It all started with the 5p off a litre of fuel vouchers, which you get if you spend more than £50 in the supermarket. OK, they are fine, but they are beginning to excite the wife so much, she plans the weekly shop not by how much food we have in the fridge, but how low my petrol gauge is. If we're out of bread and beans, and I still have half a tank of fuel, things can get very tricky.

Meanwhile, inside her purse, I can guarantee that at this very moment there are more coupons than notes. When I last checked, I found vouchers for free kids meals at Frankie and Benny's, two-for-one meals at Ask and Pizza Express, discount coupons for Gap, H&M, New Look, Selfridges, Threshers and other shops that I haven't even heard of.

The little bits of paper are beginning to dictate where she goes, what she eats, and what she wears. She's obsessed. And don't get me started on her loyalty cards!

Her joy at not paying as much as she should have done for something is, of course, understandable, but is she buying stuff she doesn't really need? Isn't it just clever marketing? Surely these businesses are still making a profit?

Giving the shopper the feeling of "oh yes, I've just got a real bargain" is clearly a tactic that is working. But I'm sorry to burst your bubble on this, but I feel that it's nonsense. Why don't they just standardise lower prices for everybody, and not just the coupon-crazed housewives, obsessed with bagging a deal?

I remember, years ago my mum used to haggle over the price of stuff while out shopping. It was so embarrassing seeing her asking for discounts all the time, but it did used to work occasionally.

Nowadays, if you try to negotiate a discount somewhere, you usually just get funny looks. And the vouchers don't reach you on the back of a cornflake packet anymore. Instead they fly into your inbox via e-mail. Websites like moneysavingexpert.com are springing up.

But go carefully shopper. Don't let them brainwash you to spend, spend, spend. Because spending money we don't have, or can't really afford, is part of the reason we are entering this deep, dark, depressing recession.