Mean, Mean, Mean!

April is the cruellest month…breeding lilacs out of the dead land.

So wrote T S Eliot in The Waste Land.

Well he was wrong – all wrong – the cruellest month for me is August

August is the month when both motorbike & car need an MOT, the car needs to be taxed, the house insurance premium is due, the car breakdown cover needs paying, we have extra holiday expenses – and because there is no school, there is no work, and therefore no pay, for Supply Teachers like me.

And as we approach the end of the month, every year, I wonder how we will get through, and berate myself for buying frivolous things in the early summer [I didn’t buy that desk though] and I tell Bob yet again that the budget is tight, and there is no loose change for trivia.[ie gadgetry from Maplin etc]

I am not complaining – working part-time and therefore having a lower income is a ‘lifestyle choice’ for me. I want to have more time for other things and so that means less cash. It is all part of my Christian beliefs about being a good steward of my time and resources. But sometimes at this time of year I wonder if I have got the balance right.

This year I have noticed even more blogs than usual referring to the recession, and making ends meet, coping with redundancy, student loans, paying off the mortgage, getting out of debt etc. There are many blogs just devoted to the topic of frugality – with titles that indicate their subject.

They frequently have such miserable names – TightWad, MiserMom, PennyPincher – those I find utterly depressing.

These ones are the same week in, week out. Typical example…

Monday – went to see Granny, walked 23 miles to save on fares. Found car tyre in skip and 50p on pavement. Brought both home.

Tuesday – spent day repairing worn out shoes with old car tyre. Granny died.

Wednesday – walked back to Granny’s place. Cleared it out, sold much of her stuff on eBay. Brought rest home in old wheelbarrow.

Thursday – No Spend Day. Stayed at home dressmaking.

Friday – Went to Granny’s funeral wearing new dress [made from old WW2 blackout curtains found in her cellar] and took bunch of  flowers [50p - reduced in Aldi - only slightly wilting]

Saturday – Walked up to the common, did lots of foraging – got 7lb of nettles and a punnet of blackberries.

Sunday – Made 8 gallons of nourishing soup using nettles, berries and 3 shredded telephone directories. That should see us through the winter

But many of the frugal blogs are really funny, and clever, and approach their financial woes with a positive outlook – and share their thrifting joys with us in a bright and breezy way that probably hides a lot of inner turmoil and many sleepless nights. [Scott Fitzgerald said ‘In the dark night of the soul it is always three o clock in the morning’] I enjoy those, and read them diligently -cheering when they find a bargain, laughing with them at the minor disasters along the way, commiserating with crises. One of them says “I try to live within my means” and I thought that was a good description of the frugal life.

Mean, Mean, Mean – some definitions

mean – to be tightfisted, miserly [that word has same root as miserable!] No I don’t want to be like that – I want to be nifty and thrifty. Bright and cheery like Mrs Sew-and-Sew in WW2. And I want to reclaim the right use of the old word ‘prodigal’ – to be ‘lavishly abundant, giving freely’ – not hanging on to things for myself, but rather sharing all the abundance that is mine with others. Luke 6:38

mean- statistical term, a sort of average. No, I don’t want to be ‘average’ either. I want to live the ‘life more abundant’ Jesus has promised us. Like Glen Campbell, I believe in the pot full of beans. But that doesn’t mean I expect to be  rich in financial terms. Ephesians 3

mean – to determine, to have an intention. That’s more like it! My intention is to use what I have been given wisely and well. To be a good thrifty woman displaying sensible husbandry [wifery?] of my resources. And find much joy in doing so.  Proverbs 31

A number of my friends are going into this autumn in what they used to call ‘straitened circumstances’ – anticipating lower incomes than this time last year. Let’s not fall into ‘recession depression’ – but rather encourage each other. So please do share some of your thrifty triumphs, and false economies* if you can – let’s have a laugh. But tell us glorious stories about how the jars of windfall plums are shining like jewels on your kitchen shelf – not how to make a Halloween costume with the grey fluff from the tumble dryer** [I kid you not – see here]

* I will share some of my disasters – there have been many

**if you are being thrifty, you should not be using a tumble dryer