The Strait of Hormuz has been shut since the end of February. A fifth of the world's oil normally goes through it. When it closed, prices jumped, and that is the single biggest reason three people at the Bank of England voted last month to put interest rates up rather than down. Then talks started. Brent crude averaged $85 a barrel in June, twenty-two dollars below May, and by the first of July it had dropped under $70. A deal was signed in June, fell apart in July, and both sides are talking again now. So here's where you actually are. If that deal holds, energy gets cheaper, inflation stays calm and the pressure comes off your bills. If it falls apart again, forecasters have UK inflation climbing to around 3.5% by Christmas, up from 2.6% today. Two completely different winters, and it turns on a negotiation you have no vote in. Takeaway: you cannot control the Strait of Hormuz. You can control what happens on payday. So stop waiting for the news to settle before you act, because it isn't going to, and the version of you waiting for a calm month has been waiting since February. Check what your savings are actually paying this week. The average easy access account pays 2.49%. If inflation goes where they think it's going, that's a real loss every month, quietly, whether the deal happens or not. What are you still holding off on until things "settle down"? Put it below.

1. WATCH — Dan Ariely, "Are we in control of our own decisions?" (TED, 2008) ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions He shows organ donor rates across Europe. In countries where you tick a box to join the register, almost nobody joins. In countries where you tick a box to leave it, almost everybody stays. Same people. Same values. All that changed was which way the form was already pointing. Your bank account has a default too, and it points at spending. Money lands, it sits there, and your brain files it as available. Do this: pick one thing and set the standing order to leave on payday, not on the 1st. You are not trying harder. You are just turning the form around. 2. READ — Scarcity, by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir (2013) They tested sugarcane farmers in India twice. Once before harvest when money was tight, once after harvest when it was not. The same farmers scored worse on thinking tasks before harvest than after. Money worry does not just make you feel bad. It takes up room you need for thinking. So when you sit down to sort your money at the exact moment you are most stressed about it, you are doing the hardest job with the least brain. Do this: move your money admin to the two or three days after you get paid, and put it in the diary now. Same job, same you, better conditions. 3. DO (10 minutes) — the free Cash Flow Model thewayofwealth.shop/cash-flow-model Ten questions, about three minutes, and you get a report back. It maps where your money actually goes each month and shows you what that pace gets you by the time you stop working. Most people carry a rough guess in their head and the guess is always kinder than the number. Better to know now while you can still change it. Comment the number of the one you're actually doing this weekend. 1, 2 or 3 . I'll check back Monday and ask you how it went.

Both big central banks met last week, and both did the same thing: nothing. The US Federal Reserve held rates at 3.75%, and the Bank of England held at 3.75% too, each for the fifth time this year. But the bit that actually matters is how split they were. At both banks, some members didn't want to hold, and they didn't want to cut. They wanted to raise. Three at the Fed, three at the Bank of England, all pointing at energy prices creeping back up and worried inflation isn't beaten yet. The Fed's own chairman called it a good family fight. So the story has quietly flipped. For a year the only question was how soon rates would come down. Now, for the first time, going up is back on the table. The takeaway: if part of you has been holding on, waiting for rates to drop so things finally feel easier, it might be worth letting that hope go. Not because the news is bad, but because the calm you're waiting for was never going to come from the Bank of England. It comes from what you build underneath it, whatever they decide. This is economic analysis and behavioural coaching, not financial advice. Joel — MSc Behavioural Economics | Qualified Financial Planner

📖 The Ostrich Effect — University of Virginia The proper name for the thing you already do: not checking your bank because you're scared of what you'll see. Turns out avoiding the number costs you more than the number ever would. 🎧 Morgan Housel on The Diary of a CEO The best hour you'll spend on why we spend the way we do. His line is that money just amplifies who you already are, and there's a part on how being skint once can quietly run your money for years after. 🎥 Saving for Tomorrow, Tomorrow — Shlomo Benartzi (TED, 18 min) Why "I'll start saving next month" never actually happens, explained so it finally clicks, plus the one trick that gets round it without needing willpower. Which one are you grabbing first? Tell me below.