Not spending money is an art in itself. But I have to say some people are past masters at it.

During the holidays you end up going out with a group of friends – at my age that is normally for a meal. When it comes to paying up we have become accustomed to seeing one or two guys simply not having any money on them.

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This is a great time of year for the ‘But it’s Christmas’ excuse. It’s Christmas every day for some people.

I have several friends who will have wages transferred into their wives’ accounts. Their partners will then give them around £20 as spending money for the week. We are talking about guys with pretty decent wages here.

They normally go through the £20 in the first day and then spend the remaining six days scraping by.

The surprising thing about this is that these guys are married to women who were not born here. These are women from their native land and some might say this is indeed payback.

The idea that it is the women who are subservient simply doesn’t stand here. Here, we have guys who are graduates and are relatively educated but they are quite happy with the arrangement.

The excuse they normally come out with is that the female is better with money than he is.

One guy I know has two houses on rent and earns close to £30k a year. Yet he has never had any money on him for the past ten years.

It is quite shocking, but he is only able to leave the home with £20 on a Sunday. But strangely he does not wish to hang around with his mates on that day.

Now of course some readers might say... “Well, don’t pay for their meal”.

This is easier said than done as the said individual will then ‘pick at’ other people’s food while at the restaurant. A sad state of affairs indeed.

So out of kindness one decided to get the ‘poor fellow’ a plate so he can share with the rest of the table.

I would suppose it is the decent thing to do.

After some thought it has been decided the new year will see new rules. There will be no paying for the ‘extra man’. Especially one who has not fallen on hard times and maybe has been playing his mates for a long time.

I think the last straw was when he accidentally boasted about buying a 60-inch TV.