Is 11 too young?  Shouldn't he be out there playing with his friends, biking around the close and eating sugary sweets?  How young is too young to invest? 

How do you calculate your net-worth?  The first step to change is to take a good look at where you are right now.  If you don't know your starting point it is difficult to know if the change you are creating is moving you in the right direction or not.  If you can't clearly give a £ or $ figure for your net-worth then this article will help you figure it out.

Sounds like a good idea but my biggest concern is that this leads to stock picking and therefore worse performance (profit for us) over time.  Katie and I wanted to dig into my preconceived notions and ideas to find out the truth behind ESG funds and all the hype that surrounds them!

The monthly finance meeting is one of the highlights of our month. We find a cool location for a wonderful breakfast or brunch, open the spreadsheet and input the numbers and work out which direction our finances are going in!

This is the exact opposite of most of the population who don't like to look at their finances at all; scared of what they might find.  Your average person uses the "bury your head in the sand" strategy to manage their finances; with an occasional peek at the current account to see if they can afford things.  

If the saying "what gets measured gets improved" is true; then why are so many people so scared of looking at their personal finances??

UPDATE: this article was originally written in 2022, we've now updated it as at May 2023. Hello future!

I was bursting with energy to share what I had learnt when I saw her.  I was hopping from foot to foot to tell her, but knew I had to wait until we connected.  I listened to what she had been up to in the day and then told her about Financial Independence and what I had learnt. 

The reaction I got back was not the one I was expecting.  I was expecting a big "YES! Let's go!" What I got was a unenthusiastic nod and silence.  The energy drained from my body and my head drooped to the ground as I started to see my dream slip away. 

If you have a partner, if you have a boyfriend, girlfriend or other, it can be a make or break piece of the puzzle of FI getting them on board with your vision to be financially independent. 

It doesn't have to be about Financial Independence. Talking to your partner about money and having a comfortable retirement and being on the same page is SO important!

​How do you talk to your partner about money?

On top of all the finance terms the FIRE (financial independence / retire early) community has invented it's own set of terms and definitions for you to learn. In this article I am going to break down all the different FIRE terms from Lean FIRE to Fat FIRE and all the way to Coast FIRE and beyond. 

​FIRE Terms explained.

Back in 2015 it was just called Financial Independence (FI) and Katie and I loved the idea of becoming financially independent so that we could spend our time doing whatever we wanted!  Read on for our definition of FI, more about the history of the FIRE movement, and how you can get involved!

After 3 years of talking about money, running the Rebel Finance School for thousands of people, and reflecting on our journey to financial independence, I can tell you that most people believe their only routes to wealth are:

1. Winning the lottery (slim chances but why not, it is only a few quid each month)
2. Inheritance  (maybe great Aunt Tilda will die and leave me money)
3. Building a business and selling it (but I can't do this as it takes money to make money)
4. The latest get rich quick scheme (of course they convince themselves that it's legit and it'll work for them!)

Is wealth really a game of chance or can anyone do it?

When you feel like you are doing something important, you don't care about the cold, you don't want to fall asleep and you just want to keep going.  Read on for the big announcement of dates for this year and more about how Rebel Finance School has grown and changed over the 4 years we have run it. 

The Rebel team called me and told me that Google had cancelled our Business School event in New York.  Over the next couple of days, every live event that Rebel Business School had on its books was cancelled, one by one.  We went from a healthy business with lots of money coming in, to only having money going out.  We had fixed costs of £15,000 a month for wage bills, services and more and we had no money coming in.

This was the biggest crisis of emergency that Rebel, and I, had ever faced.

You can learn so much from failure and we often spend more time learning from success.  For the next 6 minutes as you read the article maybe you will learn some things you can avoid. 

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

This article is designed to make financial independence as simple as possible (not easy; simple) so that you know what to do next - which lever to pull and how to make progress. 

What should we do?  Sell before it crashes even further?  Put it all in cash under the mattress and wait for the world to return to normal?  PANIC: read the news to get insight and feel even worse afterwards? Engage with the doomsayers predicting the end of capitalism?

Here's how Katie and I have trained ourselves to react when the market drops and why doing the opposite of what everyone else does is the route to financial success.

My messages, email and other channels lit up with messages of doom and gloom.  The market is down! We need to stop investing!  The £ is at an all-time low against the $! Should we halt all investments until it goes back up?  Is it different this time?  It is all going to pieces!  PANIC!

