Personal Finances

Last week1 the Money Tree household has been carless. After driving to the start/finish point for our Sunday morning walk we both noticed a distinct burning smell once we got out of the car. Doing my best to ignore the problem we were sitting on the tail gate putting on our walking boots when I noticed some […] Read More

Well I’m now safely back Under the Money Tree after a week away in the sun. A small Greek island was our destination for what turned out to be an amazingly relaxing break from the daily grind. Despite my best intentions to use some of the down time to create some wonderful posts, the lure […] Read More

I’m quite an impatient kind of guy. When I decide on something, I want it now. Since my decision a few years ago to seriously commit to achieving early retirement/financial independence I am often overcome with serious bouts of investment fatigue. The main problem with getting rich slowly is that you’re not getting rich quickly. […] Read More

Under The Money Tree we like to keep our money safe. As a general rule I tend to avoid carrying cash as I find it tends to get spent if I have it on me. Instead I prefer to rely on credit/debit cards for daily expenditure and any cash I do carry is rarely used, […] Read More

I recently received and email from a reader Mary who asked me a few questions regarding her choice of career and saving for early retirement. As I started drafting a response I was in fact simply reflecting back on things I would have done differently in my early years. I thought that the contents would […] Read More

Perhaps one of the biggest cliches in personal finance/money saving blogsphere is the ‘how much can you save a year on lattes’ post. I’ve resisted for a few months now but being such a big coffee drinker there was only so long I could resist for. Apologies in advance. While the post below touches on […] Read More

I have a good friend that for many years has had a undeniable urge to be an entrepreneur. All he wanted to do was to quit the rat race, start his own company and get rich. For years he was talking about it yet nothing really happened until the day he was made redundant. After […] Read More

Recently I was trawling the rich archives over at the excellent Monevator site when I came across this article about what it feels like to finally be mortgage free. Now unfortunately we’re not mortgage free yet, but we have been over paying our mortgage1 relentlessly for the last 4 and a bit years. Though I […] Read More

Most of my writing to date on this blog has centred around the many strategies, techniques and pitfalls I endure with regards to my savings and investments. However a less discussed but equally important part of the Money Tree is ensuring a tight lid is kept on costs. There are a million and one ways […] Read More