The Making Sense Blog
Thoughts on money, mindset, and building a life that makes sense.
Posts
Advisory
A Budget Is a Promise. A Forecast Is a Question.
Budget season is close. A budget records what you hoped when you wrote it. A forecast tells you what you now believe, and that is what an owner needs.
31 October 2026 · 4 min read
Personal finance
I Did Not Give Him the Allocation. I Gave Him the Homework.
A client who already knew the vocabulary wanted a plan. The quickest answer would not have helped him. Here is what I asked him to do instead.
27 October 2026 · 3 min read
Advisory
Your Numbers Do Not Have to Be Good. They Have to Tie.
Before anyone asks whether your numbers are good, they ask whether they can trust them. Why reports that agree with each other matter most.
20 October 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMindset
Rich Is What People Can See. Wealthy Is What They Can't.
Many people hear build wealth and translate it as stop enjoying your money. So they never start. The visible part of money is not the wealth.
13 October 2026 · 4 min read
Advisory
Your Biggest Customer Might Be Your Least Profitable
Revenue tells you who pays you the most. It does not tell you who is worth keeping. A simple way to look beneath the invoice.
6 October 2026 · 5 min read
Career & Leadership
Most Stuck Decisions Are Not Hard. They Are Unranked.
A client spent months stuck between a job and her own business. We never answered that question. We ranked what she wanted instead.
29 September 2026 · 3 min read
Advisory
A Ten Per Cent Discount Is Not a Ten Per Cent Problem
A small discount feels harmless in the moment. Here is what it does to your margin, and how much extra volume it quietly demands.
22 September 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMoney
A Pay Cut Shrinks the Amount. It Doesn't Have to Stop the Habit.
When income drops, pausing your investing feels like the sensible move. Three clients each chose another route: shrink the amount, keep the habit.
15 September 2026 · 3 min read
Personal finance
No One Has Ever Come to Me for Mindset
Nobody books a call with me because they want to work on their mindset. They come with a question about investing.
7 September 2026 · 4 min read
Personal finance / Career & LeadershipMindset
Independence Is a Number. Freedom Is a Feeling.
A client told me he wanted to double his income. Then I asked what the money was for, and his answer did not contain a single number.
25 August 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMoney
Two Per Cent Sounds Like Nothing. Here Is What It Actually Costs.
Put USD 1,000 a month away for fifteen years and a two per cent charge quietly takes USD 85,110 of it. What that fee actually is, and when it is worth paying.
18 August 2026 · 3 min read
AdvisoryMoney
Your AI Problem Is a Bookkeeping Problem
I connected my P&L to an AI model and it worked on the first attempt. Not because the tool was clever. Because the file was already built properly.
11 August 2026 · 5 min read
Personal financeMindset
She Stopped Dreading Every Payment. Nothing About Her Income Changed.
She earned well and saved hard, yet spending anything came with a hum of guilt. We did not touch her salary. We just gave her money names. Here is what changed.
7 July 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMindset
You Can Cut the Budget. You Won't Cut Who You Are.
Everyone wants to spend less, yet nobody cuts the expense that defines them. Spending is identity, not arithmetic. Here is the better question to ask.
30 June 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMindset
The Real Reason You Want to Buy Property in Dubai
Dubai rents are falling, yet everyone suddenly wants to buy. Most people are not buying property. They are buying a feeling. Here is how to tell the difference.
25 June 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMoney
You Earn More Than Ever. Why Does It Still Feel Like Not Enough?
Your salary went up and you still feel broke by the 25th. The gap is not your income. It is the distance between what you earn and what you have quietly accepted as normal.
22 June 2026 · 4 min read
AdvisoryMoney
I Built the Spreadsheets That AI Now Builds in Minutes
I spent 12 years building the spreadsheets AI now builds in minutes. The white-collar jobs are next. The real protection is not the one everyone talks about.
16 June 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMindset
Good With Money, Not Free With It
She saves, tracks, and plans, and still cannot let herself enjoy any of it. Saving and enjoying money are two different skills. Most people only learn one.
16 June 2026 · 4 min read
Personal finance / Career & LeadershipMindset
I Didn't Feel Like Promoting My Own Book
I have a book out and one morning I did not feel like talking about it. That resistance turned out to be the whole reason I wrote it.
11 June 2026 · 4 min read
Career & LeadershipMy Story
Ten Years Later, I Drove Back Into Le Havre
Returning to the French city I lived in a decade ago. What had changed, what hadn't, and a plea to companies still able to invest in their people.
1 June 2026 · 6 min read
Personal finance
She Came for Career Coaching. I Started With a Budget.
She wanted to quit her job. She didn't want to talk about money. The career question is really a runway question, and the runway is what unlocks the bold move.
21 May 2026 · 5 min read
Personal finance / Career & LeadershipMindset
I Didn't Just Fill Weekends. I Filled Everything.
