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A PERSONAL THOUGHT ABOUT AVOIDING DEBT IN THE FIRST PLACE

Well, yes. Unless you're genuinely reckless or feckless or both you already know the theories about avoiding debt: be a regular saver, learn how to budget long before your debt adviser tells you to, manage your cash flow, avoid credit cards and store cards like the plague, and avoid arrangements involving several people (such as tenancies, for example) that aren't properly drawn up and regulated. Don't allow yourself to be conned out of money and, like Charles Dickens' Mr Micawber, aim to live within your means.

Except that, however well he knew the theory, Micawber was imprisoned for debt. The theories don't always work, and when they fail it isn't always the fault of the person in debt. There are people who are foolish with money, but it isn't necessarily foolishness that gets you made redundant or bereaved or separated. Debt doesn't come out of the blue: to a huge degree it comes from being human and being in debt does not make you a bad human. I have already quoted John McQueen and Gill Hankey.

Try to avoid feeling shame or humiliation in debt.

Shakespeare's Polonius ('Neither a borrower nor a lender be'), far from being an exemplary human being, is a deeply flawed man who browbeats his daughter and sets spies on his son.

There is one road to debt, however, which I did not find mentioned in the majority of my sources - debt arising from self-deception. I don't mean debt when you're cheated or deceived by other people: I mean debt when you cheat yourself. Read the following synopsis of a short story by the French writer Maupassant published in the late nineteenth century.

Mathilde Loisel is the wife of a poorly paid civil service clerk who believes herself worthy of finer things. When her husband brings home an invitation to a glittering reception at his Ministry, however, she is dismayed: she has nothing to wear. Her husband has 400 francs tucked away which he gives to her to buy a dress. Still she sulks: she has no jewels. Her husband reminds her of her wealthy friend from schooldays, Mme Forestier. Mathilde visits her friend and combs through jewel boxes until finally her heart settles on a diamond rivière which she is allowed to borrow.

For Mathilde the reception is a tumultuous success: she is admired, flattered and remarked upon. Only on returning home in the early morning, however, does she realise that the diamonds are gone. Searching is fruitless. To gain time, she writes to Mme Forestier to say the clasp is damaged and must be repaired, but after a week the couple realise they must obtain a replacement.

They find a virtually identical piece which will cost them 36,000 francs. Half of the money comes from the husband's paternal inheritance. The other half they must borrow, here, there and everywhere, in haste and in panic. They are able, however, to return a suitable item of jewellery to Mme Forestier, who does not perceive the change.

Then for 10 full years they live in penury and debilitating hardship, finally becoming free of debt - but not before Mathilde has lost all her natural elegance, youth and beauty.

One day on the Champs-Elysées, Mathilde spots her friend, Mme Forestier, still youthful and with a child. Feeling that she nothing to lose, she blurts out the whole story. Mme Forestier is shocked and devastated. The original jewels, she says, were false, worth at most 500 francs.

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