MARTIN LEWIS - Top tips from moneysavingexpert.com IT’S time to break the cycle of debt in the UK. It’s time for compulsory financial education in schools.

Disgracefully, we still educate our youth into debt but never about debt. This is something I’ve vowed to change.

Last week I joined Justin Tomlinson MP – head of the Personal Finance Education Group – to launch the first all-party parliamentary group on finance education.

This isn’t just about debt, it’s about savings and being a consumer in a super-competitive modern economy. Get it right, and there’ll be less mis-selling, fewer debt problems and a more efficient economy.

Your help is needed

Write or email your MP and ask them to join the group (help and a template letter at mse.me/MPfe).

While some schools have voluntarily introduced financial education, even then, headteachers struggle to give it resources, as it’s not in the curriculum.

Parents often tell me a bank went to their child’s school to help them set up an account. Of course, any info’s good, but we need to assess whether this is touting for trade disguised as generosity.

Teach your kids yourself now Here are my three key lessons:

􀁥 Lesson 1: A company’s job is to make money Start by taking an eight-year-old to the supermarket and pointing out sweeties near the till. Explain that the supermarket is a company, which needs to make money and it puts the sweets there to try to get children to ask parents to buy them.

Our kids need buyers’ training to counter the modern might of marketing and advertising.

􀁥 Lesson 2. Debt isn’t bad, bad debt is bad These days if you want to buy a house or go to university, the system forces you to borrow. The secret is to teach them to differentiate between good and bad debt.

􀁥 Lesson 3. Loyalty doesn’t pay Ask a class of 15-year-olds ‘who’ll get the best deal, a loyal customer or a new one?’ and the majority wrongly think it’s the long-stander. Kids need to know the best deals are often offered to new customers.

TV money guru Martin Lewis runs the consumer revenge website MoneySavingExpert.com
Ensure you get his weekly e-mail so you’re constantly saving money.