Castlebay Monthly: January 2026

Feb 4
6 min read

Updated: Feb 20

Happy New Year! We hope 2026 has started well for you and your family.

As another year begins, our minds often turn to New Year's resolutions. These may well not even last into February. However, in the office, aside from the normal 'get fitter' pledges, the suggestion has been made of limiting time spent on screens, outside of work. It has already been mentioned a number of times.

There may be an alternative, which Dr Arthur Brooks suggests could be the best thing for us. He suggests 'doing nothing' - decluttering the mind. If you have the time; and yes this bit will require a screen, take 5 minutes to watch the video from the Harvard Business Review and let us know your thoughts.

Public Service Announcement

Before the end of last year, between the newspaper headlines switching from the impact of the Autumn Budget to ringing in the bells for Christmas, a significant change came into effect with the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). This will have an impact for those with savings, transferring or sending money or holding large sums of cash following major life events, such as house sales, inheritances or those lucky enough to have won the lottery.

To reflect better the impact of inflation and protect more savings in UK banks, building societies and credit unions, the FCSC has increased the deposit limit from £85,000 to £120,000 per person, per firm (Banking License), effective from 1st December, 2025. The Temporary High Balances protection, which provides cover for 6 months, has been increased from £1 million to £1.4 million.

For example, with Virgin Money's recent purchase of Nationwide, the FSCS £120,000 protection would be for all your Virgin and Nationwide accounts, not each.

Enjoy this month's instalment of our newsletter. As always, it is packed with links that you may find interesting. If you would like to add your children, other family members or even friends to this email distribution list, please drop us a line.

The Stock Markets

Regret Minimisation as a Decision-making Tool

Financial planning has a feedback loop longer than most other disciplines. The consequences of our decisions can take decades before they become fully evident to us. This period can be filled with uncertainty, doubt and the fear of making mistakes.

Having seen many people arrive at retirement with less than they need, this reality is especially clear to us. Unfortunately, human nature doesn’t help the cause. Our instincts, perfected over centuries of survival, lead us to make suboptimal decisions that don’t serve our interests in the modern world of money.

The result? Regret, not for us but for our future selves who must deal with the consequences.

A New Lens: Regret Minimisation

Regret is an unavoidable emotion in life and it teaches us lessons that serve us well in the future. It is especially useful for activities where the feedback loop between decision and consequence is short. However, when this feedback period becomes decades-long, as it often does with financial planning, it is wise to consider how to minimise future feelings of regret ahead of time rather than wait to learn the lessons the hard way.

This decision-making tool is one that the well-known founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has often used. For example, he used it to decide to leave his high-paying job on Wall Street and start Amazon in the early days of the Internet. He sought to minimise the potential regrets he might have had later in life by seizing a unique opportunity, even though it meant taking on significant risks and uncertainties at the time.

While it may sound obvious that we should try to minimise future regret, it requires intentional thinking to view decisions through this framework. If not done intentionally, we will likely fall back on our default mode of prioritising current needs over future ones.

The Mindset as a Financial Planning Tool

Many financial decisions become easier to make when viewed through this framework as it forces us to place ourselves in the shoes of our future selves, allowing us to consider better the complex tradeoffs that any financial decision involves.

Save more for retirement, or improve your daily life now?
Work hard now so that you can travel in retirement, or spend more time with the children while they are still living at home?
Stay in the well-paying job, or start the business you are passionate about?
Buy a new car, or send the children to private school?

We should always be on the lookout for mindsets and methods to become more familiar with our future identity and considering what we will least regret is a powerful exercise. While it gives no guarantee that our decisions will turn out well, it forces us to ask more relevant questions about the tradeoffs involved.

Life is Not a Dress Rehearsal

Choosing the wrong meal for lunch may lead to frustration but there will be many more opportunities to correct the decision. It’s in the big decisions that we want to give ourselves the best chance of making smart, well-informed ones. Unfortunately, these decisions are the ones that come around infrequently and which most of us make only a few times in our lives.

Realising that any major regrets we end up with are ones we’ll need to make peace with, we want all investors to have the best tools available when the big decisions present themselves. Regret minimisation is a thinking tool every investor should become familiar with. As financial advisers, we provide the technical insight needed to help make the right choice in many of the decisions you face and we hope that they serve both your current circumstances and your future self. Life is not a dress rehearsal and when it comes to regrets, less is more.

Chinese Proverb — The best time to plan a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.

😀 Life is for Living

While we always encourage smart saving and financial prudence, enjoying the life you're working hard to build is just as important. That means making space for experiences, community and a little fun now and then!

Here’s a roundup of upcoming events that might pique your interest. Treat yourself because balance is key; life is meant to be lived.

For the music lovers: 🎻Celtic Connections Music Festival [Numerous Venues in Glasgow, 15th January to 1st February]

A fresh start to 2026: 🌊 Sauna and Wild River 'Dook’ Experience [Balquhidder, Stirling on 8th, 10th to 11th January].

"Life is but a day at most": 🌹 Celebrate Burns Night [Haggis, Neeps and Tatties Recipe for Sunday 25th January]

🍿 Watch

We don't usually share videos in the newsletter. However, in this instance, we are making an exception.

I assume that many of those reading this newsletter will have set a goal for 2026 to minimise their screen time or be more conscious as to what it is they are doing on their phone.

Our lives have become ever so busy, which has been further exacerbated with mobile phones and other technologies. We often satiate ourselves in any quiet moment with some form of entertainment or distraction. A device is usually only an arms length away, which helps us to escape being sat in silence and with our own thoughts.

To be bored is sometimes seen as an admission of failure. That you have nothing better to do than do nothing.

Dr. Arthur Brooks, with the Harvard Business Review dives into why it is You Need to Be Bored.

YOU NEED to BE BORED

📰 Read

26 Useful Concepts for 2026 [7 minutes]. 26 Valuable concepts for 2026 that could reshape your perspective.

Living for the Eulogy [5 minutes]. What will your legacy be when you’re gone, and are you living for your resume or your eulogy?

A Decision a Day [4 minutes]. Making better decisions in a world flooded with information.

Predictions for what is to come in 2026

2026 Predictions — Predictions according to the 'professionals'

The Castlebay Corner

The Castlebay Team have some big goals and significant life events coming up in 2026.

Cameron plans to run his first official Half Marathon along with needing to find a plus 1 for some upcoming family weddings.

Lesley celebrates her 50th birthday and continues to age ever so gracefully

David M has his sights set on expanding the Castlebay office library along with a target of reading a book a month.

His top book recommendations for 2025 are Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara and 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin .

David R is practising standing on one leg with his eyes shut. It sounds crazy, but when you get to his decade of life the principle of balance is simple - use it or lose it!

Pamela hopes to add another designated driver to the family ranks and reduce her taxi duties from full time to part time.

Lorna after tying the knot in 2025 (and feeling the hit to her wallet) is hoping this year will be all about saving - not spending. Time to give her bank account a bit of a honeymoon too.

Emily is looking forward to moving in with her boyfriend this summer and taking a holiday to Zurich.