Whilst October is Breast Cancer awareness month, cancer has become a disease that was touted in 2018 as the second leading cause of death. It’s a tragedy that has most likely affected your family, and the families of your friends, colleagues and neighbours. The World Health Organization claims that between 30-50% of cancers can currently be prevented by avoiding risk factors and implementing evidence-based prevention strategies. Firstly, we should consider the categories of external agents that […]
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Markets don’t make you money
Markets don’t make you money; your habits… make you money. As creatures of habit, we ultimately become our own best friend, or our own worst enemy. This is why it’s important to be mindful of how our emotions affect our choices and influence our behaviour. We can remind ourselves of this time and time again, but still we might find ourselves slipping into old habits and allowing emotional decisions to vilify our investment strategies. This is […]
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Why hobbies help
Time is our greatest investment opportunity – we should invest the time that we have in a diverse portfolio of activities that will provide us with positive returns. Having a solid routine helps us to squeeze utility out of our time. However, if we get stuck in the same routine for too long it can start to feel monotonous and laborious. Especially so if we are spending our down time on low value activities such as […]
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The power of a second-perspective
“The way we see the problem is the problem.” Steven Covey Financial planning can be a lot like rock climbing. When it comes to our finances we don’t want to resign ourselves to merely clinging on to one position for dear life. We want to boost ourselves up to a higher vantage point in order to summit our aspirations. Climbing can be a very personal pilgrimage, it’s you versus the mountain, but climbers hardly ever venture […]
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Convenience is not about shortcuts
The fastest way to a wealthy lifestyle, the magic bullet, the one trick that nobody wants you to know about is… winning the lottery. But this isn’t very good advice, is it? The inherent randomness and impossible odds mean that we have no control over the outcome of winning the lottery. It is possibly the least effective financial strategy one could adopt. The truth is that there are no shortcuts to building wealth, but that doesn’t […]
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The impact of the economy on small businesses
In a 2018 article, Tim Davis (President of The UPS Store) said this of small businesses: “Small business is the backbone of the economy. … It’s these businesses that are driving local economies, providing jobs for local residents and impacting key community organizations, through charity and service.” Whilst small businesses are crucial to the infrastructure of a robust economy, they are equally affected by the health of that very same economy that they drive. If we […]
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How great are the malls?
Imagine going to your favourite clothing store to find a new outfit, and then popping into a grocer for some fresh supplies and sitting down for a cup of tea and a bagel. We don’t have to imagine this – because we have malls. But… this convenience didn’t always exist. Shopping centers have existed in some fashion for more than 1,000 years, forming the heart and soul of communities. While ancient market squares may have been […]
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What did you do with your first paycheck?
One thing we can always know for certain is the past; but with far less certainty, the future, and even ‘later today’… eludes us. Despite knowing this, we often fall into the trap of thinking that we should have done certain things better, because we can see (looking back…) what a difference it would have made in our lives today. Some of the lingo we repeatedly hear says: “Do something today that your future self will […]
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Crack the ice ahead of you
Spring is around the corner – bringing newness, freshness and invigoration. After a long winter, it’s easy to find your attitude has iced-over! Here’s how to crack the ice going forward… Remind yourself of the plan and direction you have Without a plan, we are completely lost. Having a solid strategy in place establishes our priorities. Having a plan makes the decision-making process so much easier. If all we have to do is ask ourselves, “Does […]
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When life gets cluttered – simplify things
It’s so easy to get roped into things we don’t really understand, or committed to too many things and years down the line we find ourselves completely overwhelmed. When it comes to our finances – this is commonplace! There’s only one word that describes that feeling when you’ve finally got around to cleaning out clutter – bliss! We often find ourselves holding onto things from the past ‘just in case’. We don’t realise the burden that […]
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