The Number That Changed Nothing
Sometimes the number changes. The story changes faster. One financial number can become the whole story in our head before we stop to ask what actually changed.
Read the essay →The Journal of Mike (Michael) Petry
MIKE PETRY JOURNAL
Money · Wealth · Behaviour · Investing · Freedom · The life behind the numbers
Featured
All essays →What Are We Teaching Our Children About Money?
Children learn about money long before we explain saving or investing. Most of their first lessons come from watching us.
Read →The Salary Wasn't the Number That Mattered
What a bus driver in Mauritius taught me about savings rate, financial freedom and the life money is actually meant to buy.
Read →Latest Essays
View all →The Money Is Still There. The Wealth Is Not.
Why the amount of money in an account can tell you very little about the life it can support.
Read →Buying Back Your Mornings
Money is not for buying the life that looks good from the outside. It is for buying back your own mornings.
Read →Looking Rich Is Not the Same as Being Wealthy
The things that signal wealth are often the things that quietly consume it.
Read →Discipline Runs Out. Systems Don't.
Financial progress becomes easier when the environment does some of the work for you.
Read →Interviews
View all →Conversations with people who think differently about money, work, wealth and the life we are trying to build.
What Is Money Actually For?
A conversation about financial freedom, enough, and why building wealth is only useful if it gives something back to your life.
Mike Petry · Conversation
Read interview →
The Psychology Behind Our Money Decisions
How emotions, habits and the people around us quietly influence the financial choices we make.
Mike Petry · Interview
Read interview →
Building Wealth Without Building a Life Around It
A conversation about work, ambition, investing and knowing when more is no longer the point.
Mike Petry · Conversation
Read interview →
Podcasts
What NTM Told Us
Ideas about money, investing, financial psychology and the decisions behind the numbers.
How to Teach Kids About Money
An episode about the money lessons children absorb before we ever sit down to teach them.
Listen
NobodyToldMike on YouTube
The practical side of the same ideas: investing, FIRE, money psychology and financial freedom.
Books
Mike's bookshelf →
The Psychology of Money
Morgan Housel on the behaviour, stories and emotions behind our financial decisions.
Find it on Amazon →
Atomic Habits
James Clear on building systems that make better behaviour easier to repeat.
Find it on Amazon →
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman's exploration of the shortcuts and biases behind everyday decisions.
Find it on Amazon →Some book links may be affiliate links. If you buy through one, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.
Money & Life
More ideas →When the Emotion Decides
The financial decision often starts before we know we are making one.
Explore →Wealth ≠ Rich
Income can make you look successful. Wealth is what gives you room to choose.
Explore →The Lifestyle Inflation Trap
The problem is rarely one expensive purchase. It is what becomes normal afterwards.
Explore →Whose Numbers Are You Living By?
Sometimes the financial target belongs to somebody else before we realise it.
Explore →About Mike
More about Mike →
I've spent more than 20 years around money. I'm still more interested in what it does to people.
I have worked across the Big 4 and Big Tech, on finance organisations, transformations, systems and processes. Along the way, I learned that understanding how money works is only part of understanding money.
Mike Petry Journal is where I write, think and explore the relationship between money and life.
About Mike →“Money is for buying back the nights you would otherwise spend solving someone else's problem.”