Miscellaneous thoughts on money
and related fields.

“Each "no" to something minor is a "yes" to your goal.”

Most people think saving is a math problem. It's really a question of priorities. Every euro you have can only be spent once, so every purchase is quietly answering a bigger question: what matters most to me right now? The trouble is that we rarely ask it out loud. Small spending decisions feel harmless in the moment: another dinner out, another gadget, another "why not?" Taken one at a time, none of them seem to matter. Added together, they decide whether you reach your goal or keep postponing it. This is where priorities come in. Once you've decided that a goal is truly important, whether it's a down payment, a first investment, or simply some financial freedom, it becomes your reference point. Instead of asking "Can I afford this?", you start asking "Does this move me toward what I want most?" That's a much more useful question, because the answer is often clearer than you'd expect. Most minor expenses simply don't make the cut, and skipping them stops feeling like sacrifice. It becomes a trade you're glad to make. Saying no doesn't have to mean giving up your social life either. Suggest a drink instead of a full dinner, or host at home. You stay connected with the people you care about and stay loyal to your goal at the same time. I picked this quote because it reframes a "no" as something positive. You're not depriving yourself, you're choosing what you want more.

“Take a simple, basic idea and take it very seriously.”— Charlie Munger

Munger's line echoes a broader truth, one also found in "less is more" and in William Green's Richer, Wiser, Happier: in genuinely complex systems, the simplest solution is usually the most effective one. Markets aren't complex just because they have many variables — the real issue is that even the forces you can identify often can't be quantified, and sometimes you can't even tell if they'll push outcomes up or down. Modeling this after the fact is hindsight bias in disguise: it produces sophisticated models that feel rigorous but predict nothing. If markets can't be reliably modeled, the answer isn't more complexity — it's less. A simple framework enables decisive action, filters out noise, and is far easier to verify over time than a ten-variable model ever could be. The verdict: overcomplication isn't sophistication, it's a way of feeling in control of what you can't control. And this logic isn't just for markets — it applies to life too, where less complexity means less stress and more room for what matters.

“Keeping up with the Joneses”— Charlie Munger, Morgan Housel

"Keeping up with the Joneses" is a well-known English idiom, and its meaning is worth spelling out clearly. Definition: the pursuit of social status through material wealth. Conclusion: this strategy is inherently unwinnable and self-defeating. Here's how it plays out. You live in a neighborhood where everyone has a bigger house than you. The thought creeps in, again and again, until eventually you buy that bigger house too. Then the neighbors change their cars. Now you feel behind, so you change yours — maybe you couldn't even really afford it. What you're missing is the full picture: their balance sheet and income statement aren't yours. And once you've caught up, how do you actually feel? The research is consistent: not better, and not happier. Ever caught yourself thinking "I'd be happier if I just earned more"? My prediction: you'd move to a nicer neighborhood, and the cycle would simply start over. Nothing changes — you've just raised the stakes. If you can't find contentment with where you are right now, you won't find it later either, no matter what conditions you eventually reach. None of this means you shouldn't improve your circumstances — you absolutely should. But manage your expectations about the emotional payoff. Take control of that variable deliberately: use any extra income to genuinely raise your quality of life, not just to consume more.

“Don't tell me your opinions, show me your portfolio.”— Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Skin in the Game

In one of his books, Taleb explores the risks tied to "skin in the game." Skin in the game — or its enhanced version, "soul in the game" — describes a condition in which someone is exposed not only to the upside of a transaction, but to its downside as well. And by "transaction" I mean this in the broadest possible sense: he ranges across politics, journalism, forecasting and commentary, corporate management, even belief systems and minorities (vegetarians, the lactose intolerant). What's the actual point? Simply put: if you suggest, advise, or do something that affects other people while being exposed only to the upside, you have little incentive to think carefully about the consequences. But if you're exposed to those consequences too, your choices are far more likely to be aligned with your own downside — because now you have something to lose. When that alignment is missing, Taleb calls it an absence of "risk transfer." It's one of the central asymmetries of daily life, and examples are everywhere. One category worth watching closely: financial influencers. They don't share your downside. They care about the traffic and engagement their content generates — nothing more. That's an asymmetric exposure by definition: they have no skin in the game. So no matter how your financial life turns out after engaging with their content, they've already gotten what they wanted — your attention. Remember: financial decisions carry real, lasting consequences, and finance may be the field most vulnerable to what I'd call "expert syndrome" — confident advice from people who bear none of the cost when it's wrong.

“The only thing that is certain is that certainty does not exist.”

