A local couple invited me over for dinner last weekend. He's one of those unsung Bermudian heroes who just gets on with his life, his work and his family, not necessarily in that order. She's a delightful, intelligent woman who cooks like a restaurant chef.

To my astonishment and deep joy, during a tour of their immaculate home, my host pointed out to me some spreadsheets strewn across his desk. He has been reading this column and had acted on my notion of taking command of one's financial affairs. He's about 60, I'd guess, and is thinking ahead to his retirement, so he had become more interested in his finances than was the case a few years ago.

When I started writing this column, it was for the less well-off, who wanted to ease their financial strains. Until last weekend, I feared that I might be preaching to the choir, that only people who had no fear of their finances would read the column. Not so. Here is a man with a comfortable home, a family and a successful career, whose interest I had sparked in gaining a better understanding of his finances.

He was appalled, he told me, at how much he was spending, even though it had never much crossed his mind to care about it before. Like many people, his ends were meeting, and beyond that, worrying about money seemed superfluous. He showed me around his excellent art collection with enormous, well-earned pleasure, and then said: "Of course, all that has to stop now", or something along those lines.

Later, his wife said, apropos of her love of fine things: "I suppose that will have to end now, thanks to you." I exaggerate somewhat: these are gracious people who would never insult a guest in their home. But I do so in order to make a point.

Most readers of this column are getting by, it is probably fair to assume. Most have jobs and are paying their bills, and many will have been doing so for years, if not decades. They will be raising, or have raised, children. They will be paying off, or will have paid off, mortgages. They will have pensions of various sorts (most of them unsatisfactory, to judge by what almost everyone tells me).

What they will not have, either since starting to read this column or before, is a great deal of comfort in their interface with the world of money. They will succeed financially despite, rather than because of, an understanding of how savings programmes work. If they are mentally comfortable with their lot, they will be so more by accident than anything else.

I'm here to tell you to relax. You have reached this point in your life, probably without borrowing from some guy whose office is in the trunk of his car, or having to sell crack, to make your life work. There is little prospect that you will need to start doing anything very different to make the rest of it just as good, or better.

Your outgoings are largely fixed. Your cost of living will increase, but so should your income, thanks to inflation, your union, or the other forces that affect such things. If you were to reduce by even a small fraction what's called your "discretionary" spending ? the money you don't have to spend in order to survive, but choose to, such as entertainment, your collection of thimbles, or repeated vacation trips to Borneo ? the difference could be significant.

Here's the proof. Say you earn 100 grand and spend 99: you save 1,000 a year. If you cut your spending by 1,000, little more than one percent, your savings would double, to 2,000 a year. Your numbers will differ, but the principle is the same. Spend a little less, save a lot more.

A few tricks, then, to help you achieve that. One: if you're married, stay married. Divorce can be ruinous to your financial health. I know, I know, you're dying to run off with your 19-year-old secretary, but, er, look before you leap.

Two: don't stop buying your wife nice things and don't reduce your children's allowance. When you look to achieve savings, doing so by cutting someone else's spending is the wrong way to do it. Involve your partner in understanding your financial well-being. Women, generally, understand money better than men do, because their brains are wired up better. My mother ran the family finances, but was smart enough to allow my Dad to think he was in charge. The result was a sensible savings programme and happiness all round.

Three: you've got too many shoes. Not having met you, and certainly not having looked in your closet, how can I know this? I just do. You've got shoes in your closet that hurt when you wear them, or which have gone out of style, or which you have reserved to wear when you find the pants to go with them. The same goes for your clothes: too many.

Don't get rid of them, just buy one fewer pair of shoes next year, or one fewer pants suit, or one less leather coat that you hate when you get it home from the store. You're not a victim of your spending habits, you are the master/mistress. Take control and the dividends will pile up rapidly.

Four: start to take an active interest in your financial affairs. Think about how much you earn, where it goes, and how you might be able to manage things better. Pay off expensive debt. Pay off any debt that you are not comfortable with. Join an investment club. Do the spreadsheets I suggested (blanks available at crombienorthrock.bm). Read a book on investing. Sell stuff you don't use. Put idle money to work. Good Lord, if you did any of those things, or any two, you'd be better off in less than a year. You'd be better off the moment you started doing them.

You have a lot on your plate, and you probably always will. It's not going to get any easier. Whatever your excuses for not dealing with your money, recognise them for what they are: excuses. My host last weekend told me that he has been considering taking up a new hobby. "But where will I find the time?" he asked. He'll find it, and so can you. He'll find it in his mind, when he makes the decision to find it. He'll find it without damaging the people he loves, his work, or his other activities, because he will have the willpower to do it. So can you.

Start thinking now, and the inevitable outcome, if you really want to effect change, will be change. You have the power. Soon, you can have the money.

Go for it!