And: “Cosmetic treatment may improve your appearance and self-confidence, but it won’t necessarily deliver your ‘ideal’ body image or change your life.”

Because the injectables industry is – in reality – a money-sucking machine preying on low self-esteem.

However, much like you can get in ‘calorie-credit’ by subbing in better-for-you foods (say ditching butter for avocado) in a health swap, you could be ‘sitting pretty’ with the below wealth swap.

Switch collagen for the co-contribution

You only need to cut your (collagen?) costs by $19.25 a week to get a free infusion of up to $500 from the government. If you pay in $1000 after tax to your superannuation fund, you get this so-called ‘co-contribution’. But you must be earning – that is important – less than $56,112 a year. Done every year, this dramatically swells your assets in a good way. Speaking of which…

Switch fillers for a (family) filling

Still on super, you can get a $540 tax rebate – so that amount trimmed off your tax bill – by a higher-earning spouse injecting $3000 after tax to the super of the other. That requires an investment of $57.70 a week; does a ‘clinic’ compromise cover it? The receiver needs to be on less than $40,000 – no requirement to be working this time – to get the full $540 ATO ‘discount’. This one inflates your bottom line both in the future and immediately.

Switch botox for a balance transfer

Where a person carries over credit card debt from month to month, RBA figures show that the average balance bloat is $1454. Worse, it is accruing interest at a typical 18 per cent, which means if you pay off the minimum only each month, you will end up wearing an extra $2145 in interest (over nearly 14 years!). Is that while – perhaps – you are dosing up on more debt for botox?

If you instead opt for terrific and tight finances, the average person would need to redirect just $40.40 a month. Today, you can get a beautiful 36-month offer to erase your past excesses by transferring your balance to a credit card charging 0 per cent interest.

Switch threads for dividends

Loading

This is a big one – both in terms of the invasive treatment and my evasive alternative. Swap inserting medical-grade thread material into your skin (this is real!) with a far more valuable boost: investing in the sharemarket. Here – and it is frightening thread users are getting younger – an early start is a smart financial decision: it gives you more time to reinvest your dividends (income) and harness the power of compounding. Just $6 a day invested from age 20, if you can get an average annual 8 per cent return, will grow to $1 million by age 67. And you’ll have shelled out only about $100,000; $900,000 will be a pure earnings uplift – or free money. Plump your finances with far less pain.

Re the cosmetic procedures I’ve mentioned, feel free to send me corrections and complaints. I have no interest in learning… only in interest I’m actually earning.

Sadly, some people are sacrificing economic advancement for cosmetic enhancement.