Minimilasim, a ‘staycation’ and having enough money in the future
Friday Footnotes
What a difference a holiday makes. If you haven’t taken any time off since lockdown started, and I know lots of people haven’t, I highly recommend it. Clearly foreign travel is difficult, but a holiday in the UK, or a ‘staycation’ can do you the world of good.
Here are a few things I’ve found brilliant lately.
What I’ve Been Watching
When I was at our global conference last year in Miami… boy, that seems like a lifetime ago… I saw a talk by The Minimalists. Intrigued to learn more, I recently watched the documentary ‘Minimalism: A Documentary About the important Things’ that features them. Especially in this current environment, it is good for us to evaluate our life to think about how much ‘stuff’ we really need in it. You can watch it here.
What I’ve Been Reading
Sticking with the theme of evaluating our lives for the better, I recently finished the book ‘The Monk who Sold his Ferrari’ by Robin Sharma. Whilst this doesn’t compete with his latest book, ‘The 5AM Club’, in my eyes, it is still a brilliant book to help you rethink your life; something that seems to be happening for a lot of people at the moment. So much so that Jonny Wilkinson said “[Its] principles have been fascinating and there were shared principles from writers such as Robin Sharma and Deepak Chopra. How does all that impact on a game of rugby? I can’t answer that. All I know is it’s enough to help me to proceed in a way that makes me happy enough to go out there and be proud of who I am and what I hope I can bring to this team.”
Travel
I’ve never owned a Ferrari, but I cannot tell you how much I love my Tesla. Switching to an electric car nearly 3 years ago is one of the best decisions I have made.
People constantly question me as to whether the hassle of charging on a long journey is a problem, and I have concluded that it is actually a benefit. It forces us to stop for relatively short breaks that allow us to arrive at our destination feeling much fresher; although this is also helped by autopilot taking on most of the responsibility of the motorways.
On a 5 ½ hour drive to Cornwall, we need around 40 minutes of charging, which is usually 2 toilet stops (10 minutes) and one meal stop (20 minutes). Not only that, all that charging on route has been free! If you are thinking about buying one, you will get a discount if you use this link.
Website I find Useful
Since ‘going electric’ I have regularly used and recommended https://abetterrouteplanner.com/.
Whilst the Tesla will plan a journey for you, if you want to plan a journey before you leave, this website makes it really easy to do. It is also a good way of assessing different electric cars. For example, if I did my trip to Cornwall in any other electric car other than a Tesla, it would double the charging time, as the supercharger network is pretty much limited to Tesla’s at the moment.
Quote of the Week
“The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young”
- Henry Ford
Finance Theme I’ve Been Considering
Today we were brainstorming with a new marketing company about the biggest ‘pain points’ for our clients. Once we have done that it occurred to me that the majority of people really come to us with the same concern.
Whilst there are many different variations on the theme, the greatest concern we see is driven by the question ‘will we have enough for our future?’ As the tool that we use to answer that question is the lifetime cashflow forecast, it still amazes me that the majority of advice firms do not embrace them. After all, you can sleep better at night if you know you have enough financially, or are at least on track to. One quick way to check is by using our free 2 Minute Retirement Plan.