​Katie and I started a new diet in lock down in 2020 given to us by a coach, we followed it to the letter, gave it our everything and after 12 days we had lost so much weight but I was falling asleep in the afternoons from no energy.  The diet was literally stripping me of my vitality and energy and I was falling to pieces.  katie wanted to press on, I couldn't take it and we argued.  

Sometimes we all have the tendency to take things to the extreme when we find something we are passionate about. What does this all have to do with financial independence? Some people take it to the extreme when they find out about it, alienating the people around them and sacrificing happiness. 

​In 2016, Katie and I travelled to Ecuador to learn about financial independence and investing.  Before we got to Chautauqua (the retreat) with JL Collins, the Mad Fientist and Mr Money Mustache, we stopped at the beach a few days beforehand to relax. Mompiche, a small fishing village in North Western Ecaudor, is stunning! We were staying right on the beach and each night we sat there drinking hot chocolate, watching the waves roll in as the sun set over the bay.

Interestingly, one of the most important lessons we learned on this trip was from a surfer who was staying at the same surf shack as us. But how, exactly, did a surfing binman (garbage man) from Italy end up 50% financially independent?

This got me thinking, "Am I a risk taker?"  What does the rest of the world see as risky that I see as the safe bet?

Do you think it is risky to start a business?  Do you think it is risky to invest in the stock market?  Do you think the safe thing to do is to get a job and stay there for the rest of your life?

These funds have huge promise and we wanted to dig in to find out what you are actually buying when you purchase a global index fund.

So many people seem to be talking about it.  Millennial Revolution are mining it in their Airbnb's, the Escape Artist is writing about it and the highs and lows.  It seems to be in the press in different ways every single day. 

With all the hype I wanted to stand up and give a different opinion.  These are my reasons why I don't invest in crypto and won't tell anyone to do it either.

If you are looking to let go of the feeling of "I should invest in crypto" or you want some balance to the reasons for investing then this article is for you.  If you love crypto and don't like to be challenged you aren't going to like this one!

These 3 clear barriers are what we tackle first and this helps people make progress quickly.  The objective is to build a business making money doing what they love, but first we need to get past the barriers!

​My wife, Katie, and I have become fascinated by finances and since running our first finance course we have been trying to understand what stops people from getting their finances in order. 

At the beginning of that course we asked everyone that signed up "What stops you having your finances the way you want them?" What do you think they said? What do you think stops people from fixing their financial situation?

Almost every blog talks about cutting out streaming services, reducing expenditure and not going out to eat.   I have a slightly different take on it.  

​There is almost an air of resignation when I ask people about how much money they make.  It is as if they earn what they earn and that is it.  Well I am here to tell you that there maybe a floor to how much you can reduce expenditure but the is NO ceiling to the amount of money you can make!  You want to pull a lever that is going to supercharge your finances and your path to financial independence?  This is the one!

I originally wrote this on the 26th of May 2020 and updated it this week for you on 15th of June 2021.   Has the advice changed following the pandemic? 
​
So here are all your questions about the 4% rule, early retirement and financial independence answered!  Let's jump straight into "How much does it take to retire? The Q&A" with Alan...…..

I came across an incredibly simple formula for knowing when enough is enough. I will show you the straight forward maths behind calculating how much you need to invest to retire.

This was first written on the 26th of August 2019 and updated on the 15th June 2021.  I am now 42 years old now!  How time passes. We have reviewed and updated the article given everything that has happened since I wrote it in 2019!

This is a warning against unscrupulous companies that are going to try and take advantage of you during this time.  They are going to do it under the guise of helping you through the pandemic but in reality they are going to leave you far worse off in the long run than if they didn't help at all!

A year after I wrote this last paragraph I have now begun to realise that it is not just in moments of crisis that they will try and take advantage of you.  They are out their right now taking advantage of people; it just feels more shocking at the height of a pandemic.   There are teams of people currently working out the best way to get you to take on more debt. 
​
Update 25/08/2020: This  was written just as lock down was starting on the 25th of March 2020 and this is still going on now and always will do.  Car dealerships make more money on the financing and insurance than they do the car itself.  Online catalogue companies offer you "anything you want" buy now, pay later at 39.9% APR. Companies that lend money make more, when you pay slower!  The debt warning isn't just for the height of a pandemic it is something you need to be wary of always! 

Update 18/05/2021: They are still after you.  Nothing has changed.  In fact they are getting smarter at putting you into debt.  This warning is needed now more than ever.  I get the feeling when I review this article in a year's time I will be writing that it is even more needed then.