Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.
Weekly Update
Another busy week in my new job, with Friday in particular being a real test of endurance. I spent more or less the whole day with one case, which I think is now moving forward.
On Saturday we went for a bike ride, and although it wasn’t our longest ride it involved a lot of uphill cycling. We also spent some time walking around the Botanical Gardens (walking because cycling is not allowed there). It was a really nice day as we hit a few parks around the city, and grabbed an ice cream at Weston Park. It’s just a shame the weather wasn’t warmer.
On Saturday evening we went to Peddler market but it wasn’t fantastic. The quality of the street food vendors seems to be getting worse over time. Street food is such a big thing now, it feels like the quality across the board is being diluted by too many people trying to make it.
Budgeting Starts by Looking Backwards
Whenever people talk about budgeting, they tend to imagine something that feels a bit like financial surveillance involving a spreadsheet or an app. The idea is that every pound is carefully logged. Every purchase is categorised. Every trip to Starbucks is coffee judged by the cold glare of a budgeting dashboard.
It sounds disciplined and responsible. It’s adulting in action. It also tends to last about three weeks, if you’re lucky.
The problem with most budgeting advice is that it starts at the wrong end. It assumes that the first step is to begin tracking every single thing you spend going forward. In theory, that sounds sensible. In practice, it’s exhausting. Life is busy enough without having to record every £3.40 Pret sandwich like you’re doing forensic accounting.
Even if you do manage to keep it up for a while, something strange starts to happen. You begin to behave differently. The moment you know you are tracking your spending, your behaviour changes. You hesitate before buying something. You delay purchases. You avoid things you would normally buy. Suddenly you’re performing for the spreadsheet, trying to look like a model citizen of personal finance. Which means the data you’re collecting isn’t actually representative of your real life.
This is why the best place to start a household budget is not by looking forward, it’s by looking backwards. Before you download an app, or build a spreadsheet, before you promise yourself you’ll “be better with money”, open your bank statements and credit card statements for the last three to six months.
Don’t do it to judge yourself. Just observe. Look through the data and really absorb your spending habits. Maybe put a few columns together on a spreadsheet; household shopping, leisure and entertainment, bills, and so on. The exact names don’t matter too much as long as things are grouped logically. Then work out how much you spent in each category.
Those statements contain the most accurate financial data you will ever have: a record of how you actually spent money when nobody was watching. You’ll notice the obvious things immediately. The big fixed costs tend to be easy to spot. The mortgage or rent. Council tax. Energy bills. Insurance. Broadband. Maybe a car payment. These are the structural costs of your life. They show up every month whether you like it or not. Most people already have a rough idea of these.
Where things start to get interesting is in the background noise of everyday spending. Supermarket trips, takeaways, impulse Amazon purchases, or the trip to the Tesco Express for a bottle of milk that sees you spend £20 on milk, chocolate, crisps, and a bottle of wine.
These £10 here, £20 there transactions that never feel significant at the time. Individually, none of them look particularly dramatic and that’s exactly why they slip under the radar.
However, when you look at them over three or four months, patterns start to appear. The supermarket shop you thought was £60 a week is actually £110 most weeks. The occasional takeaway turns out to be three or four a month. The streaming services you barely notice are quietly costing £50 or £60 when you add up the cost of Netflix, Disney+, Now TV, and so on.
This is where many people have their first real budgeting realisation. Most people are fairly accurate when estimating their large expenses. But they are usually wildly wrong about the smaller, variable spending that fills the gaps between those big bills. It’s not because they are irresponsible. Simply because small transactions are easy to forget.
Budgeting is not really about controlling spending in the first instance. It is about understanding it. You cannot meaningfully change your financial behaviour if you don’t first understand what your current behaviour actually looks like.
Looking back over several months allows you to build a baseline. Not a theoretical budget based on good intentions, but a realistic picture of the financial life you are already living.
Think of it like a financial diagnostic scan. Before a doctor prescribes treatment, they run tests to see what is actually going on. They don’t start by guessing.
Your bank statements perform the same function for your money. They show you what your life actually costs. Not what you think it costs. Not what you hope it costs. Not what you tell yourself it costs. Just the truth, and that truth is invaluable.
Once you understand where your money has been going, you can start to make deliberate decisions about where you want it to go next. You now have clarity.
Too much personal finance advice frames budgeting as a moral exercise. As if the goal is to shame yourself into spending less. It isn’t. The goal is awareness and mindful spending. This is at the very heart of FI; it’s not about restriction, but rather understanding the impact of your spending habits and making informed decisions.
Once you know the truth about your spending, you can decide, calmly and deliberately, what you want to change, what you want to keep, and what genuinely adds value to your life. The first step isn’t building a complicated system, it’s opening your bank statements and asking one simple question: Where has my money actually been going?
