Podcast by Adrian Kidd
Emotionally Invested
Dealing with all matters money and financial planning and how to simplify the messiness of when life meets money. Developing your own IQ and EQ with money and yourself.
Emotionally Invested
Latest episodes
21 October 2026
Let's talk about comparisons
In this episode of Emotionally Invested, I look at why we compare ourselves to other people, what it does to us psychologically and financially, and what actually helps us stop. I also put real numbers on where UK incomes sit nationally and globally, because the data often tells a very different story from how we feel.
What we cover
- Where the comparing instinct comes from, including Leon Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory and the difference between upward and downward comparison
- Why a brain built for a village of 150 people struggles with a world of curated highlight reels
- What comparison does to us: it moves the goalposts on “enough”, distorts our decisions, speeds up hedonic adaptation, and is linked to anxiety, low mood, damaged relationships and chronic stress
- How lifestyle creep and comparison feed each other, so the goalposts move every time we gain ground
- Where £30,000, £50,000, £75,000, £100,000 and £150,000+ sit in the UK income distribution, and where they sit globally
- Some practical tools to loosen comparison’s grip, from naming the comparison as it happens to having honest conversations about money with people you trust
Key takeaways
- Comparison is a normal human instinct, not a character flaw, but it is badly suited to the modern world
- “Enough” defined by other people is a race you can’t win
- Our felt sense of where we stand is usually shaped by a handful of people, not by the national or global picture
- Building your definition of enough from your own values gives comparison much less to grab onto
Ideas and people mentioned
- Leon Festinger, Social Comparison Theory
- Morgan Housel, on the idea of “enough”
- George Kinder’s Three Questions
- Robert Emmons, research on gratitude
- Hedonic adaptation and lifestyle creep
- Matthew McConaughey's Oscar acceptance speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTTUprhn_1Q
A note on the data
UK figures are individual gross income before tax, based on HMRC taxpayer income data (2023/24). Global comparisons draw on World Bank income distribution data and are rougher estimates, as different sources adjust for cost of living differently.
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01:09:34
08 October 2026
Let's talk about AI
The Machine Will See You Now
Last month, Anthropic, the company behind the AI assistant Claude, moved into financial advice. It launched a new tool for advisers, and early versions of its app show a feature that would let you link your bank accounts and ask Claude about your money.
So will AI replace financial advisers? I think that's the wrong question. The better one is: what part of financial advice was ever really about the numbers?
In this episode, I separate the headlines from the hype. I'm honest about where AI already beats people like me: cost, speed, admin, and being free of judgement at midnight. I also explore the three layers of empathy (cognitive, emotional and compassionate) and what Claude can and can't do at each one. Then I turn to the risks: privacy, the difference between guidance and regulated advice, and why a confident answer isn't always a correct one.
If you've ever asked an app a money question you haven't asked a person, this one's for you.
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56:23
26 September 2026
Let's talk about housing and mortgages
Bar a life partner, buying a home is the biggest emotional purchase most of us will ever make. In this episode I go through what you actually need to know about UK housing and mortgages right now — the mechanics, and the psychology underneath them that most financial content skips entirely.
In this episode:
- Where UK mortgage rates actually stand today, and why chasing the "right moment" to buy is a game even the professionals get wrong
- Fixed, tracker, and variable mortgages explained — and why drifting onto your lender's standard variable rate is one of the costliest accidents in personal finance
- How a lender really sees you: income multiples, the affordability stress test, and how your credit file and existing debts move the number they'll actually lend
- Deposits, the Lifetime ISA, and the Mortgage Guarantee Scheme — the real help that exists for first-time buyers
- The full process, start to finish — from viewing and offer through survey, searches, exchange, and completion day, and a realistic timeline for how long it all takes
- Stamp duty: what you'll actually owe, and why it needs budgeting for in cash, months ahead
- The remortgage cliff, and why it's fine to feel the jump before you problem-solve it
- Why buying a home is the biggest emotional purchase most of us make, bar a life partner — the endowment effect, the planning fallacy, and what that comparison should change about how you approach it, alone or with a partner
- Worked example: a £300,000 repayment mortgage at 4.5% — £1,667.50 a month over 25 years versus £1,419.77 over 35 years, and what the extra decade actually costs you in total interest
Mentioned in this episode:
- Bank of England — Bank Rate: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/the-interest-rate-bank-rate
- MoneyHelper — Mortgage calculator: https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/homes/buying-a-home/mortgage-calculator
- GOV.UK — Stamp Duty Land Tax calculator: https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/calculate-stamp-duty-land-tax/#/intro
- GOV.UK — Lifetime ISA: https://www.gov.uk/lifetime-isa
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01:23:28
10 September 2026
Let's talk about investing Pt 2 - Asset Allocation
Everyone obsesses over which stock to pick or when to time the market — but the research says the real driver of your investment outcome is something far less exciting: how you split your money across asset classes in the first place.
