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I've previously mentioned that I'm not a fan of buy-to-let. A post over at Monevator caught my eye and sums it up well. As he says, and I agree (despite my cynical choice of blog post image), Don't hate the player. Hate the game... UPDATE - and the hits keep coming ...

A great post over at Sex Health Money Death  highlights one of the reasons that owning your own home is not the best way to an early retirement or increasing your income. Houses: cost money on an ongoing basis. are difficult and expensive to buy and sell. can trap you in negative equity if you buy when they are expensive. may need to be sold to pay for care in old age. The mistake a lot of people make is to plough money into a home while they are working, thinking that it will help them retire. They often forget (or simply don't account for the fact) that the house will not be earning them an income when they retire, but it will require ongoing costs: taxes maintenance insurance Instead, more people should focus on accumulating true assets, like those mentioned in a previous post , namely: Stocks & shares (e.g. like owning a tiny portion of a productive business) Cash Bonds Commodities (especially precious metals) Property (only if it's

So far, I don't think I've added a "getting started" post, or a concise guide on how to manage your money, so this will form the basis for it. 1) Pay off debt. If you have any debts, like credit card balances, store cards, overdrafts or loans, pay them off first. Don't save anything into a savings or investment account until that's done. Pay off the highest interest rate debt first. The only exceptions are mortgage debt and student loans (in the UK anyway). With mortgage debt, you want to make sure you get the lowest possible interest rate, or the lowest total cost over the period (sometimes the interest rate can be lower, but come with upfront fees). With student loan debt, it's actually much more like an extra income tax. It's very difficult to work out whether you are better paying it off, or just putting up with it for the rest of your working life. This largely comes down to how much money you earn (or think you will earn) and

I've been struggling a little in the gym / with my diet lately. I think it's because I ate way too much over Xmas, despite knowing I had a powerlifting competition coming up, which I would need to cut weight for. I went from 133 lb before Xmas to 139 lb after and need to be 129 lb for my weight class. January, February and March saw non-stop training and dieting, which took its toll on my energy levels. The good news is that I set new (local / regional) records in the Squat, Deadlift and Total (140 kg, 170 kg and 400 kg), but sadly wasn't able to extend my benchpress record (92.5 kg) or beat the existing benchpress (all) record, which is 102.5 kg. (For those of you unfamiliar with powerlifting, there are three lifts - Squat, Bench and Deadlift. These three lifts then produce six possible records - all three lifts (3), plus their total (4), when done on one day. The final two records are additional bench (5) and deadlift (6) records, which can be