Obviously, the best time to start getting your finances under control is right now. Not tomorrow, not Monday, not the first day of next month or the first day of the new year. Delaying is just another form of procrastination. My very favourite one I implemented on myself, was after I cut up one of my...

A girlfriend who recently lost a lot of weight said to me a short time ago “it’s all about the small decisions”. Her theory is that the single decision to slim down isn’t enough. You don’t gain weight just by deciding to, or because of one piece of cake or one failure to...

There’s a poster in our garage (don’t ask) that the words “if not now, when?” is written on. It’s had me thinking. Back in the days when I was sitting atop my mound of nearly $40,000 in consumer debt, I often thought being debt free, but for many years, didn’t take...

When we talk about risk and reward in finance, typically we’re referring to the likelihood that an investment or venture will turn bad, compared with the return offered if everything goes well. For example, a P2P loan you make might return 20%, but the person you’ve loaned to has a high debt...

I run a zero-base budget. What this means is that every single last dollar that comes in is given a purpose. This doesn’t mean that I spend it, just that it’s allocated. I have neither a surplus nor a deficit at the end of each month – in other words, a zero base. From a financial...

In my last post on emergency funds, I discussed the concept of passive income – that is, having sources of income that do not require you to be employed in your primary job, on which you can rely as part of your emergency fund. In a way, this is a core part of Robert Kiyosaki’s ‘Rich...