he nickname for Bermudians is "Onions". It derives from the vegetables that were once the Island's most famous export. But with agriculture all but eradicated, and land at a premium because of the need for condos and hospitals and all that, the nickname won't make sense much longer. A new one is needed, and I have one. It's not exactly catchy, but it is definitive.

It is "Struthonians". This has the advantage of being a bit like "Onions", and of being an accurate description of most Bermudians. A Struthonian is an ostrich-like person, who sticks his head in the sand, rather than face an unpalatable reality.

I came across the word on a detour while looking up "subcategory" in the dictionary, to see if it should be hyphenated (it shouldn't). It tied in quite nicely with a conversation I had at lunch one day this week. A chap I know, a good man, said, apropos of this column: "Most people start saving when they're 63."

His point was that, while this may occasionally be a fun column to read, the only people who read it are those who already understand its message.

In large part, he's right. I am indeed mostly preaching to the choir. But the correspondence the column generates suggests that it is reaching some of you out there with a message about not fearing money and taking command of your financial affairs.

You can stick your head in the sand and ignore your financial condition, if you want to. You can also ignore the little voice in the back of your mind that whispers in your ear about behaving a little more prudently, if you choose. After all, something will come along, won't it?

You might, for example, win the lottery. Of course, you'd have to play the lottery, and if you live in Bermuda, that's hard to do. Be thankful for that: the chances of winning are so remote that lotteries have famously been described as a tax on stupidity, as if being stupid weren't already taxing enough.

You might marry a rich man, or woman. In Bermuda, your chances of doing that are greater than they are in most places. And yet ? I have spent my life waiting for a rich woman to knock on my door and politely ask if she could marry me and pay whatever bills I might feel like running up. Despite my stunning good looks, it hasn't happened yet.

I had pretty much concluded that there was no such thing as a rich woman, that the idea was just a myth. And then, lo and and behold, I met a rich woman. A beautiful, rich woman. A beautiful, rich, single woman. And guess what? She's the girlfriend of a friend of mine. I doubt she wants to pay any of my bills. I doubt she's paying that many of my friend's bills, either. If there's one thing rich people don't like, it's spongers. So that didn't work out so well.

You might invent something that earns you millions. Be honest, though, how many people have you met who invented something that earned them millions? None, is my guess. You've probably seen Bill Gates on TV, and he's made untold piles of dough, but there are 6 billion people in the world, and one in 6 billion is not good enough odds on which to base your future prosperity. Plus, how much inventing can you do with your head in the sand? Worse than that, if you were Bill Gates, you would have to (a) be Bill Gates, one of the most hated men on the planet and (b) spend most of your time with Bono. Frankly, I'd rather starve.

You might join a company at the start of a phenomenal growth pattern, earn stock options, work very hard, and become rich that way. That has happened to quite a few people I know, and you probably know too, because Bermuda has more than its share of such types. But stop for a second and ask yourself if you are as talented as they are, and as willing to give up the central part of your life, seven days a week, to the corporate effort.

On top of that, once they've made their millions, very few of them do what you or I would do, which is to retire, buy a yacht and spend the rest of their lives in hedonistic pursuits, i.e. having fun. They hunker down and work harder. The process of earning a fortune changes people; making money often becomes the only thing they are comfortable doing.

That strikes me as a horrible irony. What use would it be to have millions of dollars if you couldn't hang out with the Rolling Stones, have beautiful women lounging around in bikinis all the time (or gents in Speedos), and develop disgusting personal habits that everyone around you lacked the courage to mention? No fun at all, I'm guessing, which is probably why I'm not rich. Then again, not being rich isn't much fun, either.

You might do any of the aforementioned things. But the chances are you probably won't, and no matter how far down into the sand you sink your Struthonian head, you know it. So what might you do instead?

You might acknowledge that a better strategy would be to take some good advice and cut your coat according to your cloth. You might trim your spending so that it adds up to less than what you earn, and save the difference. You might decide that now is as good a time as any to start a sensible financial programme and take command of your economic fate. And you might decide to yank your head out of the sand, look around, and notice that a problem faced is well on the way to being a problem solved.