It may be the longest recession in history, but for many Britons it hasn’t felt too bad.

Unemployment has risen and the days of easy credit are gone. But for those people still in employment, there’s been a big fall in mortgage costs, and food and energy prices have come right back down.     

Monthly surveys from grocer Asda have shown a steady rise in disposible incomes and so it is hardly surprising that retailers are starting to feel the benefit.

Marks & Spencer beat first-half profit forecasts on Wednesday, while rival clothing chain Next topped third-quarter sales expectations.  

The signs are that Christmas, the biggest spending season of the year, will continue the positive trend and will not be a repeat of last year’s frenzy of discounting and business failures.

The Centre for Retail Research forecast earlier this week that retail sales would rise 1.9 percent to 44.7 billion pounds in the last six weeks of the year, not far short of the average outcome in the nine years before last year’s decline.      

But the improvement is unlikely to continue.

With a temporary cut in VAT sales tax due to reverse and other taxes expected to rise to plug the gaping hole in public finances, disposible incomes could come back under pressure.      

Wages growth is likely to remain subdued as unemployment continues to rise, and many Britons may feel that, after a festive splurge, they need to refocus on paying down their still high levels of personal debt.

It may be a merry Christmas, but a much less happy New Year.

A major survey has found that women are more responsible with money than men. They’re less likely to get into debt and they work hard to become financially independent.

The global Reuters Synovate survey polled some 4,500 women in 12 countries about money matters. An equal number of men were also asked several questions related to finances.

It’s true enough that the rogues’ gallery of bankers now being pilloried in the media for personal greed and financial failure is almost exclusively male.

But who melts all the plastic in the High Street? Surely Sophie Kinsella’s book “Confessions of a Shopaholic” was such a success because it struck a chord with so many women.

Do you think women are more intelligent than men when it comes to money matters?

In these hard times, those whose job it is to part us from our money in the shops are beginning to describe the retailing experience as a family activity, a way of relaxing — absolutely nothing to do with conspicuous consumption, you understand.

The word “luxury”, we are told, sends the wrong message nowadays and is being quietly phased out of promotional material. Bling is over.

Rory Sutherland of advertising agency Ogilvy even predicts there will be a trend towards the modest lifestyles reputedly favoured by Lutherans and Swedes.

What do you think? Do you believe the credit crisis will have any lasting impact on people’s attitudes when it comes to the relentless pursuit of material gain?

Or will we be back melting plastic in the shops as soon as the “all clear” siren is sounded?