It's time to batten down the hatches

IF anyone doubted that we live in Rip-Off Britain, the headlines of the last few days should be enough to convince them. "Oil giants accused of profiteering on high petrol prices" said one, pointing out that while oil prices had fallen 25 per cent since mid-July, prices were still up at the pumps.

"Two hundred years to claw back the cost of solar panels" read another, after the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors did the maths.

"Credit card companies reduce monthly payments to increase debt" was another, along with "3.4 million people need 31 years to repay credit card debt". Thirty-one years!

And, of course, we face ever-increasing food costs which are, frankly, impossible to justify.

The headlines may be doom-laden, but at least we should be thankful we have a sufficiently free press to let us know we are being fleeced.

Unfortunately, we know by experience that absolutely nothing will be done as a result. Despite the oil companies, supermarkets and even some financial institutions continuing to declare huge profits, there seems to be no way to protect Joe Public against corporate greed and exploitation.

Debt is a major issue and most worrying is the fact that credit card spending in the UK increased by an average of £179 million, quarter to quarter, in the last year.

In simple terms that means that, despite the credit crunch, despite all the banking insecurities and rising prices, we are still digging ourselves further and further into debt, apparently hoping that by some miracle, lottery win or unexpected bequest, we will be able to pay it all off.

The rot began somewhere around the Seventies or Eighties and accelerated up to the present day. It was the implanting of the idea that "everybody lives on credit". In fact, not so long ago, the only major debt a family carried was a mortgage and perhaps one or two hire- purchase agreements. People did not, by and large, live on credit.

Six years ago I got my first credit card. Five years ago I paid it off and cut it up. It was simply the most expensive and punitive way of borrowing money. All around me, friends and colleagues were saying I was a dinosaur and lecturing me that in this day and age, if I didn't have borrowings and therefore a credit rating, I was a second-class citizen.

One girl I knew swore by her system of having nine credit cards on the go at once so that she could switch debt around, go for interest-free introductory offers and merrily juggle her money around in the air. That's where the money stayed . . . in the air. Indeed "her" money didn't exist – until the day came, as it inevitably would, where it had to somehow materialise in her pocket to be paid back to the lender.

Not surprisingly she had clothes, computers, mobile phones and all manner of luxuries that at the time I couldn't afford, having deprived myself of access to the bottomless pit of cash offered to me by credit companies.

It is more by luck than good sense that I am not now saddled with debt so I don't claim to be any more clever or wiser than anyone else.

But one thing I do know is that the only way to bring prices down and to stop being more regularly fleeced than a Suffolk ewe is to stop buying and borrowing things that you don't desperately need. Cut the demand and watch prices fall.

I do most of my shopping at Lidl and make my own bread, jams and chutney. Himself grows veg and fruit. If I could get a cow in the back garden, I'd milk it. We will run our already second-hand car until it dies of old age and buy as little petrol as possible. Instead of solar panels, I'll wear an extra jumper. If only I had the looks I'd be Felicity Kendall.

Don't be bamboozled by accountant-talk that if we all stop spending, things will only get worse for the economy. Join me. We're in a recession. Batten down the hatches and play the market at its own game.

Car park cure
Good news that parking charges are to be scrapped at hospitals. Bad news that it doesn't include the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, thanks to its private funding contracts.

Apparently there are fears that the soon-to-be free Western General car parks will be taken over by cheap-skate commuters lacking in social conscience.

Having had breast cancer, I know only too well the difficulties of parking at the Western for clinic appointments. Even now there's usually at least a half-hour wait to get a place.

But the solution is surely to copy the system at the Dundee Street complex in Fountainbridge. Enter the car park, take your ticket, then have it scanned and coded at the ward you are visiting or the clinic you are attending.

The ticket machine on the way out reads the code and charges you £0.00. For all I care they can charge £50 to people with no business at the hospital and no concern for the patients, visitors and staff they are displacing.