penny pinching

Having blogged so unashamedly about my greed for travel, I feel duty bound to present another side of my personality: the penny pinching one. This is doubtless due to a gene inherited from both parents. My father went around turning off lights. My mother would declare that for lunch that day she'd had a sausage and two sardines. Yuck.














Taxis were something to be hailed only if you were dying. Not that we were struggling financially. It was probably as a result of their having lived through war time rationing. My parents spent their honeymoon in Devon, aided by petrol coupons from their friends.

When you've sustained deep hardship, survival tactics must become embedded. The Polish patients in the hospitals and nursing homes where I worked as a dietitian would tear their meal time serviettes in two and keep half of them. They would always accept the offer of an additional blanket whether or not they were cold - just in case.





























I abhor waste of any sort. The obvious strategies for economising are cutting toothpaste tubes and shampoo bottles in half in order to squeeze out their contents.





I have been known to have a glass bottle of body moisturiser sitting on its neck on the bathroom shelf for over a week while the last reluctant drops slide down far enough to be accessed.

My partner delights in mixing leftovers: for him the perfect lunch could be Monday evening's lasagne mixed with Wednesday's curry, garnished with one potato and a sad-looking sprig of broccoli from the previous autumn.


I struggle to throw out clothes if they're not irredeemably torn, have holes or are so faded as to look awful. Giving them to charity shops is an alternative. Throwing out food hurts. If I buy a day saver for the bus I find myself devising reasons to take more buses than I need that day in order to get my money's worth, in the process forgoing the benefits of walking a few stops. I use the whole contents of a bottle of hair dye, even if my hair has recently been cut quite short and doesn't need so much dye. I experience an inner dilemma before changing batteries on alarm clocks and digital cameras, wondering if it really is the time to do so. I hate using the washing machine if it isn't crammed full of dirty clothes.








There's the same delight in using time effectively, gaining satisfaction from sitting in the back of our van on the tedious part of a drive somewhere, editing my latest writing. I've now found a way of using my exercise bike with my laptop perched on the handlebars and feedback counter. I pedal more slowly, but can look up after a piece of writing to find that in the interim I've burned up another fifty calories. My father used to say that if I arrived at the station two minutes before the train was due to leave, I'd consider that a waste of time. Of course this goes no distance in justifying my appalling disregard for punctuality.
























It's one thing being careful with money, but you can take it too far. I knew of someone who went on holiday to Austria. She took cooked sliced meat with her so that for lunch she only needed to nip into the nearest bakery for a roll. Against the spirit of the holiday, I thought, and most depressing for her companion who'd looked forward to a midday repast in one of the local restaurants.



Thriftily yours

Jane