Drive Out Your Debt Demons!

The Conservative Party has launched a new website to warn of the dangers of personal debt. At last, someone is getting the message!

I was amused to learn that the Conservatives have launched a new website which is designed to warn (young) people about the dangers of running up too much debt.

Sort-it is a step in a new direction for the Tories, who have traditionally avoided campaigns which criticise big business, even while in Opposition. However, David Cameron's modernisation of the Conservative Party continues, as this crusade is squarely aimed at attracting the attention (and votes) of young adults.

The goal of Sort-it is to help younger people to think more carefully about their spending habits, and to warn them about the perils of constantly spending more than they earn. To do this, Sort-it introduces the idea of your 'inner Tosser', who is shown as a tandoori-tanned New Yorker in a turquoise suit, pink shirt and gold jewellery (think David Dickinson during Seventies disco fever)!

In essence, your Tosser represents the inner voice which encourages you to toss your money away by buying things that you don't need. In effect, he's the spirit of 'retail therapy', constantly urging you to buy, buy, buy with the promise that more material possessions will make you a happier, sexier and more confident individual.

In this appalling celebrity-obsessed age in which we live, too many of us are surrendering to our Tossers within, and become preoccupied with keeping up with the Joneses. This futile exercise often turns into a credit-card-fuelled competition, as households overspend with the aim of getting ahead of their neighbours.

Alas, perhaps the greatest myth of consumer capitalism is the idea that 'conspicuous consumption' makes you a better person. With millions of us routinely borrowing to support unsustainable lifestyles, the UK has become a nation of 'Champagne tastes and beer incomes'. Indeed, although giving in to your inner Tosser may give you a short-term boost to your self-esteem, the only certainty is that your Tosser will wreak havoc on your personal finances!

It only takes a few figures to begin to understand how bad Britain's borrowing and spending binge has become. For example, at the end of September 2006, our total non-mortgage debt stood at £212 billion, compared to £77 billion ten years previously. Hence, over the past decade, our unsecured borrowing has grown at almost 11% a year, which is frighteningly fast.

Or how about the fact that our total debt including mortgages is now £1,258 billion, or 1½ times our yearly take-home pay, which makes us more heavily indebted than our American cousins on this measure?

In my view, the time for us to tighten our belts is long overdue, so we have to muzzle our inner Tossers and stop spending tomorrow's money today. Instead, we should learn how to live our lives to the full while keeping one eye firmly fixed on building future financial security.

I silence my inner Tosser by ensuring that I earn as much as I can, spend less a lot less than this amount, and then save and invest most of the remainder. I think that I must have bored my Tosser to death, because the last impulse purchase I made was a £20 T-shirt about two years ago. (I had to have it, as it had a cartoon of B.A. Baracus from the A-Team with the words "Crazy Fool" underneath!)

Finally, if you'd like to teach your inner Tosser a lesson, try these three articles for size:

and then visit the Fool's Get Out of Debt centre and Dealing with Debt discussion board.

Here's to calling time on our inner Tossers and banishing our debt demons!

More: Use the Fool to find 0% credit cards, bargain personal loans and top savings accounts!