Money glossary
Every term used in the courses, defined in plain English. If a word here is used against you in a sales pitch, that is worth noticing.
| Amortisation | The schedule by which a loan is repaid over time. Early payments on a long loan are mostly interest, which is why overpaying early has an outsized effect. |
| Annual percentage rate (APR) | The yearly cost of borrowing including fees, expressed as a percentage. Use it to compare offers; the headline monthly figure is designed to look smaller. |
| Arbitrage | Buying in one market and selling in another where the price is higher. In online income it usually means sourcing goods cheaply and reselling them. |
| Assets | Things you own that have value. In a net-worth calculation, only count what could realistically be converted to money. |
| Buffer or emergency fund | Money set aside specifically to absorb shocks without borrowing. Sized against your risks, held somewhere accessible. |
| Cash flow | Money in and money out over a period. You can be profitable on paper and still fail on cash flow, which is why timing matters as much as totals. |
| Compounding | Earning returns on previous returns. Slow to start and dramatic over decades, which is why time in the market matters more than timing it. |
| Cost drag | The reduction in long-term returns caused by fees. A one percent annual fee sounds small and removes a large share of a lifetime's growth. |
| Diversification | Spreading exposure so that no single failure is fatal. Applies to income sources as much as to investments. |
| Drawdown | The fall from a peak value to a low point. Worth knowing because your tolerance for it, not the average return, determines whether you stay invested. |
| Fixed costs | Costs that do not change with your behaviour in the short term: rent, insurance, loan payments. The hardest to cut and the most important to know. |
| Gross versus net | Gross is before deductions; net is what actually reaches you. Freelancers routinely plan on gross and are surprised by net. |
| Irregular costs | Real costs that do not arrive monthly: annual insurance, car servicing, holidays, gifts, professional fees. The main reason budgets fail. |
| Liabilities | What you owe. Include everything, including informal loans from family, because ignoring them does not make them disappear. |
| Liquidity | How quickly something turns into spendable money without losing value. A buffer must be liquid; a long-term investment need not be. |
| Margin | What is left from a sale after the costs of producing and delivering it. Revenue is vanity; margin is the number that pays your rent. |
| Minimum payment | The smallest amount a lender will accept each month. Paying only this on a high-rate balance can take decades to clear. |
| Net worth | Assets minus liabilities. One number, reviewed quarterly, that tells you whether the direction is right. |
| Passive income | Income that continues with little ongoing work. Almost always requires substantial work or capital first, and is rarely as passive as advertised. |
| Pay yourself first | Moving savings out on payday before spending, rather than saving whatever survives the month. Usually the single most effective change available. |
| Rate floor | The lowest price at which your work covers your own annual costs and non-billable time. Quote below it and you are subsidising your client. |
| Recovery scam | A second fraud aimed at victims of a first one, offering to retrieve lost money for a fee. Assume any such offer is fraudulent. |
| Runway | How many months you could cover essential costs if income stopped today. The number that decides which income routes are realistic for you. |
| Scope creep | A project quietly growing beyond what was agreed and paid for. Prevented in writing at the start, not argued about later. |
| Sinking fund | Money set aside monthly for a known future cost, so that the cost arrives already paid for. |
| Variable costs | Costs that move with your choices: food, transport, entertainment. Where budgets are usually fought and often lost. |
| Withholding | Money set aside from income for tax before you can spend it. For freelancers this is voluntary, which is precisely why it must be automatic. |
| Yield | Income produced by an asset as a percentage of its value. Unusually high advertised yields are a warning, not an opportunity. |
Missing a term you have run into? Send it over and it will be added.
Pick the format that matches how you learn
Group cohorts run every month and cap at twelve people. One-to-one places open a few at a time, because each one takes a fixed block of the week.
Not sure yet? Send a short note about your situation — how many hours a week you have, what you have already tried, and what you want money to do for you. You will get a straight answer about which format fits, or whether neither does.