Travelling light
In the midst of my hectic work schedule and turbulent financial markets, my wife often reminds me of the importance of travelling light. It's funny how, the more you have of something, the more important that thing becomes to you. David Eddings, in his Belgariad series (which started as one of my favourite book series but unfortunately descends into farce towards the tail end, but I digress), writes about Murgo gold - a kind of red gold purveyed by the bad guys of the series. The gold has a spell cast on it, so that the more red gold you have, the more you need it, until you are enslaved by it. It's a bit of a coarse allegory, but the point is all the clearer for it. I think the same thing can probably be said about most material things - money, car, house, career. The more money you have, the more you need, the more measures you take to protect it, to invest it, until the fact of having money itself becomes a problem. Which FD has the highest yield? Which stock or unit trust i...