THINGS are generally going from bad to worse, so maybe it is time to get back to basics.

I have to say it is quite strange in recent months how all those who took out mountains of credit kind of lay the blame with someone else.

Just this week I have seen several TV programmes on people caught-up short.

Now, forgive me if I am being a little bit insensitive, but if you didn’t have the money to pay for a £400 designer jacket, then you should not have got one.

I want to buy an expensive remote-controlled toy car and race it down Bromley Street, but I don’t have the money, so choose not to.

What happened to simple common sense?

Okay, there are times when a credit card and a loan can be quite useful.

And you have to forgive people for going into the red because prices have gone up, and these days you get fined for almost everything.

But I saw one lady who had spent over £10,000 on her credit cards on a wage of £1,300 a month.

And had she spent this money on feeding her children, paying the bills, or fixing the boiler when it broke? Hell no.

She had squandered most of it on designer outfits and pointless pieces of art to decorate her house.

Rather than admitting she had been a little lavish, she decided to use that immortal line...’Well, the credit companies made it so easy. They were throwing credit cards at me’.

Which I kind of think is the lamest excuse around. Okay, if you took a huge mortgage out then you can blame the banks for cocking things up.

But if you took a small loan out to pay for a new coat for your dog (another programme I watched) then you need to re-evaluate your life.

I admit we live in a consumer-driven society, but once you reach the age of 16 you should already know that if you don’t have the money then you can’t go shopping for rubbish.

My mother was brilliant at budgeting and instilled a level of common sense into our heads. She was from an age that could only spend what was in their bank account or, in her case, the front pocket of the apron.

And as we head into uncertain times maybe it is time we returned to that way of thinking.