In what is becoming a tradition around these parts, I have received an e-mail roundly criticising me. This one was for failing to make the writer of the letter rich. The need for partial disclosure requires me to tell you that the reader is a friend. Her letter, though, was decidedly unfriendly. Assuming it was serious, I began to answer it, when it struck me that the points she made, and my thoughts thereon, might have a greater relevance.

For these purposes, we'll call the reader Chant?. "On July 22, 2005," she wrote, "I set out on an extraordinary voyage of hope, with the proverbial $tar$ in my orbs that you, my much-admired guru, would make me RICH. All I had to do was follow your advice. It is now April 25, 2006 and either I have been out to lunch and missed the vital columns, or you allowed them to fall by the wayside, along with your faithful followers. Either way, I am no richer now than I was last July but I see that you habitually tarry in expensive hotels and, one assumes, also enjoy other trappings of the guru life."

The charming blancmange with the stiletto buried inside is a device with which I am not unfamiliar. At first, I took this for good humour. Those in my set like to wing these witty missives across the ether to each other. What wags we are. But then came the maiden's lament.

"Meanwhile," Chant? continued, "I am left languishing in considerable disappointment near the bottom of the financial heap, drowning in a sea of shredded spreadsheets, burned out calculators, and the detritus of cheap living.

"You assured me that I would reach the Promised Land of Luxury, if I merely followed to the letter the weekly advice to be found in the Business section."

Had Chant? done so, I expect she would indeed be better off now, but she makes no mention of having done so. Probably forgot that part while drowning in detritus.

"Frankly, Sir," she continues, "I should sue you ? but then I would neither be responsible for my actions, nor your reaction, given that you are the one with the swipe card to the innkeepers' best. Therefore, I am reduced to merely enquiring: WHEN, dammit, will I get R-I-C-H?"

Those are the charges. This is my defence.

In this particular case, and perhaps in your case, too, I happen to know that Chant? is already rich. Her ends meet. She has a good job, an upstanding paramour, and a respected place in society. Like Chant?, you, dear reader, are probably rich, too. You probably bought the newspaper and have a job and a home and a car and all the other "trappings" that rich people have. You probably live in Bermuda. You just want more trappings, and if Chant?'s response is anything to go by, you may have missed the point of these columns. I'll restate.

Here on a Saturday, as summer approaches, we are in the process of getting rich slowly. It is a process that takes time and requires that subtle changes be made to your brain. You will note that I have created a capital-letter inducing frenzy in Chant?, which only marginally exceeds the pre-condition into which I have been trying to lull the rest of you. Chant? is just that little bit more wound up about it.

Here's the pep talk, and then I'm off. Over time, you can be better off than you are if you pay attention, and we know you can do that. You're busy, you have bills to pay, you need to be nice to yourself sometimes, yada yada yada. I grant you all of that. But it ain't working, is it? And that means change.

If you are dissatisfied, it is a lifetime of wrong thinking that has led you to your present state of dissatisfaction. Think more deeply about your money. Fill in the little boxes on the spreadsheet, look at them next to last month's, see what you learn. Take command of your situation and have faith.

The secret to becoming rich involves (1) calibrating your idea of what rich is to bear some relation to reality; (2) realising that you probably won't own Scrooge McDuck-piles of loot or large buildings, unless you already have such things; (3) earning more and spending less, which is the secret of economic life writ simple and you didn't have to climb a mountain to receive it; (4) developing some patience; (5) thinking longer-term; and (6) cutting me some slack, for Goodness' sake.

It took the human race 10,000 years to invent the dollar bill, and Chant? wants sacks of them in a few short months, without much effort on her part. That's not going to happen, but I am willing to make this promise to Chant?. Give me one more year. If you're not rich by then, you can stop writing me letters, I promise.