Then with £15 for lights and £10 for a lock you're on the road for less than

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"Then, with £15 for lights and £10 for a lock, you're on the road for less than £100."Mr Bogdonavicz, a seasoned cyclist, owns a bike worth £2,000. So I got a couple of websites including my main one, racingmemories. But I realised I couldn't compete on information with the likes of the Sporting Life and Racing Post, so I started a database of collectors," he says."Thanks to eBay and the rest prices started going ballistic Before I knew it, I'd got quite a significant collection I'm kind of filtering things now. Say I buy 100 badges, I filter 20 of them and move 80 of them.

It's become a self-funding hobby."THE FORM FOR WOULD-BE COLLECTORSIf you do your homework, collecting horse racing memorabilia can give you better returns than you will get from any tipster. And even if you purchase does not turn an instant profit, you will have rather more to show for your money than a torn-up betting slip.Although there are no hard and fast rules, there are a few things a potential collector should bear in mind:* Look for anything that forms a set. His hobby has, however, become a valuable part-time source of income."A cousin in the US was a producer for Yahoo before the internet thing really sprang in this country. Among those is a collection from the Cheltenham course going back to the early 19th century and includes his most valuable badge, from 1919, which alone is worth £580.Mr Wakes works as an account controller for a major food firm. I thought: 'I'll get a few of those, then I'll put them away. On a rainy day I've now got a little investment'."That investment now includes some 3,500 members' badges. The FSA has an important role in providing information to consumers - and it could do better."However, the report says the FSA is taking a more proactive approach and intends to act more quickly..

"The people who are collecting the course stuff are the ones who'll be making the serious money in 10 or 20 years' time," he says.'I started a database for other collectors'While his fellow racegoers were downing Guinness by the bucket-load at his favourite course, Cheltenham, William Wakes was browsing the stalls round the track."There was an agent and she used to go round all the courses with stuff that ranged from antiques through to badges and racecards A couple of my mates became collectors. It seems inevitable that many firms will continue to act poorly without intervention, or a credible threat of intervention, from the FSA."The report also warns that attempts to close the savings gap at the expense of consumer protection will only undermine future consumer confidence, and that no amount of financial education will replace the need for help through a network of generic advice centres.It says: "There is much to do to make the retail financial services market fair and understandable before consumers can be expected to take more responsibility for themselves. She says: "If the FSA is to raise standards in the industry it must act faster and be less accepting of industry assurances. This makes it all the more urgent to cut spending commitments and fix your personal borrowing rate while the going is good..

Ann Foster, chairman of the independent Financial Services Consumer Panel, today calls on the financial industry to stop ripping off customers and restore public confidence in the market. We implore the industry to take steps to bring everyone up to the standards of the best. We should share a goal of restoring confidence in this important market, so that consumers can shoulder their financial responsibilities secure in the knowledge that they are buying suitable products from reliable firms who will deal with them fairly."Although the Panel was set up by the Financial Services Authority, the regulator does not escape Ms Foster's censure. But the Bank has decided to up the tempo, and there will be fewer and fewer places to hide. Indeed the Bank's announcement on Thursday said: "Household spending has grown strongly and the housing market remains buoyant."Clearly borrowers did not take the hint a month ago, when the Bank said: "Retail spending continues to be robust, underpinned by income growth and unexpectedly strong house price inflation." If things do not cool down in the next few weeks, perhaps we can expect Mr King, the Bank's governor, to tell the British public bluntly: "Are you all deaf or what? Stop borrowing or we'll turn really nasty."As I pointed out last week, part of the problem is that the Bank's rate rises have been widely negated by competition among lenders to drive down interest rates This cannot go on much longer. For the first time in more than four years they have raised the base rate in two successive months.While two quarter-point rises stop short of the shock effect a single half-point rise would have had, they do indicate that the Bank is becoming concerned at our collective propensity to borrow. As such folk grow older, they will find it easier to slip into a routine of doing a few days' work here and there, until much later in life.