Personal Development

Another new year has just passed us. I hope everyone has taken advantage of the end of year holidays to get together with their loved ones and have a good time! Now that everything is going back to normal, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on last year and on what’s to come in 2020. I’m not a fan of making resolutions in January just to drop them 3 weeks later, but reflecting back is important to learn from our experiences, and now is as good a time as ever to do it! So I encourage everyone to do it. Here’s mine that I’ll share.

Why is money important to you (or not)? What are your goals in life? What brings you happiness? If you've never done it before, today would be a good moment to stop and reflect on your own self.

Before I start talking about serious financial topics, I'd like to take a moment and discuss about why it's a subject so dear to my heart. When I started working, I'd save part of my paychecks and put it aside. No reason really, I just kept my expenses low. I left that money in my bank account since I didn't need it for anything. The amount of money wasn't life changing, but it was enough to not have to worry if I lost my job so that was good. I knew having money set aside would be a good thing. But I had nothing in mind to do with it so I left it there, rotting away with a measly yearly interest of <1% (thanks a lot, bank). During that time, I lost out on free money: had I invested that money, I could have enjoyed >10% yearly gains thanks to the stock market.