Serenata Flowers wonder what will make my “cheeks red this Valentine’s”. Crocus wants to “be my Valentine”. An organic cosmetics company from Cornwall would love to send me some “naughty Valentine’s products”. Ultimatum Insurance is concerned I might not have all my Valentine’s jewellery fully insured. Barclaycard is trying to guarantee I receive all the gifts it thinks I should get by offering 10% off at Interflora, H Samuel and Thornton’s until the 14th, and Boots, keen I should look my best, has a “Valentine’s super deal” offering half-price hair straighteners and £1 off Maybe-lline Watershine Elixir Lipgloss.
You might think all these ads are harmless, that they just add to the fun of the occasion, but I’m not sure that’s true. Together they (along with the hundreds that I haven’t mentioned) give the clear impression that Valentine’s Day, rather like Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Easter, is a time when presents must be given, when love is defined not by the effort you put into making breakfast in bed but the extent to which you flex your credit card.
And it works. According to numbers from Wedding TV, last year people spent an average of just over £90 on their partner on Valentine’s Day, and are likely to spend even more this year. Think dinner, tacky cards, mini teddy bears with embroidered hearts, nasty pink ornaments and the occasional bit of pricey bling.
This is clearly absurd. Christmas is only a few weeks gone and the bills from the festive spending binge are still sitting unopened on kitchen counters.
A record 107,000 people went bankrupt in England and Wales last year, nearly 30,000 of them in the fourth quarter of the financial year — 44% more than the year before and over 400 a day.
And insolvency companies are all expecting that trend to continue thanks to years of irresponsible lending on the part of the banks and irresponsible borrowing on the part of consumers. We are more in debt as a nation than we have even been — to the tune of £1,300 billion.
Just to add to the difficulties, the low interest rates that have so long protected us from the consequences of our profligacy are soon to be a thing of the past.
The most irritating thing is that the people who are likely to be most beguiled by the idea that love equals money on February 14 are those who can least afford it. Alliance & Leicseter estimates that 9% of under30s have debt of more than £15,000. The average for the age group is just under £8,000.
The young and indebted can’t be entirely blamed for this sad situation. They are saddled with horrible levels of student debt the likes of which the over40s never had to deal with. Outside a few particularly lucrative professions (anything in the City) starting salaries in the UK are low, and the cost of living is very high indeed. Once you’ve accounted for transport, utilities and council tax there is little left in the average graduate pay cheque.
However, there is also a cultural problem here. It should not be the case that every restaurant is booked up for Wednesday night despite the fact that their set menus will be overpriced and badly cooked and that even the places usually (deservedly) empty midweek will be trying to squeeze in two sittings in four hours. And it should not be the case that companies even think they can get away with the kind of marketing they come up with at times like this.
A sensible population would snort at the foolishness of buying a special set of pink hair straighteners for Valentine’s Day or at the idiocy of ordering the same bouquet from Interflora as everyone else on the street (a dozen scentless roses for £40).
Sadly, they know that we won’t. So much so that they even think they can get us to do the work for them: Interflora is currently offering a service whereby you can have them send an e-mail to your boyfriend telling him what you want him to buy you on Valentine’s Day. Call me old-fashioned, but that seems to me to smother whatever romance might have been left in the concept of flowers as a love symbol.
I’ve suggested taking a minor revenge on the nation’s marketing departments by going on spending strike before, but if you haven’t done it yet, February 14 has to be a good time to start.
So here’s my suggestion. Skip the bad dinners and the branded tat. Stay at home and talk instead. If you want romance you can always write each other poems or some such.
This isn’t my area (see any woman’s magazine for more expert advice on this kind of thing), but surely it is possible to get the message across without racking up more debt.
Editor
Moneyweek Magazine
www.moneyweek.com
Merryn Somerset Webb is a former stockbroker and now editor of Money Week. Her views are personal and investors should always seek professional advice.