(03) 9020 2905One of life’s great, yet simple and indulgent, pleasures, is a good ham and cheese toasted sandwich.
A slice of cured, honeyed pig, some tasty cheese, perhaps with butter, preferably honoured with some good bread (or bad bread – it’s actually the least important ingredient). Then cooked until it starts dribbling heavenly, yellow rivers of goo out the sides.
An instantly satisfying occasional substitute for any meal. Breakfast, lunch or dinner. A between meals snack. The 3am, post-pub munchies. Fast, easy, any time.
But true ham-and-cheese-toastie aficionados know that there’s one time of year that it tastes 10-times better.
Christmas.
That’s when you can replace regular deli “sliced ham” with “leg ham sliced off the bone” and swap boring old tasty cheese with gruyere or havarti. Because it’s in your fridge. Or even something with a hint of blue in it, if excessive alcohol consumption has left you a little short on salt.
And it doesn’t matter that special Christmas toasted sangers are triple the calorie count of other times of the year. Why? Because it’s Christmas! Calorie counting at Christmas is illegal. Or it should be. Fat farmers Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers shut down to allow potential clients to fatten up for brisker trade from late January.
“Is Debt Man trying to get a guest appearance on Masterchef?”
No, there is a finance point here. Stick with me.
There is a “clear and present” health danger in toasted ham and cheese sandwiches. You know it.
As awesome as it is, melted cheese can have the temperature and consistency of volcanic lava and is capable of instantly destroying mouth roofs and leaving nasty burn marks on the chins of the hasty.
The danger is clearly far greater for those cooking at home. When it goes straight from the sandwich maker to your mouth, danger lurks.
The alternative is to pay someone to make it for you. It will usually taste better. The ingredients will be fresher, the bread nicer. And the nature of restaurant service generally means that time will elapse, allowing the lava to cool before it hits the table.
Still don’t get it? Your personal finances are … a ham and cheese toasted sandwich. Sure you could do it yourself. But is that always best?
You can make all of your financial decisions yourself, giving you a potentially greater sense of satisfaction. But there’s a greater risk of self harm.
Also, if you get someone else to make it for you, you can have ham of the bone with gruyere any day. You don’t have to wait for Christmas. You’re not going to keep a leg of ham and exotic cheese in your fridge 365 days a year.
The fact is that the vast majority of your personal financial decisions are unavoidably yours. You can’t delegate responsibility of what sort of car you’re going to buy, how to hit the boss up for a payrise, or how often you hire babysitters so the two of you can go out and enjoy a “quiet” meal.
You have to do that mundane rubbish yourself.
But there’s plenty of stuff that you don’t have to do. Argubly, most of it you shouldn’t do. Unless you’re a fan of pitifully small tax returns, blowing up money in dud investments or growing old and poor.
Money probably isn’t your strong suit. You’re a great teacher/electrician/nurse, an awesome mum or an improving home handyman.
July is tax time. For most salary earners, it should be financial Christmas. The ATO is waiting to give people money. How much is yours?
People who do their own taxes are more likely to be donating more to Julia and Wayne than necessary. Doing your own taxes badly not only costs you time, but money, by missing legitimate deductions. You could have far better spent time kicking a football with your boy.
Instead, you did your own tax return, you donated extra to the ATO, so you don’t have the extra dough to buy him a new football.
Everyone should have a team of financial experts, which should include accountants, financial advisers and lawyers.
They know how to make great financial toasted sandwiches any day of the year. And you’re less likely to burn the roof of your mouth.
Bruce Brammall is the author of Debt Man Walking (www.debtman.com.au) and a licensed financial adviser. bruce@debtman.com.au .