Here’s a money saving tip that may sound a little incredulous: you can reprogramme your mind to save more money. I personally believe it is why I am a habitual saver. Everyone’s wired a bit differently, I guess, so while it may not work as effectively for some people, I do feel that the human mind can be trained and reprogrammed… for better or worse.

Reassociating pain and pleasure

I don’t know exactly when or how it started, but I have vague recollections of associating pain with spending, and pleasure with saving. It started with a simple but conscious assignment of a negative feeling to spending, and placing a positive feeling on acts that increase my bank balance. From there, the habit built up over the years, and I found myself increasingly reluctant to spend. In fact, I think I went a little overboard with it, it started becoming a...