The packed calendar wasn't a full life. It was avoidance, dressed up well enough that I believed it. On busyness as a strategy to outrun the quiet.
19 May 2026 · 5 min read
Career & LeadershipMoney
What Everyone's Getting Wrong About the Layoffs
Everyone is blaming AI. I think we are telling ourselves the wrong story. What I am hearing from friends and family, and the financial moves that matter more than the headlines.
14 May 2026 · 6 min read
Career & LeadershipMindset
The Week I Stopped Posting (And What It Cost Me)
I took a week off content thinking the discipline was the problem. The break taught me the opposite. Why momentum is invisible until it is gone.
12 May 2026 · 5 min read
Career & LeadershipMindset
The Identity Crisis Nobody Prepares You For
Most men go through an identity crisis in their 40s and arrive completely unprepared. Mine came in my 30s. Here is what it looked like.
30 April 2026 · 7 min read
Personal financeMindset
Travel Is the One Expense I've Never Regretted
Notes from a cafe in Hyderabad. A last minute trip home turned into a quiet correction of how big I was letting myself think.
28 April 2026 · 5 min read
Career & Leadership
We Changed Tables Three Times. She Found the Answer Outside.
She rated herself 2 out of 10. By the end of one session across 3 tables and an open door, she was at 9. Nothing external changed. The space did.
22 April 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMoney
Your Policy Ate Half Your Profits. And You Didn’t Know.
A client invested $30,000. His policy returned $7,500. Without hidden charges, he should have made $15,000. The real cost is not in the fee schedule.
20 April 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMindset
He Saves 35% of His Salary. He Still Feels Behind.
He earns well, saves consistently, and has over 15 months of expenses saved. But the feeling of being behind never stops. The gap is not in the numbers. It is in the clarity.
15 April 2026 · 5 min read
Personal finance / Career & LeadershipMoney
Your Employer's Best Quarter Is Your Wake-Up Call
Oracle fired 30,000 people by email at 6am. Their best quarter ever. Your salary is not your safety net. It is your chance to build one.
13 April 2026 · 5 min read
Personal financeMindset
The Most Expensive Question in Dubai: Am I Doing Enough?
You did everything right. Good degree. Good company. Good salary. And somewhere around year fifteen, a question showed up that you could not answer.
10 April 2026 · 4 min read
Personal finance / Career & LeadershipMindset
Your Salary Is Not Your Worth
There is a number in your head. It is the salary you earned at your peak. And somewhere along the way, that number became how you measure yourself.
8 April 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMoney
Dubai Gives You the Salary. It Doesn’t Give You the System.
I moved to France in 2016 on a work assignment. And something shifted in me that I didn't expect.
30 March 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMindset
How Are You Sleeping at Night?
Six months ago, if you didn't own property in Dubai, you were the idiot at the dinner table.
27 March 2026 · 3 min read
Career & LeadershipMy Story
The Biggest Project I Ever Worked On Was Me
I didn't plan a gradual exit. I pulled the plug. There was no transition strategy.
25 March 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMindset
You’re Probably Doing Better Than You Think
There's a conversation I keep having. Different people, different backgrounds, different numbers.
18 March 2026 · 3 min read
Personal financeMindset
The Room That Told Me Everything
There's a version of my life where I never stopped to look around.
16 March 2026 · 3 min read
Personal finance / Career & Leadership
The Next Chapter: Coaching, Credentials, and Where I Am Headed
There is something interesting that happens when you start doing work you genuinely care about.
5 March 2026 · 4 min read
Personal financeMoney
The Other Side of Personal Finance We Don’t Talk About Enough
Most people think personal finance is about budgeting, cutting expenses, and using tools like the 50/30/20 rule.
5 December 2025 · 2 min read
Personal financeMoney
How a Pedestrian Accident Taught Me the Importance of Life Insurance
Most people think financial planning starts with saving or investing. But the truth is, the very first step is something far less exciting.
19 November 2025 · 2 min read
Personal finance / Career & LeadershipMindset
Simplicity Doesn’t Come Easy
The older I get, the more I realise that simplicity takes work.
12 November 2025 · 2 min read
Personal finance
Beyond Numbers: The Human Side of Money Coaching
My approach to money was very different when I first started my journey toward financial independence.
6 November 2025 · 2 min read
Personal financeMoney
Let’s Be Honest: Budgeting Is Boring (But It’ll Change Everything)
Budgeting is not the sexiest topic for anyone. It feels like becoming an accountant for your personal life.
4 November 2025 · 2 min read
Personal finance / Career & LeadershipMy Story
Coaches Asked Me to Get Into Coaching
It's funny how life unfolds sometimes. After 12 years in corporate finance, I quit my job without a backup plan.
27 October 2025 · 2 min read
Personal financeMy Story
From Podcast to Purpose: My Journey to Financial Coaching
Back in 2020, I started a small passion project, a podcast called Making Sense with Nikhil.
27 October 2025 · 2 min read