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17 August 2023
I think about Y2K a lot when I think about Covid. As time goes on, most people seem to think Y2K was a storm in a teacup — and I suspect Covid risks the same fate. But that framing gets things backwar…
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6 January 2023
After avoiding Covid for two and a half years, I finally tested positive. My brain was foggy for nearly two months. Decisions took longer and weren't as sharp. It was a visceral reminder that good hea…
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18 March 2022
Before we could store food properly, the best place to store surplus was in the stomachs of friends, family, and neighbours — and they'd reciprocate. Social capital is one of the most important forms…
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9 July 2021
Most of us want to feel financially secure. How we feel about our financial situation is highly personal. I often speak with people worth millions who are worried about their financial security, and w…
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4 December 2020
The word "decide" traces back to Latin — "to cut", or to kill. Every decision kills other options you could have taken. Time is scarce. Money is scarce. Even Bill Gates makes trade-offs. It's trade-of…
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27 November 2020
The future is uncertain, but plenty within it isn't really. Community transmission of COVID, a market downturn, dying at some point — these are when-not-if events, not if-they-happen events. Much of g…
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28 August 2020
When an expert speaks, parts of your brain shut down. Be wary of experts, gurus, and idols who present themselves as qualitatively better than the rest of us. There are no Supermonkeys. Just monkeys.…
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21 August 2020
Everyone is different. Even identical twins raised in the same household are pretty different once you get to know them. When you meet someone new, you have NO IDEA about who they are. Two takeaways:…
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10 July 2020
What is money? Textbooks call it a medium of exchange and a store of value. Both are true — but money is also a time travel device. Borrowing brings future income into the present. Investing and savin…
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24 April 2020
A typical balance sheet misses something important. Most households have "shadow assets" — things that can't really be liquidated but have the potential to be valuable. Speculative investments, antici…
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6 March 2020
I rarely talk numbers on this blog, which might be surprising since it's mainly about money — and I LOVE spreadsheets. Numbers change, past performance isn't future performance, and precision can make…
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28 February 2020
What does "retirement" actually mean to you? For many of the people I talk to, early retirement isn't really about stopping work — it's about changing their relationship to work, or getting freedom to…
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18 February 2020
My wife and I joke that cafe treats and holidays are "coming out of the kids' inheritance". It's strictly true. But your children don't just inherit money when you die — they inherit memories, experie…
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29 November 2019
When it comes to the things that really matter, focus on what you can control. Checking your KiwiSaver balance every week isn't one of them — and yes, I'm a hypocrite about this when it comes to Trump…
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18 October 2019
"Wealth" isn't just about money, and "success" is personal. Don't over-complicate your financial life — make it boring so the rest of your life can be interesting. Everyone has a financial plan, wheth…
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11 October 2019
I love books that swing for the fences. The Last Safe Investment is one — a personal development book with a strong financial focus. I disagree with chunks of it, and the authors strawman mainstream a…
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24 May 2019
Compound interest is magical, but there's a myopia around it. The Barefoot Investor and others lean on 10% annual returns to make the "start early or you're sunk" case — at 5% the chart looks very dif…
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12 April 2019
I have tremendous faith in resourceful people. The clients who end up in a good position, financially and otherwise, tend to be resourceful — not because they started with much, but because they can s…
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15 February 2019
My son is starting to get into video games. In many games, you can choose between "easy mode" and "hard mode". Sometimes I think we unnecessarily put our lives on hard mode, when we'd lead much more m…
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29 March 2018
When you start building wealth, you face headwinds. It can feel like you're getting nowhere. But the headwinds eventually turn into tailwinds — and every dollar of wealth is easier to build than the l…
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1 March 2018
Some high-level financial advice for 16-year-olds, and anyone who still feels young. The biggest investment in your early adulthood is in yourself. One of the best (or worst) financial decisions you'l…
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7 August 2017
Approaching 20, I asked myself a stark question: would I rather have $1 billion in the bank, or a fantastic relationship with a fantastic woman? The answer reshaped my priorities. I spent years workin…
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27 June 2017
If there's one figure to focus on when it comes to your finances, it's your net worth — assets minus liabilities. From that perspective, a dollar towards debt is the same as a dollar into savings. Rep…
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1 May 2017
Retirement planning is shot through with uncertainty — your costs, your health, whether NZ Super will exist as we know it, what your investments return. Zoom out further and radical technologies, from…
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11 March 2017
Young professionals at the start of their careers face a genuinely different financial situation from people nearing retirement. Different circumstances, different needs, different objectives — which…
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18 September 2016
If someone asked you to calculate your net worth, you'd add up your assets, subtract your liabilities, and get a number. But for a younger person, that calculation misses the biggest asset of all: the…
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14 July 2016
Investing matters, but it's not the first step. Before you start, you need to know what you want from your life, get on the same page with your partner, focus on the right metric (net worth), pay off…
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25 May 2016
For most people, building wealth is a slow, gradual process. It happens over years and decades. There are bumps up and down along the way, but only rarely do people experience "liquidity events" — the…
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20 February 2016
One of the best forms of good luck is the absence of bad luck. I've been lucky in that sense — no major health issues, no tragedies. The defensive side of managing luck is every bit as important as co…
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24 October 2015
If you can't afford to buy a home in the current property market, don't despair. You can still build wealth and end up in a good long-term financial position. Owning a home is a legitimate goal for ma…
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17 July 2015
One of the reasons I'm so interested in money is because of what it represents. Most of us spend a large portion of our time working at jobs in exchange for money. When we spend money on one thing rat…
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4 December 2014
David Myers' Intuition: Its Powers and Perils shaped how I think about probability. Big hearts and hard heads can come wrapped in the same skin — being wise means asking to see the numbers, even when…