Even the financial greats are human

Even personal finance icons, such as Mrs Moneypenny, aren't always on top of their finances as Nima Abu Wardeh discovered when she listened to her talk at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.

Gary Clement for The National.

What a relief it is to discover that even a doyenne of financial advice can make money mistakes.
I don't say this because I am gloating - far from it. I have my fair share of money matters that need to be addressed and fixed. Rather, it reminds me that we all struggle with some money matter or other, no matter how astute we are.
This is not any old personal finance icon. I'm referring to Mrs Moneypenny - aka Heather McGregor. Read her bio and she comes across as an invincible superwoman, which I'm sure she is on many levels. But she's also human, and just like the rest of us she too can get sucked into things that take her away from simple money matters that can make a big difference.
In her case, it's her mortgage. Mrs Moneypenny's biggest financial priority today is to own her home. She took a mortgage out in 2008 as an interest-only plan, and only in 2012 did she get around to changing it to a repayment mortgage, restructuring terms to better suit her earnings pattern. She did this after going away on a detox that aimed to cleanse her body and mind. While there Mrs Moneypenny realised that the No 1 issue playing on her mind was that she didn't own her home, and in fact hadn't made a dent in paying off the large mortgage she took out to buy it. Being in her fifth decade of life and not dealing with it had been niggling away and consuming her at some level.
Why did she wait four years to do it? Because she hadn't made the time for it, even though this meant having to find an extra £10,000 pounds a year with the old plan.
Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Especially as she's known for her sage personal finance advice. But it goes to show that we'd much rather take the easy road of more of the same instead of spending time and effort sorting something out. But it costs us dearly, as you can see from Heather's example.
Spending time on our finances is Mrs Moneypenny's big message.
And here's another bit of advice for us living here in the UAE:
"If I had my expat experience again, I'd save more money." Having lived in Hong Kong and Singapore, she knows what people like us can get up to. And she knows what it's like to look back on the years abroad on tax-free earnings - with an element of regret it would seem.
Her career has taken her from working in a bank to running her own business and more. She is an entrepreneur - Heather owns a headhunting firm, is a columnist with the Financial Times who has transitioned from writing about money and life based on what her family gets up to, to writing about career advice for women, and has authored books along the same lines.
I met up with Heather at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature that was held in Dubai last weekend, and I must say I enjoyed her session and chatting with her in person more than reading her book, Financial Advice for Independent Women.
She touches upon key issues that we - men and women - need to address, but does it much more forcefully in person. Add to this that the book is a UK-centric read - which is fair enough as that's where she is based.
You'd think that someone who took her company's turnover from under £2 million (Dh11.08m) to £15m a year, who holds an MBA and has a doctorate in structured finance, would be very much on top of their personal finances. But there's something reassuring in the fact that she isn't.
We're all human. Mistakes will be made. Mrs Moneypenny has been honest enough to share her faux pas with us. Now make the time to fix yours.
Nima Abu Wardeh is the founder of the personal finance website cashy.me. You can reach her at [e-mail]
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