As ever, I was late to the exciting new trend of Friction Maxxing, whereby, I understand, you stop doing things like ordering groceries online, going on Deliveroo for a bag of chips and travelling everywhere by Uber. In short, I found that my normal life was already on trend. How exciting is that?
But however lovely to find yourself already ahead of the viral curve, it strikes me that an awful lot of us are going to have to friction-maxx, or do disagreeably effortful things. Because once the grim events in the Gulf come home to us, we won’t have any choice. The cost of living crisis may have seemed already off the scale; well, bid farewell to all those Ubers and Deliveroos because they belong to an era that is coming to an end. Energy bills may be capped for now, but they won’t be forever, and it’s going to leave that much less for discretionary spending. As for petrol prices, they’re going to get silly. Same goes for aviation fuel, which means long haul flights will soon be a distant memory. Excellent for curbing carbon emissions; excellent too for spending less.
Say hello instead to that long-forgotten word: thrift. That was normal life for the oldest generation, the one that lived through the last war. For them Make Do and Mend was not merely a slogan but a mindset. They ate liver (and onions) and enjoyed it. Ditto devilled kidneys (cheap as chips). They sewed on their own buttons and hems when they came unstuck. Hell, they knitted their own jumpers. They didn’t even think of buying a takeaway coffee from a shop, and would have been staggered to have been asked for nearly a fiver for it. Friction-maxxing? They were thrifty because there just wasn’t money around. And the other thing is, they didn’t habitually get into debt.
Thrift is, I’m afraid, going to have to go viral too if we’re to survive the coming storms. The events in the Gulf are, of course, primarily unpleasant for the unfortunate people who are immediately in harm’s way, but the rest of us will have to change our ways too. So, here are ten ways to do thrift. Learn to love it, because you’ve got precisely no choice.
1. Make your own sandwiches. Do you honestly buy your lunchtime sandwich from Pret, M&S or somewhere similar? Are you mad? These things can cost £5.50 and more if you’re going designer. Work out how much that costs every week. So, take ten minutes or so before leaving home for work, and make yourself a nice egg mayonnaise or ham sandwich and wrap it in chic baking paper, twisting the corners. Make clear that this is actually the healthy option.
2. Do not even think of buying takeaway coffee. The very fashionable chain I pass every day offers a cappuccino for £3.90. That’s nearly £20 a week. You’ll need that for your gas bill. Buy a thermos flask, or get your employers to invest in a coffee machine.
3. Eat offal. Liver and onions with mashed potato is actually delicious, so long as you don’t overcook it. And it costs a fraction of the price of a steak. Kidneys similarly are cheap as anything, and if you do them properly, as in the Wolseley’s devilled kidneys, they’re yum.
4. Say no to takeaways. Make your own food. What you want is a copy of Delia Smith’s lesser- known cookbook, Delia’s Frugal Food. I quote from Amazon: “Thirty years on, the message of Delia's Frugal Food has never seemed more relevant. With some 170 recipes, from luxury soups to paupers' puddings, this new illustrated edition shows you how to eat well without having to spend a fortune.” This is the mindset you need. There’s a cabbage on the front. Cabbages are cheap.
5. Walk everywhere. It is now accepted that walking is the most healthy and effective exercise you can do, which is just as well because you can’t afford Ubers and black cabs are for treats. So, invest in a pair of walking shoes and for any journey of an hour or less, walk.
6. Love the bus. Buses, as most of us already know, are about half the price of the Tube. Use them wherever possible.
7. Make do and Mend. Do you seriously take a dress with a dropped hem or missing buttons to the nice man at the drycleaners to sort out? Learn to sew, lazy!
8. Wear cardigans at home. You will not be able to afford to heat your home, so turn off the heating and put on layers. You don’t have any choice on this either, so tell yourself you burn more calories when it’s cold (true).
9. Use cash. When you take out money for the day’s spending, then you’ll find you actually see where it goes and you spend less. And good luck finding a cashpoint to get cash out of.
10. Remove shopping apps from your phone. But that’s obvious. Isn’t it?
Oh and here’s one extra for luck. Do not holiday abroad. Go on day trips from London like people used to. Consider fruitpicking in Kent as a healthy outdoor summer break.
So…there you go. Thrift in a nutshell. Or friction-maxxing if you prefer. Because, you know what? The bad old days of easy credit, easy spending, are over.
You’re welcome.
