This is a follow up to an earlier post I wrote called How you can save money effortlessly using Monzo, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, and Moneybox and an update to how the Moneybox part is doing. Automatic equals painless Ramit Sethi is all about having systems in place so that you don’t have to use your willpower. Because willpower is fickle and it gets exhausted and it doesn’t always work. Systems on the other hand do work. Such as setting up automatic payments to come out of your account straight after pay day to go into your savings account or into your investment account. This way you don’t even think about it. This is how I’ve set up my Marcus savings account and my Hargreaves Lansdown ISA. It comes out of my account and automatically saves and invests for me. I don’t have to think about it and I don’t …[Read More]
The Happiest Refugee by Anh Do
Angelique gave this book to me in May 2014 and it’s taken a lockdown in 2020 for me to read. Sorry Babe! Anh Do is a famous artist and comedian in Australia and he tells his story of how he and his family escaped post-war Vietnam by boat and eventually settling in Australia. Anh and his brother were infants at the time of the crossing. The section on the family’s journey by small fishing craft is harrowing. They encounter pirates who take everything they have, lose family members overboard until they’re rescued by Germans. When they arrive in Australia, the adult members of the family are amazed by the land of plenty, and are so grateful to “this great country”, where they can start a new life and where hard work is rewarded. Anh’s parents work all hours so that they can provide a better life for their 3 children. …[Read More]
How can we make lockdown a more edifying experience?
When I was at uni, I took an Aesthetics class. The Philosophy of Art. I don’t remember much from that course except for a couple of essays on Plato and Tolstoy. Plato was keen that when educating the young men of his Republic that their art be censored and that the youth should only consume art that promoted nobility. So poetry shouldn’t be about loucheness and hedonism, rather they should be about promoting bravery in battle and moral uprightness. I was reminded of this recently after binge-watching a series of Mindhunter on Netflix, a show about the FBI’s profiling of serial killers in the 1970s. This is show that goes deep into the minds and motivations of deeply disturbed people, and it’s very entertaining and very compelling. We watched this off the back of Unabomber, another Netflix show, this time about the hunt for another serial killer, Ted Kaczynski. Again very entertaining and …[Read More]
Cooking more during the lockdown
I’m a creature of habit. At home, we eat the same food all the time: a bit of protein always like steak, salmon, fish cakes, some carbs (generally pasta), and some veg (we’re very partial to broccolini as it cooks so quickly). In lockdown, however, I crave foods I’d never normally cook as I can get them in restaurants or by a takeaway. Deliveroo doesn’t have that many options as many restaurants have shut completely. I wanted duck pancakes, so I bought ingredients that were closest to them. We had some hoisin sauce already (but no yellow bean sauce, which is the main flavour in duck pancakes). I bought some duck legs ready to be roasted from Sainsbury’s, and some Mission small tortillas (for the ‘pancakes’), some cucumber and spring onions to be finely sliced. I also craved a proper burger, and bought some beef burgers, lettuce, white onions and …[Read More]
What has the lockdown shown us about what’s really important?
On one hand, the lockdown has meant enforced self-isolation, grandparents not being able to see their grandkids, people being cooped up in often tiny flats, and a generation of homeschooled kids. On the other hand though, we’ll never see these extraordinary times again. Less movement means less pollution. There’s reports of dolphins swimming in the canals of Venice, stars being visible again. We’re spending a lot more time with our immediate families and wistfully pining after simple pleasures that we took for granted, such as going for walks when we wanted, going to the pub for a pint, going to the cinema to watch a movie, going to the shops to buy food whenever we wanted. What’s really important? Going out and enjoying nature. We’ve got great parks on our doorstep but we never go. We’ve got Richmond Park, Bushey Park, Hampton Court, Box Hill, Epsom Common, Wimbledon Common, and in …[Read More]