Today, I yet again saw some personal finance guru advocating the same tired advice: if you don’t have money, why are you wasting it on coffees, pubs and eating out? It’s a narrative that’s not only oversimplified but also fundamentally flawed. Here’s why.

On the surface, it seems logical. If you reduce unnecessary spending, you’ll have more money left over. Problem solved.

It’s pointless to simply have the attitude that “you should stop spending on that.”Credit: Simon Letch

It just seems patronising at best, and woefully ignorant at worst, to suggest that grown adults, many of whom are well-educated and professionally successful, don’t get this.

I say ‘ignorant’ because this attitude demonstrates a lack of understanding of why people spend money the way they do.

I’ve helped hundreds of people over the years create real and lasting change in how they save money, without ever telling them to stop spending money on something.

How? The first step is understanding that our financial decisions are not rational, they’re emotional. The study performed by Nobel Prize-winning psychologist........

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