‘Thirty-one thousand, six hundred and thirty-seven pounds and eighty-four pence. That’s how much I owe. I feel sick looking at the display on the calculator. I try turning it upside down to see if that helps. It looks like hOLEgIE, which probably means loser in some long forgotten language.’

When your debt is more than your share of the mortgage and your partner’s threatening not only to leave, but to tell your mother how out of control your spending is, it’s time to take drastic action. So, for one whole year, Alexis Hall sets out to buy nothing but the bare essentials in a bid to reclaim her life from the retail rollercoaster threatening to pitch her into permanent poverty. But for a self-confessed shopaholic consumed by consumerism, just making it through lunch hour without buying the latest accessory becomes a life-altering act. In the Red is her hilarious diary as she struggles to transform herself from a spending junkie to a scrupulous saver You’ll soon realise there’s a bit of Alexis in us all!