Sounds far fetched but that's how much the UK's lenders will collect in interest payments today. And tomorrow? Well tomorrow they will get their grubby little hands on a bit more thanks to the UK consumers who as you read this are borrowing another £1 million every 5 minutes. A nice round £327m by the end of today.

Unbelievable, right? But not as unbelievable as the flip side of the coin, or in this case, credit card.
• Over 14m adults have no financial savings or investments. That's around 30% of the UK population with nothing to fall back on. Ziltz, zero, nada!
• A further 25% have less than £3,000 put away for a rainy day.
• More than half the population (52%) could only survive financially for 17 days, should they suffer an unexpected loss of income, according to research by Combined Insurance.

No wonder there's a Credit Crunch! While the banks have thrown money at us to spend, spend, spend only 48% of us have made any effort to regularly put some back into savings and investments. That's the lowest level recorded in two years.

As an investor I don't just find this recklessness baffling, I find it down right scary. One of the first things I was taught about money as a child was to put some away in savings. 10% to be exact. No matter where the cash came from, paper rounds, birthday money or a cheeky couple of coins from Gran to spend down at the sweet shop. For every 9 coins that went into my pocket, 1 went into my piggy bank. I didn't exactly do this out of choice back then, but the system was enforced as part of my upbringing and as with all systems followed for a long time, it soon became discipline. A discipline I follow and teach to this day.

Robert Kiyosaki of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" fame calls it "Paying yourself first". Have you ever wondered why the government choose to take their tax BEFORE you get your pay check? It's simple - if they had to wait till the end of the month most people would have nothing left to give them. And this is the way most of us approach our own personal savings. If I have something left at the end of the month, I'll put it in my savings. But when you consider 64% of people run out of cash on average 5 days before their next pay cheque, it comes as little surprise that the UK's piggy banks are a bit cobwebbed.

Now I can hear you murmur under your breath - "10%, this guy is crazy. I hardly have enough cash as it is. Where am I going to find 10% to put away". Or maybe "That's a great principal, as soon as I get my next raise and have a bit more cash I'll start doing that". If that's your little voice my friend I'm afraid you can forget about becoming a successful property investor, because until you are willing to change the way you think about and act with money, you will never have any spare cash to invest.

If you are serious about securing your financial future and if you are not currently "Paying yourself first" then do this today. No, actually - do this NOW. Log on to your internet banking or call up your bank and set up a direct debit for 10% of your gross income to be taken out on the day you get paid. Don't think to yourself that you will transfer it manually. You won't, no matter how organized you are, you may do it for the first month, maybe the second but eventually you will forget or you'll be too busy. Create an automated system, stick to the system and before long it will become discipline. At first it may be hard to make do with 90% but you'll look back in six months and wonder what you ever spent that extra cash on. You will look back in years to come and be astounded at how even these small actions accumulated into something astonishing.

If you enjoyed this article then Click Here to receive our regular educational newsletters. Then, if you have questions or want to talk through how Smuts & Taylor can help you invest with confidence, feel free to call me directly on 0797 1000 667.

I look forward to speaking to you soon.

Mike Smuts
Property investor and Managing Director of Smuts & Taylor.