Pinched faces, twisted mouths and suspicious eyes that dart like forked tongues; in the vicious world of fiction, misers sit in cold rooms on threadbare furniture, so coveting their energy, they move only to prise hidden caskets out of rotten floorboards to fawn over the glimmering hoard of gold inside.

But is this not a terrible stereotype? After hundreds of years of hideous press and vicious typecasting, the poor miser has suffered enough at the dogmatic hands of political, civic and religious minds – their prudence mocked, their caution scorned, their feelings bruised.

Yet, debt riddles our world like fleas on a mattress, caused by folly and carelessness, leading to itches and plague. It is time to bid welcome to the virtues of thrift. Here are ten reasons to become a miser.

1. Inhabit the fourth circle of hell.

Yes, Dante wrote all misers into an eternity of rolling stones round in circles, condemned to attack their opposites, the spendthrifts, in perpetuity. Still, could be worse. You could spend infinity having your head twisted backwards in the eighth circle, which is the terrible fate of all those fluffy fortune-tellers down Camden Market. And, from your fourth circle, you can look down on the lower circles and laugh at all those media junkoids that fawn over celebrity. Flattery never pays: in fact, for Dante, it means being covered in filth. So, even in hell, you can feel a glorious sensation of superiority over the editors of Hello! magazine.

2. A weight loss plan that works.

As soon as you become a miser, you stop spending. Think of it. You cut your shopping bills: you stop buying food. You cut your travel budget: you walk everywhere. Soon, the weight will be falling off. And as the scales go down, the bank balance goes up: it's almost as though the lost calories jump into your bank accounts and become lovely little pennies. The more the miser, the thinner the thighs. Ah, the wonderful power of glittering cash.

3. Inherit a set of classic phrases.

As you jump out of the crass, disgusting world of excessive consumption – remember, it used to be a disease – to become the epitome of wary stinginess, you automatically inherit a persona's worth of classic phrases. Fine examples include "bah humbug", "look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves", "waste not, want not", "make do and mend", and my favourite, "I'll retire to Bedlam". Announced with knowing and self-satisfied resolve, flexing these new expressions at every opportunity will not only reinforce your miserly determination, but also make you appear to have an eccentric and interesting personality. Everyone will suspect you to be making ironic references to historical archetypes, and believe that you are wildly intelligent and exceptionally fashionable, as you scorn the vulgarity of conspicuous spending and branded goods.

4. Become a dissenting radical.

In today's ridiculous environment where people believe your head may fall off if you do not take advantage of a 'bargain' DVD player, your decision to hoard your gold means you have become the embodiment of anti-consumerism, a Hades of spending, a dark lord in the realm of consumer-driven economic growth. Remember, even Gordon Brown will hate you. You will have become an enemy of the state, a modern Alexsandr Solyzentyn, and you won't have gone anywhere near a gulag.

5. Enjoy an addiction to spreadsheets.

Oh, the glories of spreadsheets. You will need one to plot the progress of your newfangled tight-fisted ways. Soon, you will forget television, forget your Playstation – you'll probably sell it after you get your first taste of one column going down, the other going up – and just watch your wealth rise like a phoenix from the debt-ridden ashes, dazzling all those foolish souls with cripplingly arrears. Soon, everything will need to be fed into the spreadsheet; your books will go on the long journey to the exchange, your CDs forgotten in the quest to liquidate. You may even sell your own hair. But the ecstasy of watching tenable accumulation will override your need for silly expensive preoccupations, and your boredom will finally be conquered by an overriding passion: must turn stuff into numbers, must feed numbers into spreadsheet. You may even find yourself ecstatically mesmerised by the power of double entry bookkeeping.

6. Wear a nightcap.

Not just any old nightcap but a miser's nightcap. Just like a public school tie, you are in the club and you can wear the uniform. As you will have probably turned off the heating and disconnected the gas pipe, your nightcap will typify your new lifestyle in a way unseen since 1876. You can languish on a threadbare, once upholstered, chair and imagine yourself as a living embodiment of Gormenghast: rich, old and terribly idiosyncratic. Remember, miserliness and refined decay means old money. The more chewed-up your chair, the more people will believe you are romantic, precious and boast a blue blood line back to Ethelred the Unready.

7. Get away with obnoxious behaviour.

Just like the admirable Hetty Green, otherwise known as the Witch of Wall Street, miserliness underwrites all manner of mildly anti-social behaviour. In your quest to cut costs, you can not only refuse to buy rounds in public houses, but also insist on taking your pint glass home. Naturally, these are baby steps on the path towards full miserable penny-pinching because, after three months, you won't want to go anywhere where you can't make money. At this point, to seep yourself in the thin gruel of frugality, you could take a leaf out of Hetty's book and set up shop on the ground floor of a bank, eat sandwiches out of your pocket and only have one change of clothes – though I don't advise refusing to pay for a doctor and then having to resort to limb amputation.

8. Become a myth.

For this, you need a literary friend: someone who will write you into history and make your name a byword for sensible spending. Although the task may require some adoption of strange habits and ghostly hallucinations on your behalf, calm yourself with the thought that it is all for art and art is glorious. On a smaller scale, you could write terse letters to national newspapers bemoaning the flippant attitude towards financial security that currently possesses the young, and reinforce your message by referring to your own, slightly exaggerated, parsimonious lifestyle. Remember to secure copyright.

9. Cackle in the knowledge only you will have a pension.

As age comes, billowing in on the wind, bringing grey hair and wrinkly skin, only you will have prepared for the eventful day where you leave work for the last time. Since the state pension will only stretch to a can of evaporated milk by the time you reach 65, the only way you will have something to live off is by tightening your fist and sewing up your pockets right now. So, when your peers, who squandered their riches on iPod accessories or bottles of Aveda shampoo, suffer the shame of shopping for cardigans at Sue Ryder, you will not need to sell your house to pay your council tax bill. Old age will be your era: the self-satisfied mantra on your lips "If you had only saved like I did . . . " as you sip your watered-down port, ease your legs onto a scruffy armoire and switch on your black and white TV – the epitome of luxury for your peers since the bailiffs have repossessed all their earthly goods.

10. Buy poultry for poor kids.

If all this talk of economising and thrift lowers your heart and worries your soul, just remember that great avaricious icon Ebenezer Scrooge. Where some recite millions of Hail Marys, join orders, pledge their life to God or sit upon columns for years to secure eternal salvation, Ebenezer redeemed himself in a more straightforward and sensible way.

He bought a turkey.

Yes, the purchase of a prize bird saved Scrooge from the miserable fate of having his bed-curtains stolen by a charwoman whilst he lay dead on his mattress. But one important aspect, so fiendishly hidden by Dickens, is that Scrooge had the money in the first place. He could pay for the turkey because he hadn't frittered his money away on useless things like heating and food. No Christmas consolidation loans for Scrooge, oh no! No low cost loans at your convenience. He could save Tiny Tim with one jangle of his purse, he did not need to dash to the bank and he was loved forever more, particularly by Americans.