I earn a decent salary. Not huge, but decent. Somehow, by the 20th of every month, I'm checking my balance before buying a sandwich. I don't have expensive hobbies, I don't gamble and I don't buy designer things. I just can't work out where it all goes. My partner says I should track it, but every time I look at my bank app I feel a bit sick and close it. Help?
— Dev, 34Your money is going where everybody’s goes: into a thousand small, reasonable decisions, each costing about $12, each made by a tired version of you who believed in a future that hasn’t arrived.
Nobody goes broke on one big thing. You go broke on the coffee, on the delivery fee for the takeaway you ordered because you were too exhausted to cook the food currently liquefying in your fridge, and on a fitness app you used twice in 2024 that still bills you with the calm confidence of a landlord. Individually, crumbs. Together, a second rent paid to companies that don’t know your name.
Closing the bank app because it makes you feel sick is not a strategy. It’s taking the batteries out of a smoke alarm.
You earn a “decent” salary and check your balance before buying a sandwich. That’s not a mystery. That’s a lifestyle with no supervision.
The grain of sense, served cold: sit down with your partner and last month’s statement and sort every line into three piles. Need. Enjoy. Can’t remember buying. Cancel the third pile today. It will be humiliating. Good. Humiliation is the only financial advisor you can currently afford.