How are you coping with the money crisis, credit crunch, or as one old lady was heard describing it, 'this bank palaver'?

Never mind struggling with our own overdrafts and mortgages, isn't it a privilege and a pleasure to be able to help bail out the banks with our hard-earned taxes?

Like hell it is.

I may be the opposite of a money maestro, but for a long time I've thought (yes, even before the 'bank palaver') that robbing Peter to pay Paul is not actually a surefire recipe for financial success.

Nor is lending more and more money to people who have as much chance of paying it back as ... well, me.

When I got my first credit card many years ago I was so scared of getting into serious shopping difficulties that I never used it, but just kept it in my purse,ready to whip it out at the first sniff of an emergency.

However, I eventually heard via a startling phone call, that £1,000 worth of eating and shopping had been enjoyed by an unknown someone in New York,using my details in what must have been an early credit card fraud.

Well, I do like to be in at the beginning of things, and the company did reimburse me by the way.

Over the years, as my credit confidence grew,so did the number of cards I owned and like many others, I saw a mountain of debt accruing which I knew I had to sort out.

Now, after going back to having a single credit card for emergencies only, I have nearly paid off the balance.

Simple stuff? So how come the banks couldn't work it out for themselves?

As Dickens's Mr Micawber could have told them: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

FOOTNOTE: By the way there really is no need to get stressed about money, as I've discovered there's something we can all look forward to.

Apparently when you get to 80 years old, a generous 25p a week (I kid you not) will be added to your state pension.

Hey, we can put it towards a cup of tea, a first class stamp or a packet of Polos. We may have to wait a few years, but things are looking up!