Money is unreal to those who have it and absolutely real to those who don’t. The unreality of it was highlighted after the vote for Brexit. Graphs, even for people who don’t do graphs, showed the pound plummeting. I got it. When my youngest came back from Ireland with a load of euros, she asked me to explain the exchange rates to her. I did my best. “Who makes this stuff up?” she asked. It seems only recently that I was having these conversations with small children, not ones who travel and ask about exchange rates. “Where does money come from?” I would answer, stupidly, “banks” or “my so-called job”. Now, I try to explain that, in a way, money is a kind of agreement, but by the time you understand this, it’s usually too late. Even north London has yet to develop a barter economy.

My own economic illiteracy means that it took me a long time to see that it is really only those with lots of money who can afford to see it in the abstract, and therefore make more of it. Those who live hand-to-mouth never ever can. They may gamble or do the lotto but these are not, on the whole, the same folk who squirrel it away to avoid inheritance tax. A scratch card is a large price for a small dream – but tread softly on everyday dreams.

No wonder many gamble, as they no longer save. Can’t save/won’t save. New figures show that Britain’s “saving habits” are collapsing. This can be put down to the record low in interest rates and the attempt to boost consumer spending. Surely this is also to do with stagnating wages and a culture where saving for many is just impossible. Whenever I watch Location, Location, Location, I am amazed at the young couples who have got together a house deposit by using apps to help budget. This world of discipline and own-brand beans feels as far away as putting sixpences in a piggy bank.

I remember being poor. That £500 sum that emerged recently – the amount a third of families would have trouble finding for an emergency – chilled me. The banality of inequality, that make-or-break 500 quid. I know that precarious feeling, where a broken boiler or an unexpected bill is a darkness that hangs in the air, that stops anyone being able to think about a future beyond the next week. In my childhood, that crippling figure was about £150.

Another big difference is the acceptance of debt as a way of life. Indeed, such contradictory messages about debt and spending are pumped out that I am not surprised there is little interest in saving. It’s still disappointing to take cash out of a machine that has “free withdrawals” emblazoned over the top, to find that they’re not. It is cheering to be notified every time I spend online that I have in fact “saved” some other amount. Or, on eBay, actually “won”.

All of us, whatever our social class, have our own bling. From superyachts to the little place in France, to the extraordinary nails. The less you can change about your life, the more the small rewards matter. In poor areas, the bookies move in, and so do the “salons”. Nails, spray tans and lash extensions are treats – mini-breaks from reality. Someone else waits on you. Everyone else can see what you have spent.

Likewise, the important consumer product is the phone, a status symbol when you may not have a car or a home of your own. The familiar whine – that people are not actually poor because they possess a smartphone – is put into perspective by how near the edge many are. People are poor when they have no savings, nothing to fall back on. This has to be spelt out. Both government and opposition rhetoric confuses a conversation about debt and saving by limiting debate to a series of false binaries: austerity/anti-austerity, good debt/bad debt, spending/cutting. May fired Osborne, fiscal stimulus is being applied: there has to be another way of talking now that is more than being “against the cuts”.

More than 8m UK adults have ‘problem debt’ Read more

In reality, saving may be as boring as hell, but we are facing a looming crisis around pensions because many have not saved enough to live on. Or to pay for their own care. Immigrants are stepping in here to provide the care that the state will not. All that was done in the name of the private finance initiative: a short-term saving that is actually a vast overspending. The debts that graduates pile up may not be justified in terms of earning, if this is what we deem education to be for. So what is going on when so many in a rich country cannot save money? Is it simply profligacy?

There is a general agreement among those who can afford to do it that saving is a habit that all must learn.

“Do banks just make money?” my child asked. “Well, yes and no. I will get you an account.” Children’s accounts still pay a bit of interest, apparently. Maybe she will find out how it all works. The crisis in consumer confidence that the experts are talking of, though, is surely less serious than this crisis in saving. If one must save to have a secure future and that is beyond our means, the future looks poor.