My life as a part-time vegan: The case for making big changes slowly
Why I’ve made a morally confused but pragmatic lifestyle choice – and how the same principle can help you make big changes stick.
Rob
My 10 financial principles
From well over a decade of reading obsessively and investing broadly (and often badly), I’ve identified 10 financial principles that sum up my view of how you should run your personal finances. You’ll disagree with at least a few of them.
Personal Leverage: A method for squeezing maximum results from your working hours
The word “leverage” has been horribly abused, but the principle is a vital one: making sure your efforts today produce benefits way into the future.
Is it better to take small steps or big leaps?
When you have a goal, you’re often told to make steady, incremental progress towards it. But what if you have no idea what change you want to make?
Summary: The Star Principle by Richard Koch
Whether you want to start a business, invest in one or find a great one to work for, how do you know whether a business idea is good enough? Most business books are infuriatingly vague on the subject – but The Star Principle is specific, easy to understand, and makes intuitive sense.
Why you’re always wrong
There’s a rule I’ve come up with over the last couple of years: if you want an accurate prediction for what’s going to happen, ask someone who’s not emotionally invested in the outcome.
A new type of personal budget: The “no budget” budget
Budgeting is boring. Luckily, there are more effective ways to make sure you hit your financial goals.
Buying and selling property is painful. This is a good thing.
Buying or selling a property in the UK is one of the most painful and frustrating experiences that the majority of adults voluntarily put themselves through. Although I love property as an investment, I’ve always considered this transactional torment to be one of its biggest drawbacks. In fact though, for investors it could be one of its biggest advantages – by protecting them from themselves…
You’re wrong about your risk tolerance
When you first visit a financial advisor, they’ll take you through a quiz to determine your attitude to risk. This has a fatal flaw: you can’t possibly know how you’ll feel about losing money until it happens.
What are you optimising for?
One question to help you make better, easier choices – and to understand the choices of others.