When it comes to debt, Charles Dickens offers good financial advice

I always feel sorry for Marley’s ghost in Charles Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol.’ He wore a heavy chain he had unknowingly forged in life. Unlike Scrooge, Marley had not received ghostly visitors to warn him of his future burden.

Marley’s chain was made up of ‘cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds and heavy purses wrought in steel.’ The chains many people are forging today are made of high mortgages, shiny new cars, and bundles of credit cards. And we are dragging these heavy debts with us into the uncertainties of the post-Brexit world.

Low interest rates have not only scuppered the plans of those living off savings. They have also given borrowers a false sense of security, making them dangerously comfortable with big debt. Mortgage lending has soared to its highest June level for eight years, with total loan advances reaching £20.7bn, says the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

And people have been racking up unsecured debt on credit cards and personal loans faster than at any time in the last decade.