Last Updated on 9 July 2021 by Dan
Welcome to The Financial Wilderness!
Why I started The Financial Wilderness
This site really started as a response to friends. They’re all smart, savvy people (I like to think I have great taste!) but one of the most common “life stumbling blocks” I hear from them is not really being sure how to manage their personal finance.
And I absolutely understand why! Financial education in schools is non-existent. Not everyone has the benefit of being shown this by our parents. Yet it’s a real life skill that can make a tremendous difference. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but it is something you can fix.
It’s fortunately been a skill that comes fairly naturally from the way I think, so I wanted to set something up to share my knowledge and experience and help you out,
Most people are broadly in three positions. This site will aim to cover each category, and as the site expands you’ll be able to choose articles based on your situation:
- I’m struggling to make my income work, don’t understand my finances and I’m worried about my debts.
- I feel I’ve just about got everything covered, but I feel I could be doing more to have enough.
- I’m in a comfortable position and have some savings, but no idea what to do with them.
The Principles of The Financial Wilderness Blog
No matter what position you’re in, the Golden Rule of this website is going to be based around the principles of financial optimisation – the idea that your money should work as hard as possible for you.
This looks a little bit like this:
How do Necessities (We ensure) + Luxuries (We challenge) + Wastage (We eliminate) balance against Core Income (Your job) + Investment income (We maximise) + Other Income (We seek opportunity)
To elaborate….
We’ll always focus first on meeting your necessities. Items like Rent and Food are simply your first order needs, and we’ll look at how to always focus on meeting this first and avoiding unwanted financial consequences.
Saying cutting all luxuries is too simplistic – life would be very dull without them. However, we’ll look at how to consciously understand our relationship with them, maximise the value of them and challenge if we need them.
Wastage is money we’re paying regularly that’s not working for us. We all have financial leakages that can be fixed surprisingly easily, and we’ll learn how to identify and fix.
Your core income is likely to form the bulk of your incoming money. We’ll talk about how to budget based upon it, but this is actually where we’ll have the least focus on this blog.
If you’ve got some money, obtaining investment income if it’s the right thing for your financial circumstances pays off magnificently in the long term, and getting to a point you can manage this is going to be a core focus. We’ll look at how to get here and your options when you’re hear.
When talking about investment income we’re absolutely do not believe in get-rich-quick schemes, but that setting up a well managed portfolio can help significantly improve your finances in the long term.
Seeking other income aside from your core job is another potential boost, but needs to be approached with consideration and care.
It might look complex initially, but when you break it down into these components, there’s so many simple things you can do with each to boost your financial health and feel control of your finances! I hope this blog helps get you there.
And that’s it!
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