Author Archives: Shan Nissiotis

When there are bills to pay, and income feels like it’s not quite enough to cover the monthly expenses, it’s easy to hold back on generosity. Sometimes, we might even treat generosity as a financial finish line. We tell ourselves that once we hit a certain net worth, or once we finally retire, then weContinue reading “The freedom of an open hand”

Did you know that, according to cognitive scientists, the average person processes over 6,000 distinct thoughts every single day. That’s around six to ten thoughts per minute. It is an overwhelming amount of mental data flowing through our minds from the moment we wake up. But have you ever paused to ask what is actuallyContinue reading “The invisible scripts”

It is perhaps the ultimate grudge purchase. Every single month, we watch the premium leave our bank accounts. We pay to insure our cars, our homes, and our household contents, often wondering if it is simply money down the drain. Because if we have a quiet year with no claims, it can easily feel likeContinue reading “The real purpose of short-term insurance”

We invent tools to make our lives easier, more efficient, and more comfortable. But there is a strange phenomenon that happens when we aren’t paying attention. Sometimes, the tool quietly becomes the master. Money is perhaps the greatest example of this. At its core, wealth is simply a utility. It is meant to be aContinue reading “What’s running the show?”

We have been culturally conditioned to view retirement as a hard finish line. For most of our lives, the narrative suggests that the moment we reach our late fifties or sixties, we are supposed to quietly wind down. We are taught to view this era as a long, uninterrupted retreat from the world. But whatContinue reading “50 to 80 might be our most productive years”

Over the last few weeks, we’ve explored a completely different way to look at our wealth. We’ve considered an approach that looks at the mechanics of flourishing, rather than the inner workings of the stock market. We have stepped away from the spreadsheets and the investment graphs to ask what actually makes a human lifeContinue reading “The engine and the compass”

We often dedicate the best, most energetic years of our lives to building a fortress of financial security. We work long hours, take on additional responsibilities, and sometimes miss important family milestones, all in the name of providing for the people we love. It is a noble pursuit, driven by a deep sense of careContinue reading “Investing in social wealth”

The mirror of our bank statements: Aligning our wealth with our values Have you ever noticed how increased access can actually create more anxiety and worry? It’s wonderful to be able to text someone in our family and make sure they’ve arrived safely. But what happens when they don’t respond? The temptation to keep checkingContinue reading “Holding up the mirror”

Two key goals of a financial plan are to help you grow what you have, and help you protect what you have. This is why conversations about financial planning should pay attention to your short-term cover. Everyday insurance is a critical piece of your long-term wealth strategy and helps ensure the perimeter around everything youContinue reading “How strong is your financial plan?”

Here’s why money shouldn’t buy your way out of friction. There is a common, unspoken assumption about wealth that many internalise early in life: we believe that the ultimate purpose of money is to reduce or eliminate our problems. We view a well-funded balance sheet as the ultimate shock absorber. We assume that if weContinue reading “Don’t avoid the struggle”

As the playwright George Bernard Shaw famously observed, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Nowhere is this more evident than in our family conversations about our financial lives. We often assume that because we share a home, a surname, and a bank account with our loved ones,Continue reading “Talking to your family about money”

One of the metrics used extensively in the financial profession to evaluate a given decision is the Return on Investment (ROI). It’s used in other areas too, like in marketing and operational planning meetings for larger companies and corporations. This metric drives us to optimise portfolios to chase the highest possible yield. We scrutinise managementContinue reading “They may not show up on your statement”

Have you ever thought about the unspoken money scripts we pass to our children? As parents, we often assume that teaching our children about money requires a formal sit-down conversation. We plan to wait until they are teenagers to explain the mechanics of a budget, the danger of credit cards, and the magic of compoundContinue reading “Invisible ink”

The financial world is full of complex algorithms, dense spreadsheets, and jargon designed to make investing look like a highly complicated science. You could find yourself thinking that you need an advanced degree just to understand what your money is doing. But occasionally, a piece of math comes along that is so simple, and soContinue reading “The Rule of 72”

If you have ever carried a significant amount of debt, you know that it is rarely just a numbers problem. It is an emotional, social and physiological weight. Whether it is a heavy mortgage, a maxed-out credit card, or a spiralling personal loan, unmanageable debt dictates your mood, limits your choices, and introduces a low-gradeContinue reading “Reclaim your future from debt”

There’s a traditional approach to financial planning that relies heavily on the maths of your money. A legacy expectation of discussing asset allocation, historic yields, and projected growth. Success can be perceivably forecast with the building of beautiful spreadsheets that show exactly how a portfolio should perform over the next few decades. But a spreadsheetContinue reading “Will you enjoy the journey?”

Have you ever started off your day with the intent to mark off everything in your email inbox as ‘Read’? Sometimes, we have this perception that our emails need to be all read and sorted before we can move on to our next task. We are often taught to manage our time with the sameContinue reading “The opportunity cost of ‘Inbox Zero’”

When we build a financial plan, we naturally spend most of our time looking at the horizon. We focus on the big, exciting milestones: funding a comfortable retirement, selling a business, or leaving a meaningful legacy. We engineer our long-term investments to weather global economic storms. But in doing so, we often neglect the everydayContinue reading “Designing a frictionless recovery”

Have you ever thought about retiring TO something, not just from something? We spend our entire working lives focused on the mechanics of retirement. We build the plans, optimise the tax structures, and monitor the compounding. We plan meticulously for the day the regular salary stops. But we rarely plan for the day the alarmContinue reading “Retiring to something”

We spend a lot of time engineering our financial futures. We carefully allocate our assets, monitor our compounding, and build portfolios designed to withstand economic storms. But one of the most profound risks to a long-term financial plan has nothing to do with the stock market. It has to do with your health. When weContinue reading “The hidden gaps in your safety net”

“If I had my way, I would write the word ‘insure’ over every door of every cottage and upon the blotting pad of every public man… because I am convinced that, for sacrifices that are conceivably small, families can be secured against catastrophes which otherwise would smash them forever.” — Winston Churchill Winston Churchill spokeContinue reading “The word over every door”

Have you ever looked at the financial news and felt that the world has lost its collective mind? Markets often plunge on seemingly good news and soar on terrible news. A company with no revenue can be valued at billions, while a solid, profitable business is ignored. The short-term behaviour of the stock market canContinue reading “Surviving the noise”

In almost every area of life, hard work and constant activity are rewarded. If you want to improve your health, you train more frequently. If you want to build a business, you put in longer hours. Action equals progress. But investing is a rare domain where this logic is turned upside down. In the worldContinue reading “The hidden cost of doing something”

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 atContinue reading “Science for your money (Part 2)”

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,Continue reading “Science for your money (Part 1)”