It's official. Our debt problems aren't just terrible, they are unimaginably awful. A debt charity has announced that for one in three of the people who contact them, there's no traditional solution available. There's no clear way out.

This is already bearing in mind that some of the solutions they are talking about are awful, and include everything from signing up to a strict budget for the next five or ten years, to losing your home in bankruptcy.

What they are saying today is that for one in three people, even if they did all of this, they still wouldn't be able to cope with their debts.

However, the charity, the brilliant CCCS, does point out that there may still be a way out.

I love the run-up to an election. It's like the run-up to Christmas, where every day in the little governmental advent calender, there's another lovely treat to keep us sweet. Today's treat is a pretty big deal though, it's a new tranche of rules for credit card companies which should make things both fairer and clearer.

There's no catch either (except for a sight feeling that it is timed very nicently for the election). It is genuinely fantastic news.

So what are the rules and how will they help?

As we stagger out of recession, you'd be forgiven for thinking that charity begins at home, and that you can't afford to give what you would like to charity. But donating does not always have to impact the amount you have coming in each month.

Virgin Money has this week launched a new charity credit card that donates up to 1% of the money you spend to the charity of your choice - meaning you can give without it costing you a penny.

And there are lots of other easy ways to increase your charitable giving without feeling the pinch yourself.

Card fraud fell last year for the first time since 2006 thanks to the introduction of chip and PIN and better fraud detection tools. But instead fraudsters are raiding people's bank accounts online.

Criminals were less adept at skimming and cloning cards but managed to con people online or over the phone.

Losses from fraud on UK debit or credit cards dropped 28% last year to £440m, a decline of £170m, according to the UK Cards Association. Counterfeit card fraud - skimming and cloning – more than halved and cheque fraud was down 29%.

However, it's not time to start relaxing just yet.

It just goes to show how grim things were last year when it's revealed that more than a million people applied for the Vanquis credit card, with butt-cheek clenching interest rate of 60%.

The card, from sub-prime lender Provident Financial, had 2,700 applicants a day. This is a pretty impressive sort of business, but what is even more staggering is the fact that more than 80% of applicants were actually rejected.

In general, Provident decided these individuals were already stretched too far financially. What did they expect? Who, apart from the poor sods with miserable credit ratings, highly-leveraged incomes and assorted money worries would even think of applying a credit card on which they would be paying an interest rate of 60%?

Banks have been forced to come up with all sorts of new wheezes in the last couple of years. In an effort to balance the books a little more effectively, they have had to attract savings from customers before they are able to start lending money a bit more freely. It's a back-to-basics kind of approach: the sort of thing they used to have to do before they hit on the clever notion of inventing money.

However, with savings rates looking decidedly miserable, and everyone struggling to find cash to start a savings account or investment, they are having to be a bit clever about it.

So they have increasingly been bringing in products with strings attached. Santander will join the host of companies offering it next week. So what's the catch, and is it worth it?

We're all guilty of it - thinking we'll get organised and give our finances an overhaul - and then putting it of for as long as humanly possible.

It's easy to get bills and leave them unopened and ominous - I do it all the time. I genuinely knuckled down yesterday though, opened all my bills and my bank statements and had a good sort out of my accounts. Nothing was as bad as I thought, and I honestly can't tell you what a relief it is to have done it - it's a weight off my mind.

So, if you're going to brave spring cleaning your finances, here's a bit of help to make it just that bit easier.

A new survey has revealed that there is strong demand to reform the banking system. The survey, commissioned by the Better Banking Campaign found that 70% of believed access to basic services is a right.

An unbelievable amount of people - between five and seven million - have no access to mainstream credit and nearly two million don't even have access to basic bank accounts.

So can the campaign really work, and what changes is it aiming to implement?

We are officially more likely to get divorced than switch banks. The idea of parting with our current account just seems like an awful lot of work. The banks say the process is really very simple, and they promise to do all the legwork and the paperwork for you.

But we have so many direct debits, what would happen if one of them was to go astray? What about all those sites where we have registered our debit cards? Then of course there's the wait for the debit card, how would we cope with the inconvenience for a few days?

So throughout the turmoil of the past couple of years, even as our banks struggled with massive losses, and in many cases were bailed out by the taxpayer, we hung on.

But these are not good reasons for sticking with an account you're unhappy with. Yes moving will be a bit of a hassle, but there are two reasons why it will be worth your while.

The first week of Lent is usually a fairly cheerful one. We give up things we know are bad for us, we feel good about it, and we haven't yet started to get depressed by the whole thing.

In this spirit, we provided some great ideas of bad financial habits to give up for Lent.

However, the rest of the world doesn't seem to be on board with this whole, 'cheerful good news' vibe. The financial figures out this week were relentlessly miserable, including:

Mortgage lending hits a ten year low
Public finances slump to first January deficit on record
Credit card interest rates soar to 12 year high
Inflation soars to a 14 month high

And some very scary stuff on crime, including

Burglaries and muggings on the rise
and a website for burglars

So not the best of weeks, still there's always next week....

Except, with the misery of the second week of Lent kicking in, and confidence figures expected to bleak, perhaps we'd be better off staying in bed.