little to distract in the post-Christmas hiatus, one's eyes turned to the television. Among the post-Christmas sales advertisements, aspects of the human condition were reflected in the passing of three diverse leaders.

Throughout, and on into the New Year, there was the state funeral of President Gerald Ford, a thoroughly decent man by all accounts. As befits one who achieved the highest office in the world, events were solemn, dignified, and weighed down by gravitas.

Then we witnessed, more or less, the execution of Saddam Hussein. Whatever rogue and vile tyrant he might have been, he probably deserved more dignity than was afforded him in his last moments, with chaos and screaming all around him.

Finally came the funeral of James Brown, a thoroughly flawed man, yet one whose passing was noted with a celebration of almost unlimited joy. His achievements, and they were legion ? perhaps more so for the distance between where he started and where he finished ? were f?ted, his passing a time for a celebration of his life and the enormous influence he left behind.

Such events trigger a cacophony of emotions in we who must remain. Memories of the passing of public figures dredge up memories of the passing of our own loved ones, gratitude for their existence and the joy of having known them mingling with the bitterness of loss.

Emotions make us aware that we are alive. They come unbidden and rule the roost, no matter how stiff our upper lip. Emotions are our friends, and they have their place in every aspect of our lives except one: our financial affairs. Intermingling emotions with our financial planning can be a recipe for disaster.

Buying stocks and shares because we feel good about a company is almost always a bad idea. Owning things because our loved ones owned them can fly in the face of financial reason. Holding onto assets for emotional reasons is almost always wrong, too.

Money knows no emotion. It is as cold as death itself. A dollar is a dollar; nothing more, nothing less. It steadfastly resists any attempt to apply emotional value to its financial value. An inherited dollar; an earned dollar; or a dollar found on the street ? each is just one dollar, indistinguishable from all the other dollars out there.

Yet when we approach our financial affairs, we find ourselves suffused in emotion. There seems to be no way to avoid this condition, so we shrug our shoulders and plunge into making decisions because we feel helpless in the face of emotional dissonance. The good news is that it need not be so.

When Woody Allen, a man whose professional talents I greatly admire, started dating a woman who was essentially his step-daughter, he said: "The heart wants what the heart wants", or some such nonsense. That's where he and I parted company. He's right: the heart wants what it wants, but if life teaches us anything, it is that we can't always get what we want, as the great philosopher Sir Michael Jagger once pointed out.

Where Woody Allen was wrong, dead wrong, was that he denied the place of logic alongside that of emotion. He may have fallen into some confused love with the young woman he had helped raise, but we are not just animals; we know about greater responsibilities. No sane man who lives under normal circumstances would have countenanced Allen's behaviour. You, as a sane and rational human being (more or less) must adopt a steelier resolve where your money is concerned.

You know this already. What defines our ascendancy to adulthood is the ability to defer pleasure. Presented with a box of chocolates, you naturally want to devour the whole thing (your appetites being closely linked to your emotions), but you don't, because you know it would make you sick. You defer eating the second layer in the box until tomorrow, or another day. Maybe you limit yourself to the odd choc now and the odd one later.

It's the same with money. You can spend everything you have today, plus the last piastre you can borrow, or you can adopt a less emotional attitude, saving a little for a rainy day. To a greater or lesser extent, you do this already. And yet sometimes you shrug your shoulders and say: "I just had to have that new car/new dress/eBay bargain or what have you", even though you know deep down that you are lying, or at least exaggerating, when you say it.

Very few children get rich; some adults do. And the ones that do so know that to everything there is a season: a time to spend like a drunken sailor and a time to save like a finance columnist. You know it; now go forth and practise it.

This is the start of a brand new year. Use that as an excuse to turn over a new leaf and behave with a little more reserve. In time, you'll be really glad you did, and when next Christmas comes around, you'll have something to do instead of watching funerals for the fallen. You'll be able to count your savings along with your blessings, and plan an even better 2008.

Good luck in the year ahead.