Oct. 29: Stop Overthinking Your Money

October 29, 2026

Five simple rules for financial success: Stop Over-thinking Your Money

In his fact-filled, fun-to-read financial feast of a book, Stop Over-thinking Your Money, author Preet Banerjee lays out what he feels are “the five simple rules of financial success.”

And he lays them all out on page one of the Introduction:

1. Disaster-proof your life.
2. Spend less than you earn.
3. Aggressively pay down high-interest debt.
4. Read the fine print.
5. Delay consumption.

And don’t worry, he cautions us, “getting physically fit is much harder than getting financially fit… because once you get started down the right path, it gets easier.”

Saving, he adds early on, “is simple. You either do it or you don’t. Investing, on the other hand, is infinitely more complex.”

In the section on how to “disaster-proof your life,” Banerjee notes that plans for a long, happy life can be derailed by things like premature death, job loss, disability, or illness. “You might have any number of incredibly expensive emergencies crop up,” he warns.

You can protect yourself and family against these possibilities by getting disability insurance, life insurance, establishing an emergency fund, and making a will that outlines powers of attorney “to help communicate your wishes to others if you can’t do so yourself.”

The emergency fund, he suggests, should “hold anywhere from three months’ worth of expenses to 12 months’ worth of income.”

In the section covering the concept of “spend less than you earn,” the goal is “to have some money left over at the end of the month instead of some month left over at the end of the money.”

Spending less than you earn will create a monthly surplus, and Banerjee sees the “fundamental formula for wealth as surplus x time = wealth.”

To get to a monthly surplus, he recommends that you “figure out your old budget, then figure out a new budget (spreadsheet samples are shown), start tracking your spending more diligently, save the savings, and plan for non-monthly expenses.”

Don’t spend the savings – save it, he stresses.

For the spreadsheet-averse among us, a two-step plan for saving is this, he writes. “Save at the beginning of the month. Don’t let your bank account sink below zero by the end of the month.”

Next chapter turns to the idea that you must “aggressively pay down high-interest debt.” If you only pay the minimum payment on a credit card, he says, you would be paying, on $50,000 of credit card debt, $14,000 annually in interest, or $1,166.67 per month, “just to carry the debt” and not make a dent in it!

Do whatever you can to stop adding new debt – cut up or freeze your cards. Then develop a payoff plan. “You can either pay off the cards in order of highest interest rate first and lowest interest rate last or begin with the card that has the lowest balance and deal with the one that has the highest balance last. Once one card is paid off, you focus on the next card until they are all paid off,” he writes.

The “read the fine print” chapter notes that “from today onwards, you need to read every world on any document you put your signature on. Gym memberships, cellphone contracts, loan documents, you name it… the smaller (the print) is, the more likely it is to contain something that might give you second thoughts about signing.”

The “delay consumption” section is for those of us who “believe it’s too hard to run a surplus. They might say “there are just too many demands. It can’t be done,” he writes.

Three reasons behind this type of thinking are:

1. “The keeping-up-with-the-Joneses phenomenon;
2. Lifestyle inflation; and
3. The monthly payment trap.”

On the latter point, he notes that we in society have “been conditioned to finance purchases instead of saving up for them in advance. And it could be (that being stuck making monthly payments is) one of the main reasons you’ll continue to live on the edge with your finances.”

There are tons of examples provided throughout this excellent reference book, one that should be brought out and consulted prior to making major purchases and money decisions, and referred to periodically so you keep on track. A later chapter looks at investing and insurance in more detail.

It’s a highly recommended addition to your financial library.

A central idea in the book is spending less than you earn. Long-term savings need to be considered, because there will come a day when you’re not working and will be living on less income. Putting away money for the future you will become a more obviously good idea as you slowly become the future you!

A nice spot for those savings dollars is the Saskatchewan Pension Plan. Open to any Canadian with registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) room, SPP allows you to contribute any amount you want up to your annual RRSP limit.

You can also transfer in any or all of the funds in other unlocked RRSPs you may have.

Once SPP is handling your savings, each dollar will be invested in our professionally managed, low-cost pooled funds, funds which are highly diversified.

At retirement time, you can convert savings to income. Options include a lifetime monthly annuity payment, or the more flexible Variable Benefit.

Check out SPP today!

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