Archive
Everything we have published, newest first — 100 articles.
August 2026
Where a household’s money actually goes, and why three categories dominate
Cost per use is the number that decides whether something was expensive
A subscription renews by silence, and that changes the whole calculation
A budget is a forecast, and forecasts are supposed to be wrong
Lifestyle inflation is a ratchet, which is exactly what makes it expensive
An emergency fund is insurance you underwrite yourself
July 2026
In the early years the amount saved does more work than the rate earned
A savings goal without a date attached is not yet arithmetic
Inflation is the reason cash needs a job description
Access and return are two separate questions about the same money
A minimum payment is calculated to move the balance slowly
The two orders of clearing debts optimise different things
Stretching a loan lowers the payment and raises the total
Secured and unsecured borrowing are different products, not different prices
Clearing a debt returns a known number, and that is what makes the choice…
Compound growth rewards time more steeply than it rewards rate
June 2026
An index fund follows a rule rather than making a forecast
Charges are deducted whether or not anything was earned
Diversification removes one kind of risk and leaves another standing
A fall and its recovery are not the same size
A loss weighs more than a gain of exactly the same size
Money is interchangeable and almost nobody treats it that way
What has already been spent cannot be recovered by spending more
A price only means anything next to another number
The future self keeps losing arguments it was never present for
May 2026
A price is set by one side of the transaction and the value by the other
Renting and buying a home are two different cash-flow shapes
Repair, replace or do without is a three-way comparison
A unit price is the only way two package sizes can be compared
Convenience is a service with an hourly rate, and it is rarely quoted
A household absorbs an income shock in a fairly predictable order
Automating a transfer changes when the decision happens, not how hard it is
April 2026
A predictable irregular cost is a monthly cost that has not been divided yet
The proportion saved works on both halves of the sum at once
A balance says very little until it is set against what is owed
Consolidation moves a debt into one place without making it smaller
The cost of borrowing is quoted in several ways that do not compare directly
A credit limit is an offer from a lender, not money the household has
Paying at the till in instalments turns a price into a payment
A missed payment costs considerably more than the payment
March 2026
Risk means one thing to a saver and something else to an investor
The horizon is the variable that constrains everything else
Past performance is a small sample and a noisy one
A mixture drifts, and rebalancing is the rule that pulls it back
Putting a lump sum in at once and feeding it in gradually answer different…
Two people sharing a household need a rule, and the three common ones trade…
Children learn money from what they watch, not from what they are told
A household sets its standard by looking sideways at other households
People forecast their own spending with a range that is far too narrow
Money decisions get worse exactly when there is least of it
An extended warranty is an insurance product sold at the till
Some cheap purchases quietly commit you to an expensive supply
Depreciation does most of its work early, and that is what a second-hand…
A generous returns policy is part of what you are paying for
February 2026
Being cheap and being frugal are not the same habit
An irregular income is budgeted from the bad months, not the average one
A rate that reverts is really two rates with a date between them
A windfall is easier to lose than money that arrived slowly
Money in an account is a claim on an institution, not a box of notes
Holding money in another currency adds a second thing that can move
A credit file records behaviour, not character or income
January 2026
A guarantor takes on the whole obligation and receives none of the money
Borrowing from family replaces the paperwork with the relationship
An overdraft is borrowing that begins without any decision to borrow
An overpayment can shorten the loan or lighten the payment, and the default…
When your job and your savings depend on the same thing, you own it twice
What an adviser does depends a great deal on how they are paid
A return has two parts, and only one of them shows up in the price
The return an investment made and the return an investor made are different…
Owning a share means owning a claim on what a business earns later
The conversation about what happens to family money is postponed by…
Most people rate their own financial judgement above average, which is…
December 2025
Not looking at the balance is a decision with compounding consequences
Owning something raises the price you would accept for it
A decision that turned out badly was not necessarily a bad decision
A large purchase can be paid for three ways, and each charges in a…
What an object costs to own usually outweighs what it cost to acquire
A service plan mostly prepays work you were going to need anyway
When two purchases compete, the real question is which one waits
A shopping season is a deadline somebody else set for you
Moving home concentrates a year of costs into a few weeks
A new child changes the shape of a budget before it changes the total
Money sent to another household needs a limit, a form and a review date
November 2025
Restoring a reserve after it has been used is the stage nobody plans
Money held for a child is being saved for somebody who will eventually…
A deposit does three separate jobs, and only one of them is reducing the…
A debt held jointly is not half a debt each
A debt that changes hands is still the same debt
A loan should not outlive the thing it paid for
Some borrowing has an end date built into it and some does not
Lending money to an institution behaves nothing like owning part of one
How easily something can be sold is a property of its market, not of the…
A home you live in is an unusual asset to hold in a portfolio
October 2025
An asset that pays nothing can only be valued by what someone else will pay
What a household can absorb and what it can tolerate are two separate…
A bargain delivers a pleasure of its own, quite separate from the thing…
Two people arguing about money are usually arguing about two different rules
Very few households can answer simple questions about their own money
Generosity works better as a budget line than as a response
How a payment is made changes how much it feels like spending