The return of traditional values

Now it's all gone horribly wrong, we're finding ourselves flying back in time...

The boom years were a dizzying and often disturbing time, as globalisation and technology turned our world upside.

We picked up new skills and habits, like trading shares instantly online, dressing down on Fridays, and putting our savings in Icelandic banks, if we bothered saving at all.

We drank strange coffees, flew to Eastern Europe for a night out and maxed out our credit cards.

We bought cheap clothes in Primark and binned them the next week, turned a blind eye to seven-figure banker bonuses, and bought houses costing six times our salaries.

And then it all went horribly wrong, and we found ourselves flying back in time.

Old is the new new.

They say that revolutions eat their own children, and this one chewed us up and spat us back into the past.

What we're left with is something a lot more austere, but also strangely comforting: a return to traditional ways.

Family values are back. More and more kids are returning to the family nest because they can no longer afford their rental flat or find a mortgage, according to The Children's Mutual. Some parents are now supporting both their parents and their kids.

Debt is out, as people rush to pay off their mortgages and other credit if they can, and learn how to live within their means.

The 125% mortgage now looks like a relic from another age, while Gordon Brown is planning to ban the 100% mortgage as well. That means first-time buyers will have to apply themselves to the time-honoured discipline of saving up for a deposit (or nagging their parents).

And the good old-fashioned building society is enjoying a revival, with over a million new accounts opened last year.

Maybe one day your trusted local bank manager will also make a comeback.

Mending our ways.

The revival of thrift and frugality has spread far beyond financial services. Sewing machine sales have risen by one-third, according to John Lewis, while knitting is suddenly considered cool. 'Make do and mend' has become the new 'Wear once and bin'.

We are also returning to the joys of home cooking, rainy holidays in Britain and digging our allotments.

Ofsted recently called for a revival of traditional notions of discipline in our anarchic schools. What next? The return of bob-a-job week?

Anyone who fails to recognise and adapt to this change in the public mood is likely to be punished: witness the stink over bankers' bonuses, the boom-time relic that hasn't quite been stamped out.

Drop the shop.

Not everybody will be thrilled by this enforced frugality, but most of us don't have any choice. Necessity is the mother of retrenchment.

But we should welcome these new-old values and apply them to the way we handle our money. That means shrinking your mortgage to an affordable multiple of salary, or building up a decent deposit before even thinking about buying your first property.

You should also carefully nurture a nest egg (an old-fashioned phrase if ever I heard one) in case of a rainy day (another one!), and forget all that Sex in the City fetishation of the joy of shoes and shopping. Don't max out your credit card, minimise it.

Insure your life and your health, to protect the family that may be increasingly dependent on you. Don't speculate on making a quick buck on the stock or property markets, but accumulate, steadily.

And when the good times start rolling again, remember all these lessons, and keep applying them.

A Fool and his money.

Traditional values never disappeared altogether, they were there all along, waiting for us to return to our senses.

And now we have.

For the good of the wider economy, we can only hope that other traditional values revive just as quickly.

Such as our manufacturing industry. Or a reliable banking system.

Comments are not gone forever!

We've had to take article comments down temporarily as we set up our new home on lovemoney.com, but new comment tools (and your old comments) will be back soon.