Notes on money, planning, and the long game.
Short essays on personal finance, FIRE, tracking habits, and the decisions that compound over decades. No clickbait — just the things we wish someone had explained to us earlier.
When does your portfolio start doing the heavy lifting?
Early on, your savings rate is everything. Later, market moves dwarf anything you add in a month. Here is where the crossover sits, what it changes — and what it doesn’t.
Plan retirement backwards, not forwards
Most retirement maths starts from “how much will I have?”. The useful question runs the other way: how much will you spend, what covers it, and what is left for the portfolio to do?
How much do you actually need to save each month?
A deposit in four years, university fees in ten, retirement in thirty — the monthly cost of a goal depends mostly on how far away it is. The maths is friendlier than you might expect.
What is FIRE, and is it actually realistic?
FIRE — Financial Independence, Retire Early — is a planning idea, not a get-rich scheme. Here is what it means in practice and how to set a target you can actually track.
The ten-minute habit that keeps your finances honest
A short monthly check-in — open each account, write down the balance — sounds almost too simple to matter. It is quietly one of the highest-leverage habits in personal finance.
Managing your money across multiple currencies
If you earn in one currency and save in another — or move between countries — your finances need a way of speaking a single language. Here is how to think about it.
Budgeting without the anxiety
A budget with twenty categories gives you twenty things to fail at every month. A better mental model: fewer, larger categories, checked less often.