As promised, getting rich slowly starts here, and it starts now. Well, now-ish, although there is no time like the present when it comes to building wealth.

You will be required to take a few simple steps in the weeks ahead, and today I will lay out the first of them. You will need a piece of paper and a pencil, or a computer, or anything in between.

What you are going to do, starting on Thursday, September 1, is to keep track of your spending. I don't care what you spend it on, whether it's food for the kiddies or illegal gambling on who's going to win Big Brother. I don't care if you simply set fire to your banknotes or, to much the same effect, drive a fancy sports car. You will never have to tell me or anyone else what you spend money on. All that matters is that you know.

You spend money, probably, in three different ways: cash, credit card and cheques. On the piece of paper (squared paper is best), throughout September, you're going to keep track of what you spend, and what you spend it on. Be as precise as you can, but estimates will do.

Everyone is different, and what suits me might not suit you. I am single; you might be married. I am devastatingly tall and good looking; you might not be. It doesn't matter. The illustrated sheet shows you what I do, and you'll have to adjust my example to suit yours.

Let's make it easy for you. As to cheques and credit cards, don't worry about keeping track of those (unless you want to). When you get your next bank statement (for every bank account on which you have the ability to write cheques), put it to one side. Do the same with the next credit card statement you receive. You won't need them for this exercise for a few weeks.

Boy, talk about easy. You're two-thirds of the way there, and you haven't done anything yet. Now comes the slightly more difficult part.

A quick pep talk. You're not going to become rich, or even able to pay your bills, without making some effort. So, for goodness sake, do what I'm about to suggest. Please. It will take no more than a few minutes a day, and I guarantee ? absolutely guarantee ? that if you do it, in a few weeks you'll be really, really glad you did. When you see me in the street, you will want to kiss me, but you should think twice about that, unless you are a woman. I can't promise that kissing me will make you rich, but it will make me happy, and that's a start.

On the piece of paper, some time after you get home and before you go to bed, write down what you spent cash on that day. Don't worry if you can't remember. Whatever dough has gone that you can't recall spending, bang it into "miscellaneous".

Accompanying this article is a page I made up for myself on Microsoft XL about ten year ago, together with the likeliest categories you might spend money on. (if you'd like an electronic copy, e-mail me and I'll send you one.) Don't fool yourself. Be honest. It's your money, and you spent it, and you had a great time, and it's all cool. I just need you to keep track, that's all.

At the foot of the chart, you'll see how I keep track of what I spend. I know how much cash I have in my pocket at the beginning of each month because I count it, and every time I draw cash out of the bank, I make a note at the foot of the page. That way, at the end of each day, I can subtract what's left from what I started with and drew out of the bank, and the rest is spent. Then I try to remember what I spent it on.

I keep the little receipts most places give you, to help. Usually, the receipts cover most of what I spend, and I could call the rest "miscellaneous" and be in excellent shape. Because I am an obsessive lunatic, however, I rather enjoy my end-of-day routine, in which I try to get within a dollar or two of what I spent. I don't actually have a life, so this is my idea of a good time. You may be luckier, and care rather less about your finances, which is absolutely fine. Whatever you can't remember, call "miscellaneous", and then put the piece of paper away until the next day.

That's it. That's all you have to do. Put the bank statement and the credit card statement away somewhere, and fill in the squares on the out-of-pocket cash page. I will have no more instructions or demands until the end of September.

Piece of cake, eh? (Cake goes under "groceries".) As a reward for all that hard work, I'm going to spend the next few weeks in this space subtly adjusting your brain for you. You won't feel a thing. I'll write about this and that, having to do with financial matters, and show you a different way of thinking about money that will require no effort at all, other than reading this column and staying alive. You can do that.

Some of you have stopped me in the street and told me that you're further ahead than this, and you want to know how to get richer immediately. I have no idea.

You'll have to bear with the people whom I'm trying to help first, if you don't mind. You should do the tracking exercise above, though, whoever you are. Millionaires spend millions, and I can help them, too. More easily, in fact, because all a millionaire has to do is not buy a new jet this year and hey presto, wealth accumulates.

And you middle-class types, with no outstanding debt, and some money in mutual funds, and all that good stuff, you are also spending money in ignorance, whether you know it or not. So humour me.

Do the tracking thing, whoever you are. I promise you'll be surprised by what you find out. I've been doing it for 15 years, and it still surprises me most of the time.

I'm going to close with a little bit of wisdom my Dad passed on to me.

He used to argue that the difference between the financially successful and the rest lay in buying everything you need, rather than everything you want. For example: you need food, but you want to go to New York for a week's break.

We explored this notion in great detail, as an intellectual exercise, but a handy tip he gave me was this: "If it's something you need, buy it today. But if it's something you want, think about it for a day or two."

See you next week, by which time you'll be two days in to your bright financial future, and I will have become the kissing bandit.