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My Other Bank is a financial institution in a land far, far away from Debtland In it is a clutch of secret accounts They have standing orders Weekly standing orders They have personal identities Mr Tax and Ms VAT are two Nanny Tax is another Rainy Day is a fourth. Effectively, they are the Four Horsemen of Financial Recovery and exist to protect me from things arriving via the post and hitting me in the financial solar plexus Even the experts say they are the way forward. “Each time you make a savings deposit, you will be backing away from the edge, and that feels so good,” writes Mary Hunt in The Complete Cheapskate, my current favourite read. Mary Hunt is America’s female answer to the wondrous Alvin Hall. She offers thrift tips both from the crashingly obvious (try state schools for your children rather than forking out for ruinously expensive private education), to the bizarre (Orvus horse shampoo will bring your “holiday sweater” back to shop-fresh softness). These gems are woven thorough an array of financial case studies that all resolve in a life of happiness and credit.

(Apart from one scary paragraph, which kicks off by admitting, “Some financial situations are beyond repair.”)
Anyway, according to Mary, I have acquired a “life-changing tool”, thanks to my secret accounts. Looking at them renders me a bit internet-Scrooge, I know, but I have faith that these life-changers will save me from the taxman Or, indeed, the nanny’s taxman. Our lovely nanny, from whom I’m forever cadging fivers (well, actually, twenties) has more spending money than I do. She’s constantly popping out to Waitrose to buy top-up groceries I can’t possibly ask her not to.

It’s just too embarrassing.”You can only stop your nanny buying posh food by planning all your meals right through the week,” says my mate, the gorgeous Rachel, who is coincidentally also staring a £12,000 overdraft in the eye. She urges me to sit down every Sunday night and make a meal plan. I tell her about thrift queen Laura and her four separate meals from a chicken, and her latest, which is four separate meals from a lamb “Wow. How does she manage that?” asks Rachel, with the sort of vocal thrill we used to use for discussing hot trousers at Topshop, or hot dates at the youth club. What has happened to us? We are now all facing 40 and the unspeakable prospect of being overdrawn all our lives Something has to give, and that is hot trousers at Topshop “Roast it with lentils,” I say. “Then mince the remainder and use for spag bol one day and lasagne the next Finally, use the rest of it to make meatballs.