The Greatest Science Fiction Shows
I’ve noticed a few posts this week listing sci-fi shows and movies with titles like “best ever” and “greatest of all time”. I thought I’d enter the chat and list my top ten sci-fi shows of all time, starting at number ten and working my way to the best one of all over the next ten weeks. And so we start with number ten…
10 – The Outer Limits (1995–2002)
The 1990s revival of The Outer Limits brought the classic anthology concept into the modern television era. Running from 1995 to 2002, the series updated the original show’s formula of standalone science-fiction stories but leaned much more heavily into darker themes, advanced technology, and moral dilemmas.
Each episode tells a self-contained story, usually centred around a scientific breakthrough, alien encounter, or technological development that forces characters to confront difficult ethical questions. The tone is often unsettling or tragic, with many stories ending in ironic or disturbing twists.
One of the most memorable episodes is “Sandkings.” Based on a story by George R. R. Martin, it follows a man who acquires strange alien creatures as exotic pets. At first they seem like harmless curiosities, but the creatures rapidly evolve into intelligent, organised societies that begin to reshape their environment, and ultimately turn on their owner. The episode is widely regarded as one of the strongest premieres in science-fiction television.
The episode “The Sentence” explores the dangers of neural technology used to simulate prison sentences in minutes instead of years. A violent criminal experiences what feels like decades of imprisonment inside a virtual environment before being released back into the real world. The story raises disturbing questions about punishment, rehabilitation, and the psychological consequences of manipulating human perception. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had a very similar story involving one of its main characters, who is convicted of a crime and completes a decades long sentence in just a few moments.
One episode that has always stuck with me is “Trial by Fire” in which the US President on the day of his inauguration is faced with a fleet of alien ships approaching Earth. This episode is very much a “bottle episode” with the vast majority of it taking place in an underground bunker. The story develops as the different officials and military officers debate whether the aliens are peaceful or not. It’s a tense episode with the usual tragic twist at the end.
Throughout its run, The Outer Limits excelled at presenting science fiction as moral thought experiments. Rather than focusing purely on spectacle, the series asked difficult questions about cloning, artificial intelligence, alien life, punishment, and human nature. Many episodes feel less like traditional television and more like short philosophical parables wrapped in science-fiction concepts.
For viewers who enjoy anthology storytelling in the tradition of The Twilight Zone or the darker technological speculation of Black Mirror, the 1990s Outer Limits remains one of the most underrated science-fiction series ever produced.
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What I’m Doing
Listening: Empire: Chess Team Book 8 by Jeremy Robinson and Sean Ellis.
Watching: The Tourist (BBC iPlayer).
Reading: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Financial Update
Assets
Premium Bonds: £3,000.00.
Stocks and Shares ISA: £130,446.98.
Fuck It Fund: £5,114.83.
Pensions: £116,259.52.
Residential Property Value: £243,430.00.
Total Assets: £498,251.33.
Debts
Residential Mortgage: £174,369.33.
Total Debts: £174,369.33.
Total Wealth: £323,882.00.
Betting on War
I saw this post on Facebook the other day:
I wasn’t sure how genuine the claim was, so I turned to ChatGPT to fact check it. I’ve included the response at the bottom. For now I just want to comment on prediction markets as a general concept. I’ve just had a quick look on Polymarket, and as of now there are several armed conflicts you can gamble on. There’s the Russian invasion of Ukraine you can bet on, as well as potential conflicts with India and Pakistan, and the potential invasion of Taiwan by China, in addition to the current crisis in Iran. Gambling on war and human suffering… what the fuck is wrong with people?
You can also bet on the number of tweets high profile individuals will publish, or the number of views certain YouTube videos will get. Does this not all just seem a bit odd? It reminds me of that incident a few years back in English football where gambling companies offered odds on whether the substitute goalkeeper for Sutton United, Wayne Shaw, would be seen eating a pie during the match.
When something like this happens, the subject of the wager can’t be neutral in their response. Whether Shaw ate a pie or not, he was influencing the outcome of the bet. If you found out someone was offering odds on whether you would post fifteen or more tweets on a specific date, what would you do? Once you know of the bet, any decision to make is going to be questionable. The whole thing just seems odd and I don’t understand why anyone would gamble on this, unless they knew with certainty they were going to win.
Anyway, that’s all for this week. Check out the ChatGPT output below, and please remember to complete the Check My File offer!
1️⃣ Did people make money betting on the Iran strike?
Yes — this part is real.
Multiple outlets report that users on the prediction market Polymarket made significant profits by betting that the U.S. (and Israel) would strike Iran by 28 February 2026.
