I am quite good with money. I know exactly how to spend it all for a maximum return on happiness. Really I should be given loads of it on this basis. I wouldn’t squirrel it away in anything as selfish as “savings” where it wouldn’t do the economy much good. I’d be out there stimulating it away, one unnecessary TK Maxx scented candle at a time. That’s the kind of thoughtful, community-minded gal I am.
You would think from this attitude that I grew up wealthy and insulated from knowing the cost of anything. That I never saw a bill on the kitchen table. That I ate an avocado before the age of 25. Instead I grew up in a family constantly trying to save money. I suspect it’s the thing holding us together at this point. I’m not sure my parents even like each other but they’ll be damned if they let legal fees eat into their retirement pot. My place in the family may only be determined by my Netflix and newspaper subscriptions plus my willingness to share passwords.
[ As an Irish person in Australia there is one question I’m always askedOpens in new window ]
My father will turn off the air conditioner in the car – on a 45-degree day – when it’s going up a hill. What he saves on fuel, we all pay for in physical and mental health. He refuses to unlock the car door with anything other than the physical key because the car door clicker only has an infinite number of “clicks” in it. Hell will freeze over before he lets the car door clicker industrial complex scam him into forking out for a replacement key.
My older brother, meanwhile, still insists on me buying child tickets for the football. What might have worked when I was an underdeveloped 16-year-old is fooling no one now I’m in my 30s. The collagen has gone from my face, along with the light behind my eyes. It’s why I spend money now like I’m trying to buy my way out of feeling poor.
I am quite good with money. I know exactly how to spend it all
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If money doesn’t buy happiness, it sure creates the conditions most conducive to it
I cannot empathise with Irish friends when they reminisce about when they used to have more money than they do now accompanied by a sighed “but that was in the boom times”. I never had a boom time but on the other hand I was privileged enough to not get hit personally by the recession.
I’ve just gone from being paid minimum wage and having no savings to being paid a salary and having a small amount of savings that I can’t really do anything with. As house prices and rent go up, it’s looking less likely it will ever be enough for a house deposit. Or an investment I can whack away for 10 years. It’s a paper-thin buffer between me and being homeless if I suddenly lost my job. And I’m grateful for it; it’s more than a lot of people have.
A little emergency fund makes me one of the lucky ones in this cost-of-living crisis. But it makes sacrificing life’s small joys to save cash hard, when you’re not sure it will be enough to get you the most modest of homes – rented or bought. The social contract of “work hard and save and you’ll be comfortable” doesn’t work in this housing crisis.
[ Brianna Parkins: Posh people know I don’t belong in fancy placesOpens in new window ]
Which makes my love of watching “Extreme Cheapskates” and obsession with frugal content makers feel like self-flagellation. I don’t even like the sound of the word “frugal” – it feels cold and plastic, like a thin polyester jumper that lets the wind cut right through you.
Part of me wishes I could be like these people who can retire early or work part-time because they charge their phones on the train to save on the electricity bill. There’s a lot to learn from them, like focusing on spending quality time with the kids in your life instead of guilt-buying presents. Or decoupling our self-worth from spending.
But then I’ll see someone water down cottage cheese or mix cold mayonnaise into pasta and commit defamation by calling it dinner. They may have paid the mortgage off by 40 but at what cost?
If money doesn’t buy happiness, it sure creates the conditions most conducive to it. Winning the lotto would solve 90 per cent of my immediate problems which, in turn, would make me pretty happy. I would be able to delete LinkedIn forever. I would be free.
But until that happens, all I have are the small treats to make life worth living. The little cake from the bakery, the taxi when it’s raining and fast-track passes for airport security. Stopping at school fetes to buy some truly atrocious arts and crafts by proud children. Overpriced movie popcorn with that inimitable butter taste you can’t get from a microwave. Follow me for more sound financial advice. You can’t go wrong.