In this episode, we trace asset allocation back to its unlikely origin — a 25-year-old graduate student named Harry Markowitz who, in 1952, was the first person to mathematically prove that diversification isn't just a good instinct, it's provable. From there, we get into why asset allocation is really a behavioural question dressed up as a math problem — why a "textbook correct" portfolio can still fail if you can't emotionally stick with it through a downturn.
We also unpack the three different risks pulling on every portfolio (market, longevity, and inflation), why "playing it safe" often means trading a visible risk for an invisible one, and — because it wouldn't be this show without it — why club selection on the golf course is the perfect metaphor for building a portfolio you can actually live with.
If you've ever wondered why your mix matters more than your picks, this one's for you.
https://novelinvestor.com/asset-class-sector-and-global-market-quilts-updated-for-2025/
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53:10
24 August 2026
Let's talk about The 5 Regrets of the Dying
In this episode
- The regret that came up more than any other — and what it means for financial plans built around someone else's expectations
- Why "I wish I hadn't worked so hard" showed up in every man Ware cared for
- The connection between undiscussed finances and undiscussed feelings
- What 85 years of Harvard data say about relationships, wealth, and what actually predicts a long, happy life
- Scottie Scheffler's Open Championship press conference — the world No. 1 saying the euphoria of winning "only lasts a few minutes"
- Why so many people never let themselves enjoy the money they worked so hard to build
Sources referenced
- Bronnie Ware, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying (Hay House, 2012) — bronnieware.com/blog/regrets-of-the-dying | book listing
- The Harvard Study of Adult Development, directed by Robert Waldinger, MD (Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School) — adultdevelopmentstudy.org
- Below is an excerpt from the press conference; if you find the YouTube video it about 20 minutes in and is the best answer from a sportsman I have heard yet!
Q. You talk about the show goes on, which it does. What would be the longest you've ever celebrated something? What was the most crushing loss or the time it took to get over one?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I think it's kind of funny, I think I said something after the Byron this year about like it feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for like a few minutes. It only lasts a few minutes, that kind of euphoric feeling.
To win the Byron Nelson Championship at home, I literally worked my entire life to become good at golf to have an opportunity to win that tournament. You win it, you celebrate, get to hug my family, my sister's there, it's such an amazing moment. Then it's like, okay, what are we going to eat for dinner? Life goes on.
Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf? Yeah, it brings tears to my eyes just to think about because I've literally worked my entire life to be good at this sport. To have that kind of sense of accomplishment, I think, is a pretty cool feeling. To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I'm not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I'm not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world because what's the point? This is not a fulfilling life. It's fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it's not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart.
There's a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfill them in life, and you get there, you get to No. 1 in the world, and they're like what's the point? I really do believe that because what is the point? Why do I want to win this tournament so bad?
That's something that I wrestle with on a daily basis. It's like showing up at the Masters every year; it's like why do I want to win this golf tournament so badly? Why do I want to win The Open Championship so badly? I don't know because, if I win, it's going to be awesome for two minutes. Then we're going to get to the next week, hey, you won two majors this year; how important is it for you to win the FedExCup playoffs? And we're back here again.
So we really do; we work so hard for such little moments. I'm kind of sicko; I love putting in the work. I love getting to practice. I love getting to live out my dreams. But at the end of the day, sometimes I just don't understand the point.
(Laughter).
I don't know if I'm making any sense or not. Am I not? It's just one of those deals. I love the challenge. I love being able to play this game for a living. It's one of the greatest joys of my life, but does it fill the deepest wants and desires of my heart? Absolutely not.
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54:36
07 August 2026
Let's talk about time
How Much Time Do You Actually Have Left?
In this episode, I look at why our internal sense of time is so unreliable — why the years speed up as we get older, why the future always feels blurrier and more distant than it actually is, and why the things that matter most (a parent, a child, a friendship) so easily lose out to things with a deadline attached, purely because they don't have one.
Then the numbers: real UK life expectancy at different ages, the often-overlooked gap between lifespan and healthspan, and a set of simple exercises — how many visits are actually left with an ageing parent, how much of your time with your kids has already happened before they're even a teenager — that turn a vague future into a countable one. The episode closes with what this should actually change about how you spend money and time, drawing on George Kinder's Three Questions and the life-planning work this podcast keeps
Mentioned in this episode:
- ONS National Life Tables — look up life expectancy by your own age and sex: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/datasets/nationallifetablesunitedkingdomreferencetables
- Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman — on the average human lifespan, laid out in weeks, and what it means to take that limit seriously
- The Kinder Institute's Three Questions (George Kinder) — the life-planning exercise referenced in the episode's close https://www.lifeplanningforyou.com/main/homepage/?i=0
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46:26