The Adventure Begins

Ever read Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick? In which time starts to run backwards? In an interesting way (as opposed to a scary one) that seems to be happening to me:-) Having found ourselves, after 18 years together, in a set of circumstances at considerable odds to our original values, my wife and I have restructured our lives. The details are not hugely important, suffice it to say that we are basically risk takers who had found ourselves increasingly adopting a security mentality, and one that would never see us succeed. Years of "ooh, you must have a mortgage", "what will you do when you retire"... pension this, savings that. We found ourselves in debt to mortgage companies and lenders, paying for pensions that would amount to little if anything, life insurance that probably wouldn't even pay out, insurance on the fridge, kettle, radio... fleeced by people who make a tidy sum from our money without offering much real return.

So, time for a turnaround. Let go of some of the securities so we feel ready to take the risks again. We can save a sum of money every month by cancelling various policies, and take control ourselves. We've opened a share dealing account. Bought a couple of books. And purchased our first shares.

We will be documenting success and failure, discoveries, strategies, ideas. Every pratfall and every "aha" moment along the way. Those of you who know me personally might find share dealing at odds with my generally liberal left values, and the ethical issue are something I hope to address in these posts too.

Sian and Adam would like to invite you to join us as we document our learning curve from total (and I mean total) share dealing newbies to financial independence :-) Let the adventure begin!