Oliver's Honest Money

"I want to start learning about money, but I have no idea where to begin." It's the question I hear most, and the hardest to answer. Walk into a bookstore and it's stacked with investing, real estate, and tax titles; open YouTube and everyone says something different. So most people start with whatever is loudest — investing. That's where the order goes wrong. Learning about money has a sequence. And that sequence isn't set by "what earns the most" but by "what, if it breaks first, makes everything else pointless." Here's that order. Step 0 — Plug the leaks (0% return, highest impact) Do this before you learn anything about investing. Paying off an 18% debt is identical to earning a guaranteed 18% return. No investment is more certain than that. Is revolving credit switched on for your card? Are there unused autopays and subscriptions still running? Is there high-interest debt you could clear? Studying invest...

Payday. You check your account. You're fairly sure you didn't splurge on anything — yet once the card bill clears, there's nothing left. "Why can't I save?" Most people file this under willpower : I'm lazy, I lack discipline. I see it differently. Most money doesn't disappear in one bad decision. It leaks, a little at a time, through four quiet holes. And those holes target not your willpower but the gaps in your attention. Let's name them one by one. Hole 1 — "Just this once" The most common and the most cunning. "This month is special." "I had a rough day." A single exception is no problem at all. The problem is that the exception arrives every month. There is no un-special month — birthdays, holidays, stress, sales; all twelve have their reasons. "Just this once" never lies to you. It just hides the fact that it isn't once. Small counter: don't try to abolish exceptions (you'll f...

"Keep three to six months of living expenses." Read anything about money and you'll meet that number. Two things bother me every time. First, it has no legal or official basis — it's someone's rule of thumb that spread widely. Second, and more important: where you keep it matters more than how much , and almost nobody talks about that part. An emergency fund doesn't exist to earn returns. It exists to be exactly there at the moment you need it. Let's look at it that way. What "3 to 6 months" misses The same "three months" means completely different things to different people. Someone on a steady salary and a freelancer with lumpy income need different thicknesses. Someone who can find work again in two months and someone who needs six are not the same case. Living alone differs from supporting a family . So instead of a months-based rule, I'd ask two questions: ① How much does my income swing? (more...

The phone rings. "Sir, your current insurance is actually costing you — if you don't restructure it now…" Or a friend you trust leans in: "Hey, I've got something really good, I'm only telling you." A financial product usually reaches you by one of two roads: a stranger's urgency , or the goodwill of someone you know. They look like opposites, but the rule you need is the same. The seller's hurry is not your reason to rush. Today I won't sort good products from bad one by one. Instead I'll hand you the shield on your side — one that works no matter what shows up. Let's start by peeling back three "kind words" that get used a lot. "Principal protected" — real protection, or marketing? Few phrases feel as safe as "your principal is protected." But there are two kinds. Real protection: things covered by deposit insurance, like bank deposits and installment savings. Even if the company fai...

It stings to hear this at a loan consultation: "Your score is a little low." You've never stiffed anyone. You've lived carefully. So why? Because most of us read a credit score as a grade for being responsible. It isn't. A credit score is the output of a statistical model estimating one thing: the likelihood you'll repay borrowed money as promised. Not a character assessment — a probability estimate. Once that clicks, it also explains how a careful, debt-free person can end up with a mediocre score. First: it's a score now, not a grade On January 1, 2021, Korea retired the old 1–10 credit grade system and moved to a credit score of 0–1,000. Two credit bureaus do the scoring: NICE and KCB. Why change? Under grades, one notch decided your life. There was little real difference between grade 6 and grade 7, yet people were rejected wholesale because of the label. Scores let lenders judge in finer steps — the stated aim was to widen financial ac...

The special-rate deposit banner says 3.0% per year in big letters. Put in ₩10 million, get ₩300,000 after a year. You do the math and wait for maturity. Then the interest lands: ₩253,800. Where did ₩46,200 go? It didn't disappear. It was taken as tax before you ever saw it — and this isn't unusual. It happens on nearly every deposit and savings account in Korea, every time. 15.4% — what that number actually is Interest is taxed. Precisely, by two things at once: Item Rate Income tax 14% Local income tax 1.4% Total 15.4% The 14% is the National Tax Service's withholding rate on a resident's interest income ( NTS ); local income tax brings it to 15.4% . The key word is withholding. It means you don't file or pay anything. The bank takes it off first and deposits the rest. Which is why most people never notice they paid tax at all. So what's the real rate? Multiply the advertised rate by 0.846 (100% − 15.4%) and you get what actua...

In January 2026, Korea's Financial Supervisory Service issued a consumer alert. The reason: videos using AI deepfakes to put the face of a well-known brokerage employee on a stranger were circulating on social media. People who believed them were funneled into group chats, told to install a fake trading app, or asked to wire money to a specified account. The frightening part isn't the technology. It's that the way we've always verified reality — "I saw their face," "I heard their voice" — has stopped being evidence. So I'm not going to teach you how to spot a deepfake. That advice expires as the technology improves. Instead, let me show you what scammers can never steal, no matter how good the tech gets. The costume changes; the skeleton is 30 years old Deepfakes are new. The structure underneath is remarkably old. Break down the method the regulator described and the sequence is: Bait — a video on social media impersonating an e...