Every professional occasionally drags their feet on certain projects. It’s easy to put off tedious tasks, like filing expense reports, or emotionally draining ones, like writing up a negative employee performance review. Indeed, research has shown that procrastination — rather than being a moral failing or sign of laziness — is actually a subconscious strategy to avoid negative emotions. Olga …
How can we defuse the household debt time bomb?
The nature of people’s debts have changed significantly — so too must debt solutions. Mortgage borrowers may have breathed a sigh of relief this week as interest rates appeared to reach their peak. But look beyond the headlines and a much nastier, harder-to-solve debt problem is lurking. I am talking about the record £22bn UK households are now estimated to …
The Market Is Stuck Until the Fed Is Done
The stock market has basically gone nowhere since the start of last year. That’s no great claim until you remember how battered most stocks were last autumn. From its peak on Jan. 3, 2022, to its trough on Oct. 11, 2022, the S&P 500 lost more than 25 percent of its value. The stock market has mostly recovered. Under the …
What tennis can teach investors about risk and return
Neither seeking to maximise winners nor minimise losers is necessarily enough. It’s all in the balance. The writer is co-founder and co-chair of Oaktree Capital Management and author of ‘Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side’ Understanding the distinction between risk control and risk avoidance is essential for investors. Investing, at its heart, consists of bearing uncertainty …
The Best Things In Life Are NOT Free (But They’re Worth It)
The pithy aphorism that “the best things in life are free,” while no doubt well-intentioned, is simply false. It’s slightly more accurate to suggest that the best things in life can’t be bought, but even this claim can be quickly debunked when you attempt to concoct a scenario in which nary a single penny was spent to craft a seemingly …
The Anti-Bucket List: Listing Things You Are Not Going To Do
Sometimes knowing what you don’t what to do reveals the things you want to do most. GETTY It was a few years ago that my wife and I were talking about our next trip/adventure and we began sort of listing places we “could” go. As we blurted out some far-flung places, we found ourselves saying things like “I don’t need …
4 money mistakes to avoid now if you want to survive a recession
Whenever anyone mentions to me the potential of an upcoming recession, I go into panic mode. I’ve spent so many years trying to stick to a financial strategy that keeps me out of debt and helps me plan for future goals that the thought of a recession makes me feel like all those plans could fall apart, especially if I …
When I Stopped Trying to Self-Optimize, I Got Better
Francis Sanzaro is a climber, philosopher and the author of “The Zen of Climbing.” A few years ago, I stood underneath a red overhanging cliff near my hometown, Carbondale, Colo. The day was a stunner. Elk chewed on the brown grasses by the river below. A hawk rode the wind. Townsfolk and itinerants, some clothed and some not, loitered in …
Money, work, success: The secret to finding your enough
How much is enough? Be it about money or other measures of success, that is the question Manisha Thakor faced as she approached her 50th birthday. The personal finance expert and author found herself on bed rest from health battles, worrying that she was literally working herself to death. “I had hit a wall,” Thakor remembered. “I faceplanted in terms …
I’m a financial planner, and there are 5 pieces of money advice no one ever wants to hear from me
You know how adults always told you to “eat your veggies” and greens when you were a kid? Well, that nagging advice doesn’t necessarily stop in adulthood. As a financial advisor, I’m constantly giving people good advice they don’t want. I know no one wants to hear this kind of money advice. But those who do listen — and more …