“Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” Warren Buffett

The last Q & A post I compiled from my Quora page has proved pretty popular, so for better or worse, here’s part two.

As an adviser, I was often introduced to what seemed like an endless array of client investment proclivities. I lost count of the various agricultural, real estate and share investment schemes that were “run past me” over the years. There was even one that required purchasing unhatched ostrich eggs ready for incubation!

Shares are better investments than property!

Back during my adviser days, I was often asked: “can you show us how to save money?” Now on the surface, the question (and its many variants) appeared quite the simple problem for trained money professional like me. But in fact, their question was actually asking me to produce what was tantamount to the ‘holy grail’ of financial planning!

Compound interest, or as Albert Einstein reputedly referred to it as “the eighth wonder of the world.” has been hijacked. Yep, you read it right, highjacked! It appears the world of financial marketers and a bunch of charlatans and hucksters have taken this humble formula and are portraying it as some sort of ‘Holy Grail’ of investing, capable of creating millions of dollars from virtually nothing.

Great information to save you money

Here’s some pretty valuable financial advice I’ve gathered over the last 25 years of being an adviser. My purpose in sharing these 5 tips is to allow you to be able to shape your thinking, off the back of my experience. Experience is an extremely good teacher but sometimes, you just haven’t been in the game long enough to acquire a lot of it.

For all but a lucky few, buying a home means borrowing money. So much, in fact, that repaying it can span most of your adult life. And you don’t need the services of a mortgage calculator to illustrate the financial impact this is going to have.

For a number of years, I have been a contributor to a site called “Quora”. It’s a question and answer site that covers just about every conceivable topic you could think of. Anyone and everyone can submit questions and then await an answer. And the answer(s) could be written by a Rhodes Scholar or a high school drop out and everyone in between.

I have recently been reading a number of articles written by people who aspire to early retirement, actually, make that very early retirement. The blogging world seems to be host to a plethora of people whose working life would seem to be just commencing, but are intent on documenting their path to a life of leisure by the time they are 35 years old.