Investing

I’ve been slowly getting my head around personal finance over the last few years. Nothing dramatic — just trying to understand where money goes, how to save it, and what to do with it once you’ve saved some. Here’s a collection of frameworks, tools, and resources that have helped. Budgeting The first step is knowing what you actually spend. Most people guess and are wrong. Monarch Money – A budgeting app that connects to your accounts and categorises spending automatically. I’ve found it useful for seeing where money leaks out each month. YNAB (You Need A Budget) – The most aggressive budgeting method I’ve tried. Every pound gets assigned a job before you spend it. Steep learning curve but changes how you think about money. PocketGuard – Simpler than YNAB. Tells you how much “spendable” cash you have after bills and savings are accounted for. Google Sheets budget templates – If you prefer manual control, a spreadsheet gives you full visibility without linking bank accounts. Tracking and the Quantified Self Once you’re budgeting, tracking specific metrics helps you see progress. ...

I spent a few months watching the markets before I actually put money in, and even longer figuring out how to pick stocks without losing my shirt. The internet is full of guides that read like they were written by someone who has never actually placed a trade, so here is what I learned from doing it wrong first. Start by understanding what kind of market you are in This sounds obvious but most people skip it. A stock that works in a bull market will destroy you in a bear one, and the same goes for sideways chop. I used to pick stocks based on their individual merits without checking whether the overall market was even cooperating with me. That changed when I started paying attention to whether the major indices were trending up, down, or just wandering around like they had no idea what to do. ...

I’ve spent enough time watching people trade to notice that everyone has a style, and most of them picked it without really thinking about why. Trading styles aren’t just technical classifications — they’re reflections of personality, patience, and how much time someone is willing to sacrifice to a screen. Here are the ones I’ve actually seen people use, with a bit of context about what each one demands. Scalping This is the closest thing to gambling with better record-keeping. Scalpers hold positions for seconds, sometimes milliseconds, chasing tiny price movements that add up if you catch enough of them. The math is brutal: one bad trade can wipe out an hour of small wins, and the commission costs eat into margins before you’ve even started. ...

I’ve been looking into property auctions in the UK recently, and one thing that struck me is how fragmented the market is. You’ve got the big national names, then regional specialists, and somewhere in between a whole bunch of firms that have been doing this for decades without much publicity. Here’s a list of companies I came across. Some are household names, others you’d only know if you’ve actually sat in an auction room or bid online at 11pm on a Tuesday. ...

I spent years thinking about money the wrong way. Not because I was bad with it – I just never had anyone sit me down and explain the actual mechanisms. School taught us about compound interest in the abstract, but never about the vehicles. The things you can actually own that pay you back. This is the list I wish I’d had when I was twenty. Some of these are obvious. Some I only discovered recently and immediately wondered how I’d missed them. A few are borderline absurd but technically valid, which is why they’re here too. ...