Hello.

In case you were wondering where you are...

This newsletter has moved to Substack.

This archive will hang around for a bit. You can dance through via the menu on the left, or check out some highlights below:

A few popular posts

#26: Consider the pineapple – The story of my favourite symbol of money idiocy, starring St Paul's Cathedral, prisoners rioting because of being made to eat lobster, and taking fruit for a walk.

#78: How to lose 2 1/2 stone in 6 months: an intro to the best non-fiction book I've ever read – A mind-expanding story about expanding one’s waistline in Vegas with a not-very-subtle application to why we fail to make more of the money in our lives.

#97: What seeing your financial life more clearly looks like – Some super-important topics and some ways people typically approach them idiotically... or dodge the obvious idiocy but caught in clever traps... and what it looks like to act more wisely instead.

The clip shows

Should you be more into bullet points than arguments, some summaries of a bunch of posts at once.

• #50 – Covering #1-#9

• #60 – Covering #10-#19

• #70 – Covering #20-#29

• #80 – Covering #30-#39

• #90 – Covering #40-#49

• #100 – Covering #50-#59

Five important points

• How some basic psychotherapy can save you wasting a ton of money

• Why being able to afford something is an idiotically invalid reason for buying something

• What a relationship with money is, and why it's so important to understand it before you worry about actually having any money

• The threshold theory of good living (aka why the benefits of money are negative)

• The three types of financial freedom (warning: tons of people have said this has most changed how they view the money in their life)

Five silly stories

Point and laugh at people doing dumb stuff with money.

• Famous Russian Oligarch guy wasting his life on a Scottish hill

• Parents parenting very ineffectively

• An idiot wasting his life on a private jet

• Me wasting my life at a posh dinner with investment folk

• Why peeking out of the curtains is not the place to look for investment advice

Post series

Occasionally, I link a few newsletters together because I think an idea is too important not to cover, but too complex to cover in one go. Each post in a series contains a link at the bottom to the next one in that series.

Whole-Brain Personal Finance

Mapping the two best books I've ever read for understanding the world and how to live within it to how to make the most of your money.

This series is important enough to get its own page. Because paying attention to money with only half a brain is no way to live a whole life. Lesson #5 is a sort-of summary of some key points.

The ABC of Money (using Buddhist philosophy as a framework for seeing money more clearly)

• Part 1 – Mental poisons and their antidote

• Part 2 – An overview of the Four Noble Truths

• Part 3 – The First Noble Truth

• Part 4 – The Second Noble Truth

• Part 5 – Impermanence

• Part 6 – The Third Noble Truth

• Part 7 – The Fourth Noble Truth

• Part 8 – The Eightfold Path and interdependence

• Part 9 – Neuroplasticity

• Part 10 – Meditation: what it isn't

• Part 11 – Meditation: what it is

• Part 12 – Living mindfully with money

• Part 13 – Financial enlightenment

• Part 14 – Financial freedom, part 1

• Part 15 – Financial freedom, part 2

• Part 16 – How to live well, even in a palace

• Part 17 – Denunciation is still attachment

• Part 18 – Addicted to a dream

• Part 19 – Denunciation bad, renunciation good

• Part 20 – Seeing your financial world more clearly

• Part 21 – The overlooked truth of reality that is messing up how you live with money

• Part 22 – Some personal finance puzzles and how not to solve them

• Part 23 – Deep wealth v shallow wealth

• Part 24 – What seeing your financial life more clearly looks like

All investments are gambles (my favourite way to think about investing)

• Part 1 – The importance of internalising the insights of understanding all investments are gambles

• Part 2 – The secret to successful long-term gambling and its application to choosing investments

• Part 3 – The starting point for choosing investments

• Part 4 – Investment options beyond the basics

• Part 5 – Cost-benefit investing

Idiot Money Maths

When it comes to using money in a meaningful way, the importance of the numbers, from using price tags as a measure of value, to fretting about growth forecasts, is grossly overblown.

We tend towards tunnel vision on the most misleading numbers (such as an investment-growth forecast, or a retirement ‘number’) while remaining ignorant of the insightful ones (such as the role of the unequivocal accounting record of our life choices in living an examined, wiser, life).

Some numbers, however, are actually helpful. This occasional series highlights the most important numbers for you to know.

• How much does it cost to keep you happy?

• What is your default unit of spending?

• The rule of 72 (and its oft-overlooked implications)