SELF-HELP BOOKS ALMOST DROVE ME MAD

POUND notes are fluttering through the air and it’s my job to catch them before they reach the ground. My younger sister, Sheila, is jumping up and down trying to clap the notes between her hands.

I feel as though I’m in a film or an episode of The Crystal Maze — remember that show where the contestants were stuck in a glass dome with a wind machine and they have to catch as many gold notes as they can while the clock is ticking?

Well, this is exactly the same, except it’s happening in our living room at 5pm on a school day. Dad had swooshed into the room, opened the patio door, opened his wallet and thrown all the cash in it up into the air.

‘You can keep whatever you catch — but as soon as it touches the floor it’s gone,’ he said. There seemed to be millions of pounds flying around our living room, maybe even a trillion or a gazillion. Or at the very least 50.

It couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds but it felt like for ever.

I have no memory of how many notes I was clutching in my little hands when the fun was over. What I do recall is Dad announcing that he was only joking — cue the ten-year-old-me’s intense fury and disappointment.

According to entrepreneur Kate Northrup’s Money, A Love Story — the second book in my challenge to live by a different self-help book each month for a year — this memory was the key to understanding why I was the way I was with money. Namely, a total bloody disaster. At the age of 36, I had a lucrative freelance writing career but nothing to show for it: no house, no pension. The only time I ever knew how much was in my account was when my card was declined, meaning I’d hit the bottom of my £3,000 overdraft limit. And my debt was mushrooming.

Kate says no attempt at saving and budgeting will work unless you understand why you are the way you are with money — and that understanding usually comes from looking at your childhood.

The Crystal Maze memory not only taught me, on a subconscious level, to throw money about, but it also made me believe I can’t hold on to it very long either.

I grew up in a house of extremes. My Irish dad came to London with nothing when he was 16. By the time we came along, he’d made a fortune in property.

As children, there were trips to Harrods and Hamleys, holidays to Disneyland and Europe. For my ninth birthday I was taken to the Ritz for tea. My first alcoholic drink was a swig taken from a crystal decanter in the back of my dad’s black Bentley.

But as every poor little rich girl will tell you, it wasn’t all perfect.

Even as a young child, I realised a few things about money (and flash cars): People don’t like people with money (and flash cars). Money (and flash cars) make you different. And as a child, all I wanted was to be normal. Finally, having money (and flash cars) makes you a spoilt brat.

The world we were being brought up in was a world away from the world my parents came from.

Dad grew up with nothing and was determined to give us everything we wanted. Mum, on the other hand, hated the level of excess we were growing up with and made sure we knew it. I learned to feel guilty about being rich.

So maybe it was just as well that soon enough we learned another lesson: that money doesn’t last. When I was in my late teens, Dad’s failing health combined with the recession of the Nineties meant that the money started to dry up quite spectacularly.

WHEN

I was 17, Mum cancelled Christmas. By the time we were in our 20s everything was gone: the house, the cars, the money. I learned that not being able to pay bills and facing the prospect of losing your home is terrifying.

Money may not buy you happiness, but it buys you security and a roof over your head. When that goes, well, so does everything.

It wasn’t until I read Money, A Love Story that I realised how extreme it had all been. Of course, it was going to have an effect on me. How could it not?

After graduating from UCL with a degree in English Literature, I lived in London and started as I meant to go on. I was on a low salary as an editorial assistant on a newspaper but lived massively beyond my means — shopping in Covent Garden for the first half of the month, living off cereal for the second.

When I was 29, I got my first big job as features editor of a newspaper. My salary increased. Then the good times rolled! I used taxis like they were buses and ate out constantly.

I bought designer clothes because I thought it was important that I looked the part now that I was a Hot Shot Features Editor. I permanently looked as if I’d just stepped out of a salon. Because I had.

But underneath the hair and the bag and the dresses, I felt like a fraud. I was struggling to keep on top of my work, so I quit the big job and the big salary to go freelance.

My spending became even more erratic. As soon as I got a cheque, I’d be out celebrating, living it up; but then a week later I was broke and stressed. Every year I’d vow to be better with money, to grow up — but I never did.

I felt shaken just admitting all this for the first time. How had I not seen before what a huge part of my life money was?

I’d always thought my main issue was that I didn’t have enough money — but I could see now that, actually, no amount of money would ever be enough for me. I would be one of those people who ended up bankrupt four years after winning the lottery.

APPARENTLY,

a lot of women are waiting for a man ( a husband) to come and fix their situation; author Kate Northrup calls it the Prince Charming Effect.

It made me cringe to think that might be the case for me, but I’d definitely spent my life playing the victim when it came to cash. I didn’t look after it — then I played ‘ poor me’ when I was ‘broke’ and suddenly couldn’t afford the bus fare.

Kate says nothing is as bad as the insidious fear that comes with keeping yourself in the dark about your finances, and so my next task was to gather six months of bank statements in order to get what Kate calls ‘cash clarity’.

She warns that it’s going to be hard. She was right.

The next day was the kind of miserable Sunday designed for the sofa, but instead of slobbing out I got the train to my mum’s to go through my financial paperwork.

Looking at the numbers was horrific. I was £15,109.60 in debt. There was £6,000 owed to my sister, Sheila, a £7,000 overdraft on my business account and a £2,109.60 overdraft on my current. I felt physically sick to see the figures.

It was like looking through a massive magnifying glass. I could see all that was bad about me: I was reckless, stupid, vain, careless, deluded. A spoilt brat.

I locked myself in the bathroom and cried. Then I ran a bath. I poured in the oil I’d bought Mum for Christmas — Pomegranate Noir, Jo Malone, £40 — and cried some more. That bath probably cost me £5.

That night, Mum knocked on the door of the spare bedroom I was in, surrounded by papers. ‘How’s it going?’ ‘Not good.’ My voice cracked. I started crying.

‘You’ve been living a life you can’t afford, Marianne,’ she said. ‘I know,’ I cried. ‘You always say “I know”, but you do the same thing time and time again.’ ‘I know.’ ‘You’ll feel so much better if you cut down your spending. I get more of a kick out of saving now than I do shopping. Security is a nice feeling. You have to take control.’

‘I know,’ I said. But actually I didn’t