How do you solve a problem like forever being in your overdraft? Spoiler alert: you don’t for a very long time. Being in debt, overdrawn, feeling stressed about money and forever spending money we (probably) don’t have is something we’re all familiar with as millennials. We moan about it, we stress about it, and then we do nothing about it because to be completely honest there isn’t really a lot to do as (most) of us live in London and pay far too much on rent and travel. YAY.
But why don’t we all take a leaf out of the book making headlines for it’s stellar finance advice? Simone Milasas is the founder of a company called Joy of Business, and the author of a book with the same title. Simone apparently knows about money as after finding herself in $187,000 of debt, she learned how to get out of said debt and live the full life. Right.
Simone Milasas’ excerpt was published on an Austrlian women’s website called Mamamia. Simone’s first tip is pretty good: put away 10% of everything you earn. Okay, we can do that. According to her, this money is ‘not for when you run out of money, or have to pay bills.’ Ok…
She then goes onto suggest that we shouldn’t pay our bills. As ‘if you pay your bills first, you will always have more bills.’’When you pay the bills first, the universe says, ‘Oh, okay. This person wishes to honour their bills. Let’s give them some more bills.” Errrrrrrrrm I’m sorry, wait what? Okay, so you could probably go like a month without paying bills but then your landlord would probably try and kick you out. Don’t do that, don’t listen to Simone.
Her next piece of advice is even more far-fetched and I can’t even comprehend it. She suggests that you ‘carry around the amount of cash you think a rich person would carry.’ Simone likes to have at least $1, 000 on her at all times, along with her bottle of water.’ Come the fuck on, Simone. Are you for real?
Her reasoning for this is if you ‘avoid having money on you or in your life because you think you will lose it or it will be stolen from you, you will never allow yourself to have money at all.’ I can KIND of see sense in the idea that if you’re worried about losing money, you won’t spend it – but carry a ton of cash with you at all times is 1) a massive security risk, and 2) STUPID.
Simone then goes on to say that with that 10% of saved cash you’ve been storing up, go spend it on gold, silver or platinum. This one I can get on board with, you’ve saved that cash so go spend it on yourself. Treat yourself, you deserve it. But maybe not in silver or gold, maybe more Ganni or Reformation?
This is either the best money advice I have ever read, or the worst. The lines are so blurred I don’t know what to think anymore, I’ve just been paid and I don’t know if I should be carry all my wage around with me day in day out or buying a gold spoon? I need help - but not from Simone.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.