This week: Goals we can control → The rich are leaving → Tough times ahead? → Wider wealth gap but better for everyone → Control test for your goals → Timeless classic quote on control.
THE BIGGEST LESSON:
In April, at the start of the UK tax year, I set myself two investing goals. Unlike previous goals which usually sounded something like "have a portfolio worth £X" I tried something different this time.
I kept it simple, and made sure both goals were things I actually control:
- Let pension, share scheme and S&S ISA automation run monthly.
- Max the £20k S&S ISA allowance.
That's it. The automations run without any further effort from me, and whenever I build up surplus cash on top of my emergency fund, I invest straight into my S&S ISA. I'm on track to max it out by February.
If my goals had been about portfolio growth or dividends instead, they wouldn't have been worth setting, because I can't control the outcome, only the inputs.
Bottom line: every goal I set from here on is built around my inputs. I'll let the outputs take care of themselves.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
UK's third highest taxpayer leaves
Earlier this week, Chris Rokos, the UK's third-highest individual taxpayer announced he's leaving the country, joining a growing exodus of millionaires and billionaires doing the same. It's hard to see this as anything other than bad news for everyone.
The UK is now down roughly £330m in tax revenue, and that gap has to be plugged from somewhere. With the October budget looming, it's likely to come in the form of higher taxes which, given how easy relocation has become for the wealthy, tends to shrink revenue further rather than grow it.
My hope is that the government does something to make the UK a more attractive place to invest and stay. But the next story suggests that's not the direction things are heading.
Chancellor warns of "tough budget"
In an interview with the Financial Times, Chancellor John Healey warned of a "tough budget" ahead. We're just seven weeks out from it landing on 28 October 2026.
Labour says it will stick to its pledge not to raise taxes on "working people" — no changes to the basic, higher, or additional rates of income tax, employee National Insurance, or VAT. But with frozen thresholds and persistent inflation, stealth taxes are already quietly eating into what we keep.
Here's what's being floated as the Budget approaches:
- Pension tax relief — the most talked-about lever the government has never quite pulled. A cap or flat-rate change could be back on the table.
- Capital gains tax — talk of equalising CGT with income tax bands has cooled recently, but it hasn't disappeared entirely.
- Gambling duties — reports suggest an increase to machine games duty on premises hosting slot machines.
- Frozen thresholds — expect these to stay frozen rather than rise with inflation, dragging more people into higher tax bands by stealth.
- Fiscal "buffer" rhetoric — Healey has said he wants the Budget to build in a buffer against uncertainty, which historically has meant "more revenue than strictly needed right now."
Nothing is confirmed until 28 October, but the direction of travel looks like a broad, quiet package rather than one headline-grabbing hike.
Is a wider wealth divide a bad thing?
It was announced this week that the 100 wealthiest Americans now own more than the entire bottom half of the country combined. I wanted to dig a little deeper into whether that's as bad as the headline makes it sound.
In real, inflation-adjusted terms, the bottom 50% of US households are actually wealthier than they were in the 1990s and mid-2010s — their combined net worth has risen substantially, even as the gap above them has widened. And the top 100 rarely just sit on their wealth; most of it was built through value creation, job creation, and (directly or indirectly) higher tax revenues.
So next time a headline like this crosses your feed, it's worth asking whether the gap growing is actually a net negative — or just a more dramatic way of describing everyone getting richer at different speeds.
SOMETHING YOU CAN COPY:
If, like me, you want goals that are genuinely within your control, try running each one through what I call the 3-C Test:
- Control — Can I do this without needing anyone else's permission?
- Cadence — Is this something I repeat, not something I achieve once and forget?
- Causation — If I do this consistently, does my desired outcome actually become more likely?
Run every goal through those three questions, and the focus shifts back to what you can execute, not what you can merely hope for.
QUOTE OF NOTE:
This week's issue is about focusing on what we can control, so my quote comes from over 2,000 years ago — the Stoic philosopher Epictetus:
"Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in a word, whatever are not our own actions.”
If we keep focusing on what we control and let the rest pass us by, I believe we'll all be better for it.
THE TAKEAWAY:
I hope this has nudged you toward setting a few goals that are genuinely within your control. Whether that's in investing, spending, or anything outside of finance altogether.
So ask yourself: do any of my current goals depend on something I don't actually control?
If so — how could you reshape that goal so the outcome depends on you instead?
Thanks for reading, see you next week.
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