Following the revelations by the former assistant Dublin city and county manager, George Redmond, at the Flood tribunal the other day, many of us have had to look into our own hearts, reappraise our financial acumen - or lack of it - and admit that when it comes to planning ahead, making useful investments, looking out for the monetary welfare of our family, making commercially useful contacts, and saving anything at all, never mind five times our salary, we are no match for George.
The former planning official has been extremely modest about his financial expertise. On the surface, his book-keeping seems to be nearly as bad as our own. He admitted he really wasn't at all sure about various sums, including £45,000 attributed to "L.S.", £94,300 attributed to "own" and £62,800 attributed to "Maureen", though he thought the last figure related to his wife, who earned a wage which he "allowed her to retain".
Since George accumulated over £1 million in assets (excluding the Castleknock home recently sold for £0.75 million) over just 17 years, we have to accept that he is being unduly modest about his money-making skills.
And if we want to make as much money as George did, we should be looking at his methods of stockpiling cash.
As regards financial management, George's general policy, he told the tribunal last week, was to look at a bank statement, and if it seemed all right, to tear it up.
If this is how a financial wizard works, it indicates where so many of us have been going wrong. Tearing up statements, rather than checking and filing them (sometimes unopened, it appears), is surely a breakthrough in the boring business of book-keeping. It also saves time and aggravation.
Regarding his wife's wage, George in his own words "allowed her to retain" it. So it seems you need a wife with an income, and you need a certain generosity of spirit, i.e. you must let her keep her earnings.
How many of us would have thought of that, or shown such a sense of fairness if we did?
Next we come to the tricky business. Where do you stash the stuff? For too long we have been seduced by the banks and the other financial institutions, with their prissy notions of security, their miserable rates of deposit interest and their complete lack of interest in the small saver.
Once again, George Redmond showed his initiative. In the early 1980s, his diary recorded cash sums of £35,000 kept in the bathroom, £12,000 in the kitchen and £22,000 in "a press".
Keen readers will spot something here. Nothing was kept in the bedroom. Burglars generally head straight for the bedroom. They do not normally use the bathroom, or open the kitchen cabinets. See? Tips from a master.
The odd thing is that with all the loot in the bathroom, the kitchen and the unspecified press, we still don't know where George's diary, detailing the household deposits, was kept. No doubt even top financiers have to keep some things secret.
However, George did actually use banks, too. Too shy, however, to use his own name and address, he used the Irish version of his name with which to open various bank accounts with the addresses of a brother-in-law in Belfast, a sister-in-law in England and a cousin in Spain.
It could be said that George was singularly fortunate in the geographical spread of his relatives, but it clearly behoves the rest of us to keep in touch with far-flung family at all times, if we want to have any hope of getting ahead. "I can see looking back how it all went wrong", George told the tribunal last week.
This was eerily reminiscent of the tale told about (and by) another George, namely George Best, who was also in the news last week, when the film (Best) about his life and times was premiered.
The all-too-familiar tale involved George, at the height of his fame, winning £25,000 in a casino, returning to his hotel suite with his stunning girlfriend Mary Stavins (Miss World at the time) and spreading the cash on the four-poster bed. The Belfast porter arrives with the chilled champagne, surveys the scene, and asks sadly: "George, where did it all go wrong?"
Perhaps George Redmond could provide an answer.