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How I Finally Started Investing (and Why It Took So Long)

/ Beginner, Investing, Personal Finance
why investing took me so long

Despite working in finance since 2011, I hesitated to invest my own money, held back by fear and imposter syndrome. It wasn’t until I saw this one thing in real portfolios that I realized what I was missing out on. Coming from an ethnic minority background, where investing wasn’t a common practice, I knew I had to break the cycle. Here is why it took me so long and how I overcame my fears and embraced investing as the key to long-term wealth building.

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Three ways to pay less tax on savings

/ Beginner, Intermediate, Investing, Market Insights, Personal Finance
Paying less tax on savings

My monthly mortgage cost doubled. But I also got ~5% pay increase from my employer along with securing a savings rate of 4% with my bank. But all this followed a painful inflation rate hitting 11.1% in 2022 and interest rate hike to its highest since the GFC.

All of these significantly increased the amount of taxes I am paying – I needed to actively do something. Here’s what I did.

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UK Mortgage Mayhem: are we becoming a “developing” country?

/ Intermediate, Market Insights, Personal Finance
Mortgage Mayhem UK

UK housing were already extremely unaffordable. And most households were paying a high portion of their salary towards mortgages (also rents). We have one of the highest inflation rates within the developed world, and now even competing to look “better” against developing countries where inflation has fallen back down very quickly. To make the cost-of-living crisis worse, mortgage rates have started to hit the roof. High interest rates are hardly getting passed on to savers. And even if they did, do most of us have anything left over to even save?

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This is how I met ALL my Financial Goals

/ Personal Finance
how to meet financial goals

Every year, roughly 50% of people make new year resolutions, some particularly tied to financial goals. And roughly 90% of those people fail to meet those resolutions.

With the current UK population of 67 million people, that’s just over 3 million people who ends up making it.

I always tell myself; this is the year. And I am ready for a change. Mostly I don’t make it.

But last year, I did something pretty exciting. I managed to tick off all of my financial resolutions for 2021. And I plan to do the same this year too.

Here is how.

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Why high inflation won’t last for too long

/ Beginner, Market Insights, Personal Finance

High inflation remains one of the most cited concerns for policymakers and consumers like me and you. With large inflation prints coming out month after month, there’s no surprise that it is making everyone a little uneasy.

But I am here to explain why inflation figures are likely come down around mid next year and remain low over the long-term.

This is not just my personal view, but the view shared by all the heads of central banks in the UK, Europe, and US, plus the IMF.

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We need to talk about the racial wealth gap

/ Personal Finance
racial wealth gap

The richest 10% of households in the UK hold 44% of all wealth, and by contrast poorest 50% own just 9% (ONS, 2016). There is no doubt that wealth inequality exists in the UK and you may choose to look at it under many different lens. In this post, I am looking at it under the “race” angle. Even after considering range of characteristics that can explain the racial wealth gap in ethnic minority households, “race” itself remain a statistically significant contender in explaining the wealth gap. Read on as I tackle why the gap exists and how we can all work together to come out of it.

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How debt affects mental health

/ Personal Finance
how debt affects mental health

After reading about someone’s tragic suicide and in honour of Debt Awareness Week – I’ve decided to write this post. All my posts are usually focussed on investing money and the power of compounding. Seldom do we/I think about how compound interest can equally be powerful in allowing debt to spiral out of control.
Debt Awareness Week 2021 is all about destigmatising debt – and so let’s talk about it and ask for help when we need!

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