“Do you want an inheritance or do you want a cruise?” Can money buy happiness?
The crowd was so silent that we could hear a gull calling overhead. Tension scrawled across every face. Our final player stepped up and, without hesitation, struck. The disc slid across the deck and landed on a seven. We threw our hands up in the air. The victorious shuffleboard player walked over to the kids. …
In praise of paying tax: A personal polemic
As Nina Simone almost certainly meant to have sung: “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new tax year for me….and I’m feeling good.” Ah yes April. The beginning of a new tax year. Empty tax-exempt saving accounts like ISA’s waiting to be filled, new pension allowances just begging to be used,…
When I grow up: My hopes and fears when I achieve financial independence
It was the morning of Friday the 24th of June 2016. I can place it precisely as it was the day after the UK had voted to leave the European Union. My emotions were all over the place: Sadness, fear but also something that may have been tendrils of excitement. But I had to put…
External networking: How to get your introverted mojo on outside your organisation
It was the middle of a typically boring afternoon, in the middle of a typically boring day, in the middle of a typically boring week at work. My mobile rang. It was a headhunter who’d been chucking me a series of, frankly, uninteresting opportunities over the last year. My instinct was to hit reject but,…
March 2019 update: The one I wrote the morning after a stag weekend
Ah Spring. As I write this the clocks have just changed so the days are getting longer. Everywhere blossom and daffodils are exploding into bloom. The sun is shining, and Easter is just round the corner. Frankly you can’t turn around without the sap rising somewhere. And, in the middle of all of this, I’m…
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