WEEKLEY LETTER / ISSUE 001

The difficult bit wasn’t making the money

Hello Reader

For years, the goal was wonderfully simple.

Work hard. Earn well. Save properly. Invest sensibly. Build enough money to eventually tell work, “Thanks very much, but I’ll take it from here.”

Then, one day, the numbers finally said you could.

And instead of feeling free, you felt slightly sick.

Because nobody warned you that building the money and using the money require completely different skills.

Saving rewards caution. Spending requires confidence.

Accumulating wealth gives you a lovely rising number to admire. Using it means watching that number wobble, shrink or occasionally fall off a small cliff.

You spent decades learning that money going up meant you were doing well.

Now your financial plan is asking you to believe that money going down might also mean you’re doing well.

No wonder it feels strange.

SOMETHING I NOTICED

People are often much better prepared financially for freedom than they are emotionally.

The spreadsheet says yes.

The pension is healthy. The investments are doing their job. The plan has been tested against market crashes, tax changes, higher inflation and you living until 103 out of sheer stubbornness.

Yet something inside still whispers:

Maybe not yet.

Maybe one more year of work.

Maybe wait until the markets settle down.

Maybe wait until inflation behaves itself.

Maybe wait until the children are completely sorted.

Maybe wait until the government stops fiddling with pensions.

Good luck with that last one.

The problem is rarely a lack of money. It’s that caution has become part of your identity.

Being sensible got you here. It made you successful, secure and reassuringly difficult to sell an extended warranty to.

But the habit that built your freedom can also stop you from using it.

THE FIX

A good retirement plan should answer two entirely different questions.

The first is:

Can I afford it?

That is the numbers question. It involves cash flow, tax, investments, risk and enough spreadsheets to bring a certain type of person close to tears of joy.

But the second question is:

What is the money for?

That is the human question.

And it’s the one most financial plans quietly avoid.

Your pension was never supposed to become a museum exhibit. Your investments don’t receive a small trophy for remaining untouched. There is no prize for dying with the most impressive spreadsheet.

The purpose of the plan isn’t simply to prove that you probably won’t run out of money.

It should help you use that money while you still have the health, energy and desire to enjoy what it makes possible.

That doesn’t mean spending recklessly or booking a Lamborghini test drive before lunch.

It means giving your money a job beyond making more money.

Some of it is there to provide security.

Some of it is there to support the people you love.

And some of it should be there to create experiences, choices, memories and the occasional completely unnecessary upgrade.

Permission doesn’t mean somebody else telling you, “Go on, you’re allowed.”

Real permission is trusting that using your money is not evidence that the plan has failed.

Sometimes it is evidence that the plan is working.

YOUR MOVE

Think of one thing you’ve been postponing despite having the money, time and opportunity to do it.

It doesn’t need to be dramatic.

A family trip. Reducing your working week. Visiting an old friend. Buying the better bottle of red. Taking everyone out for dinner without studying the right-hand side of the menu like it contains classified information.

Now ask yourself three questions:

What am I actually waiting for?

What am I frightened will happen if I spend the money?

What might it cost me if I keep waiting?

That final question matters.

Waiting has a cost too. It just doesn’t appear on a bank statement.

WORTH YOUR TIME

Take a twenty-minute walk this week without your phone, headphones or another person filling the silence.

Ask yourself:

If the next five years turn out to be my healthiest five years, what would I want to make sure I had done with them?

This isn’t a bucket list. I hate bucket lists.

You don’t need to swim with dolphins, climb Kilimanjaro or eat fermented yak with a man called Bjørn.

Think smaller and more honestly.

Who do you want to spend more time with?

Where do you want an ordinary Tuesday morning to happen?

What have you been saving for a version of yourself who may have less energy, less confidence and considerably dodgier knees?

Write down the first answer that makes you slightly uncomfortable.

That’s usually where the truth is hiding.

Money can give you choices.

But it cannot book the table, make the phone call, reduce your hours or decide that you’ve waited long enough.

That bit is still up to you.

Have a brilliant week,

Dan