A concept that is not new… Ancient philosophers had a similar saying, the more popular being “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know” by Aristotle. Everything in life falls within this paradox. When dealing with investments you’re dealing with the future. How can one be so presumptuous to believe knowing what the future holds, how the world will be? There are so many variables: it is a complex system. It is near impossible to provide forecasts in financial markets and mathematics is not the right tool to describe them. We live in an uncertain world, thus in uncertainty we shall learn to live. When investing, one should have very clear the outcome distribution of its positions: if you don’t know it, it is better leaving the table. Very important is, though, that the outcome distribution cannot be built out of the past, it must come from common judgment. In this setting, what matters most are the characteristics (moments) of the distribution, not its precise form. Maximum loss, maximum gain, expected outcome and the very determinant skewness and kurtosis. When investing, one should have very clear that the outcome distribution that came out from common judgment might be completely wrong. Try not to be wrong on maximum loss and you’ll, at least, have half the job complete. Common judgement is growing on experience.

“Compounded Return — a concept that is actually abused and not well understood.”

Everyone talks about compounded returns when addressing expectations on their investments while the main assumption in that measure is in most of the cases absolutely ignored. The assumption requires that these investments have to work for a very long period of time. Actually, very few people have the right conditions to exploit it. The practice of financial planning doesn’t necessarily means trying to achieve the highest return, rather it deals with increasing the chance of achieving a good and satisfactory one. That is: creating the right conditions. This is a difference between practice and theory. Assessing the assumptions, addressing and creating the right conditions makes for the most of the work. Then, there are the infinite tools with which achieve the goals.

“Pay yourself first, always.”— Key lesson n. 2 — Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki

You are the one who’s making sacrifices, you are the one who does the job, that wakes up early in the morning and goes to bed late. You pay the grocery store, you pay the bills, you pay the bank for your credit card, you pay the bank again for your loan, you pay the school for your children, you pay the government with your taxes, you pay your tenant for your house… Who is going to pay you? Nobody if you don’t do it. Before anything else, you deserve to be paid. Whenever you cash in, put aside some money, save, that’s how you pay yourself. Because sure enough, all the rest will pay other people. You don’t deserve to be broke, but if you don’t pay yourself first, you will.

“If wealth is what you look for, your job has nothing to with your success of achieving it. Learn to distinguish Assets from Liabilities.”— Key lesson n. 1 — Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki

With your money you can buy assets or liabilities. Assets increase their value as time goes by, while liabilities lose it or even require more money. Accumulating assets will bring you more income. Accumulating liabilities will bring you more expenses. Deciding where your money flow is the first step to riches.

“Three laws for reasonable investment decisions: 1. find and understand the value driver; 2. Survive: avoid things that could wipe you out; 3. Don’t interrupt the compounding.”

The first law is fundamental and essential: without clearly understanding what is that creates value in an investment and without a good matching of that to your goal, you’re not playing the game you think you are. Once you have achieved the first one, you must understand the role of randomness of the world we live in. Understanding it, or at least being humble enough to not playing with it, means being able to survive (in the game) whatever happens. It means thinking thoroughly of very adverse outcomes and check whether “Game Over” is a possibility. If it is, change strategy. Game Over must not be an option. Finally, the compounding is the real magic. Little by little steps creates wonders. Do not interrupt it unnecessarily: plan ahead! The amount of liquidity and insurance here play the biggest role.

“Two things that seems expensive but they’re not: liquidity and insurance. They’re expensive when you consider the price of having them. But what’s the price of not having them?”

Here, opportunity costs are huge and dramatically underrated. It is true that a large portfolio share left in short-term liquid assets has a high price: we could earn more on those resources if they’d be invested in higher earning assets. But, what’s the value of that liquidity if you need it unexpectedly? Or better, what if there comes opportunities of buying dirt cheap assets and earning way higher returns? What’s the price of not being able to exploit that once-in-years opportunity? Insurance multiplies this reasoning. We will have 99% of times of good outcomes in which you’re losing money on insurance (luckily), but there’s still a 1% of Game Over risk, in a personal situation where economic fragility is not a thing one should bear. This is a classical example of laws two and three violations.

“With money you can either buy things or you can choose to be free, safe, independent, autonomous, loved.”

The only thing you need to do is to ask yourself a simple question before every material purchase: “is this more important than my freedom? My safety? My independence? My Autonomy? My self love and the one of others?” If you wish to be a certain person but your financial statements say otherwise, well, guess what, you’re not going to be that person. “We become the actions we take, the decisions we make.” Everything starts from a single thought and the action we take from that thought.

“Market prices are just other people’s mismanagement of their money and possessions. Had one allocated his capital thoroughly, there would be no need for it now. Thus, the transaction wouldn’t exist and so the price.”

Prices in financial markets only exist because other people are transacting: either buying or selling. The point is that you don’t know what game they’re playing; it is very likely that it’s a different game than yours. Market prices are the amount of currency units that people are willing to give up RIGHT NOW in order to lock in a marginal ownership of a public company: it is the price for liquidity for a given asset.

“Everything needs time. Take your time you lazy bastard, don’t be greedy.”

Does a plant grow within the day? No. At least if we’re talking about oaks. So tell me why businesses, the underlying of ownership contracts (stocks), are expected to deliver value as quickly as possible. Nonsense.