- Around six accounts reportedly made about $1.2 million combined betting on the strike date. (Responsible Statecraft)
- One user reportedly turned ~$87,000 into over $500k. (New York Post)
- Another account known as “Magamyman” made hundreds of thousands betting on related events. (The Daily Beast)
These bets were placed shortly before the attacks, which has raised suspicions of insider knowledge.
Important point:
👉 Suspicious ≠ proven insider trading.
Right now the reports say:
- Analysts flagged the trades.
- Politicians called for investigations.
- No confirmed proof of insider involvement has been publicly shown.
2️⃣ Is Polymarket a real betting platform for events like this?
Yes.
Polymarket is a crypto-based prediction market where users buy contracts based on real-world events (elections, wars, etc.). (Responsible Statecraft)
Example:
- “Will the U.S. strike Iran by Feb 28?”
- If you buy shares at $0.10 and it happens, each share pays $1.
So if someone bought 870k shares at $0.10, they could make a huge profit if the event occurs.
This mechanism is basically futures trading mixed with gambling.
3️⃣ Is it legal?
This is where things get messy.
Polymarket operates in a legal grey area because:
- It runs offshore.
- U.S. regulators have limited jurisdiction.
- It uses crypto wallets.
Experts describe the risk of insider trading as a known problem. (Wikipedia)
But:
- Insider trading laws apply differently to prediction markets.
- Proving someone used classified information is extremely difficult.
So:
✔ Betting itself may be legal.
❗ Using secret government information would likely be illegal — but that has not been proven.
4️⃣ Did Donald Trump Jr. have a connection to Polymarket?
Yes — but the post frames it in the worst possible way.
What’s accurate:
- Donald Trump Jr. serves on Polymarket’s advisory board. (The Daily Beast)
- His investment firm has invested in the platform. (News.com.au)
What is not proven:
- That he knew about the strikes.
- That he traded on the platform.
- That the accounts involved had any connection to him or the administration.
The post implies corruption without evidence.
5️⃣ Did the Trump administration shut down investigations?
There were investigations into prediction markets under previous administrations.
But the claim that they were “shut down to protect Polymarket” is not clearly proven.
What reporting says:
- Investigations existed.
- Regulation of prediction markets is still evolving.
- Some enforcement actions changed after political shifts.
That’s very different from the certainty implied in the social media post.
6️⃣ The “six accounts created hours before the attack”
This part appears to come from blockchain analysis:
- Analysts found several accounts created shortly before the strikes.
- They only bet on Iran-related markets.
- They profited heavily.
But again:
⚠️ That raises suspicion — it does not prove insider knowledge.
Possible explanations include:
- Insider information (worst case).
- Lucky speculation.
- Geopolitical analysts making educated bets.
- Bots reacting to intelligence leaks or news signals.
7️⃣ Is this type of betting controversial?
Very much so.
Lawmakers from both parties have criticised these markets because they could:
- Allow people with government knowledge to profit
- Create incentives around war, disasters, or assassinations
- Blur the line between financial markets and gambling
Some politicians are proposing bans on prediction markets tied to government actions. (New York Post)
8️⃣ Biggest exaggerations in the post
These are the misleading parts:
❌ “Someone made a fortune betting hours before the missiles hit.”
→ Some bets were made shortly before the strike, but exact timing and intent remain unclear.
❌ “Trump orbit built themselves a front-row seat.”
→ No evidence links the betting accounts to Trump or his associates.
❌ “The cops were sent home.”
→ Regulation changed and investigations evolved, but that claim oversimplifies a complex regulatory situation.
🧠 Overall Reality Check
A fair summary would be:
- Prediction markets did allow people to bet on a U.S. strike on Iran.
- Several traders made large profits when the strike occurred.
- Some bets were placed suspiciously close to the event.
- Analysts and politicians suspect insider information, but no proof has been presented publicly.
- Donald Trump Jr. is connected to the platform, but there is no evidence he was involved in the bets.
✅ Truth level of the post:
| Claim | Reality |
| People made money betting on the strike | True |
| Accounts were created shortly before | Likely true |
| Profits around $1M | True |
| Trump Jr linked to Polymarket | True |
| Insider trading proven | Not proven |
| Administration corruption | Speculative |
💡 My overall assessment:
This post is a mixture of real reporting + political narrative.
The suspicious betting activity is real and worth scrutiny — but the post jumps from “suspicious trades” to “corrupt war profiteering conspiracy.”
Those are very different levels of evidence.
DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, nor should they be considered advice.
If you want personalised financial advice, seek an appropriate professional. If you are in financial difficulty, seek advice via the resources below:
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Fascinating read. The stuff on budgeting is the kind of thing that should be taught in schools. So many people would benefit.
Agreed. It’s fairly basic stuff once it’s explained.