Never Buy the Next Size Up We were in Spain a couple of weeks ago on a family holiday. As I pulled on my shorts, I had to admit they were a little tighter than they had been in Crete last October. I remembered some advice a portly friend gave me years ago: “Never buy […]
View ArticleCliffs I’ve just finished What to Make of a Life by Jim Collins. In it he talks about cliffs – unforeseen upsets that throw everything up in the air and leave us confused, or reviewing our life. This week alone I’ve had two separate new client conversations. Both people have individually faced their own cliff […]
View ArticleA story my dad told me early in my career has stayed with me ever since. A woman was standing in a supermarket, looking at two fillet steaks. She picked them up, then put them back. They felt too extravagant. The woman beside her said, quietly: “Buy the steaks. My husband died last month, and […]
View ArticleRemember Bill from a few weeks ago with the stock windfall? We met again a few days ago to run through his financial plan. I started by confirming his net worth – £4.8 million. He couldn’t believe it. He’d never added it all up before. His chosen lifestyle costs £60,000 a year. All but £200k of […]
View ArticleMet a new client last week. Thirty years at the same factory. Same desk, same commute, same chat with the same workmates in the break room. For most of those thirty years, he drip-fed into his company’s employee share purchase scheme. Over 4,000 shares in Seagate Technologies, accumulated a few pounds at a time. Last […]
View ArticleSorting Nails Into Boxes At the weekend I took my first motorbike trip since 2018. I caught the boat to Scotland, then rode along the Queensway through the Galloway Forest, over towards Hexham, and then followed the Pennines down into the Lake District to meet an old friend. Gorgeous roads, great weather – time to […]
View ArticleTwo meetings last week stood out for me. The first was with a couple we’ve worked with for 13 years. When he first walked into our office, he had his sleeves rolled up, tie loose and looking utterly stressed. He hated his job. But it was cushy. Fantastic pension. Hard to walk away from. We […]
View ArticleTwo client conversations today really stood out for me. The first was about a niece who had recently come into an inheritance. She’d used the money to buy a beautiful new home complete with turrets (!!), a grand spiral staircase, the works. What struck me wasn’t the house itself, but where the money had come […]
View ArticleI recently came across a quote by Derek Sivers: “If knowledge was enough, we would all be billionaires with six packs.” Most of us already know what we should be doing. You know you should spend less than we earn. You know you should invest for the future. You know you need to be […]
View ArticleLast weekend, Gibson Financial Planning had the privilege of co-sponsoring a fantastic event focused on mindset and performance in business. This time last year, a friend of mine was sponsoring the event and promoting it on social media. I missed the it, but saw his posts and became aware of the work Seamus Fox was […]
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