Forget about The Shining, The Exorcist, Candyman or Friday the 13th, if you want to look at something that will frighten the life out of you, take out your bank statements or log on and have a look at what you’ve been spending your money on in recent weeks.
Or, how about you and your partner, have a money séance.
You’re going to take out a Ouija board and try to make contact with money that has departed your account. You want to communicate with the other side and find out where it’s gone.
You’re trying to summon money that has left your account, that perhaps was wasted on things you can’t really account for, and you’re worried it may come back to haunt you.
Both your hands are on the planchette, and it begins to move. First it goes to C, and then O, and over to F and back again to F and it does the same thing with E.
It begins to move again and this time it spells clothes, then lunches, then water, gym, late fees etc.
You both look at each other in disbelief, you just can’t believe what the money spirits are telling you. How could they have any impact on your finances.
You thought it would be your mortgage or car loan repayment or weekly shopping or annual insurance costs, not the daily €5 you spend on coffee.
And you might think because it’s such a small expense, it can’t have much of an impact on your bottom line, but the reality is that it can, and probably a whole lot more than you could imagine.
I’ll explain more in a moment when I run the math.
There are small purchases we unconsciously make every day, which can add up to big money, and we don’t realise the impact they can have on our finances.
We don’t put much thought into them, but it’s that unconscious spending over a period of time, especially on things we don’t particularly need or get much enjoyment from, that can prevent us from moving forward with our finances.
For example, let’s assume you buy a couple of coffees a day (and when I refer to coffee, I’m only using it as an example of something which is reasonably inexpensive you purchase most days – it could also be things …….