Mamamia, an Australian website with a primarily female audience, published the excerpt last week in a brief article titled “How To Pay Off Your Debt: Simone Milasas On How She Paid Off $187,000.”
Milasas built up the debt by traveling all over the world, but she claims to have paid off the staggering amount in only two years. She shared her secrets…but some of the advice doesn’t quite seem practical. For instance:
1. Save 10 percent of your money to change your energy.
“One of the first important money tools I would like to give you is putting away 10 percent of everything you earn, 10 per cent of every single dollar, euro, pound, or whatever currency you create,” Milasas explained. “You are not setting it aside to pay bills with. You are not saving it for a rainy day.”
“But, here’s the thing: if you pay your bills first, you will always have more bills,” Milasas wrote. “When you pay the bills first, the universe says, ‘Oh, okay. This person wishes to honour their bills. Let’s give them some more bills.’ If you honour yourself by setting aside 10 per cent first, the universe says, “Oh, they are willing to honour themselves. They are willing to have more,” and it responds to that. It gives you more.”
Ah, we see. So if you pay your bills, the universe will step in to punish you. Milasas goes on to explain that saving 10 percent of your money will change the “energy” around your finances. Sounds legitimate.
2. Carry amount the amount of cash that a rich person carries.
This isn’t really financial advice; it’s basically just priming yourself for muggers.
3. Buy gold, silver, and jewelry.
If we kept a large safe full of gold and silver in our home, we probably wouldn’t advertise that fact.
Milasas’ point is that items with an intrinsic value are a better investment than clothes, furniture, or other products that immediately lose some value. That’s true, but that doesn’t make gold and silver wise investments; as the great financial mastermind Warren Buffet pointed out to Fortune, stocks are a much better way to get a return on your money.
“True, gold has some industrial and decorative utility, but the demand for these purposes is both limited and incapable of soaking up new production,” Buffet explains. “Meanwhile, if you own one ounce of gold for an eternity, you will still own one ounce at its end.”
Buffet goes on to explain why stocks are fundamentally safer. At no point does he mention anything about “financial energy.” He also doesn’t recommend not paying bills, and as a famously frugal man, Buffet certainly wouldn’t advocate carrying large amounts of unnecessary cash simply to feel rich.
For our money, we’ll trust Buffet’s advice, but you can find Milasas’ full article here.