From Day and Night magazine in today's Irish IndependentI'm really stupid about money. I don't mean that I'm especially reckless with cash, but I just can't seem to get my head around the whole concept of managing it.
To be perfectly honest, money baffles me. I love having it — but that's where any relationship ends. Like the Taoiseach, I don't 'do'savings accounts, mainly because I don't want to have to go to a bank and get information about one (which I'm convinced was Bertie's real reason too).
Mention any economic-related topic to me and, like Homer Simpson, my brain just announces, 'I'm outta here', my eyes glaze over and I drop to the ground in a lifeless, lobotomised heap.The same goes for tax. When it comes to PAYE and PRSI, I aint got a clue — except that I'm paying too much of both.
My best friend has a Masters in Economics and he's tried to explain the system to me, but he's just given up, having copped that a tin of soggy spinach wouldgrasp what a tax credit is before I would.
I guess my ignorance – I prefer the term 'mental block' but whatever –can be traced back to being a student for so long. When I started working, the concept of money was so foreign to me that I had to hire a diplomat to explain my first pay slip.
Until very recently, my world of finance was limited to student discounts, promotional nights and rummaging on that shelf in the supermarket for the knocked-down items that go out of date by the end of the day before they presumably implode like Tom Cruise's secret assignment briefs in Mission: Impossible.
Being a money moron just scares me sometimes, especially when I see people my age — and even younger — buying property or other sensible investments. I can't ever see a day when I'll be that savvy to channel my funds in the right way and put it to good use. I guess all I can do in the meantime is continue in my wilfull ignorance and, like SpikeMilligan, beg for the chance to prove that loads of money can't make me happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment