It's the new buzz word - apparently it's now really cool to be frugal hence the new word. Thank God. Finally I'm in fashion. I am Frucool. Excuse me if I don't buy the T-shirt, but paint my own.
Talking of buying, is it my imagination or is this country's officials getting a teensy bit scared that we're not spending any money at the moment?
I keep seeing column inches devoted to this minister or that civil servant imploring me to go on holiday or start buying colour TVs. It's not that I don't have the money. I do. I just don't want to spend it right now thanks. There's no law that says you have to spent all of your income. By not spending money on unnecessary consumer goods, making do with what we have and recycling what we can, I believe we have tremendous power and freedom. Hence the frustrated squeakings from the government and retailers. I think this poster sums it up:
Photo by Georgina Coombes
I also thought this was quite funny....
Besides not spending my money just to annoy government ministers, I also don't spend money because I equate every pound I spend with having to give up a certain number of minutes of my life working.
Once you start to equate consumer goods with the amount of time you'd have to work for it, things suddenly stop looking too attractive. Well it did to me. I used to earn £9 an hour after tax when I worked in an office so every skirt I bought for £40 cost me 4.5 hours of my life. Spending £65 a week on food when I was single because I didn't budget, meal plan or buy smart meant almost one day of my working week was spent grafting to feed me - and a shocking amount of that food ended up in the bin because it was an inpluse buy and I didn't get to eat it before it went off.
Over the last seven years, I've learnt to value time much more than money. If I get the work done that pays my bills I can then spend time with Martin. Or the chickens. Or in the kitchen garden. Or knitting. All things to me much more worthwhile than killing myself to get more money to pay for a bit of consumer tat. I don't believe in building a business with staff and offices and stationary and stress and long hours just for the possible reward of being able to sell it at some point in the future. My life is happening NOW. I'm not putting it off for some mythical date in the future when I can get loads of wonga, by which time my husband has left me, my family are gone and I'm probably too ill too enjoy it.
No thanks. I think I'm going to have to stay as I am, no matter how much those ministers sqeak with fear.
Do you want to join me?
