions. They form from lived experience, the […]
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Short-term wins in long-term planning
When it comes to financial planning, some goals can take decades to come to fruition. Retirement. Paying off a bond. Funding education. Leaving a legacy. Long-term goals matter; they guide our decisions and give us direction. But here’s the catch: they’re also really far away. And without smaller wins along the way, it’s easy to lose motivation, second-guess our plan, or drift into inaction! That’s why short-term wins aren’t just nice to have. In fact… they’re […]
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