Kerching!

I’m not sure when I actually did wake up and smell the coffee, or when I realised that all my chickens had indeed come home to roost (despite being a veggie) or that when that there was actually no silver lining to my very big cloud. but in any case I am willing to write about the wreckage that is my life without resorting to any more cliches. Like many of you (well, some of you surely?) I have got myself into a bit of a pickle. Situation-wise. More to come about that.

I am at the present moment - in no particular order: jobless, broke, single, middle-aged, sober (thanks to all that scaremongering stuff, pre credit crunch about women and alcoholism) up to my eyes in debt and frankly I’ve never been happier!

Ok, that last bit was an out and out lie. Lets be honest. It stinks. Particularly as currently I am doing without three of my favourite things., booze, sex with men (having split from long-term partner last year) and shopping. But before you decry me as some sort of newly sober, celibate, middle-aged, profligate, Briget Jones... (hang on a minute actually thats quite a good strap for the movie-of-the-blog is it not?)


So, the shopping is not really a problem, as India Knight so helpfully pointed out in her lofty middle-class way this weekend while promoting her book, The Thrift Book: Live Well and Spend Less (or, alternative title: KERCHING! I’m making a clever little profit from this credit crunch lark hahahha all the poor people that can’t make ends meet and are going to lose everything but look, clever me I rock etc). Now, I know that basis of Ms Knights great new book is commendable - stop spending money on new, cheap clothes and horrid pre-packed shrink-wrapped food, spend more money on one super Marc Jacobs coat costing ££££££s and wear until your funeral etc. Its just that she is just so jolly stuck up and bossy and she reminds me of the annoying head girl at school. Only I went to a really nasty comprensive and we didn’t have any head girls, only head bullies, and top junkies. Oh well. You get my point.

There does seem to be a rush on books telling you how to live cheap, Kath Kelly, for instance, does it very well in How I Lived on a Pound a Day. Apparently Kath, in a moment of drunken madness (ah, happy days!) was worried about how she was going to afford to buy her brother a suitably lush wedding present (hello? John Lewis voucher? on her meagre teacher’s salary, and so determined to live on a pound a day. Now you too can live like Kath (then, obviously, not now that she’s joined India, KERCHING!!!) and reap the benefit of her wisdom. Such nuggets as: "I discovered that if you buy the supermarkets' basics ranges, some things are very cheap. I bought three bars of soap for 18p". Er, right. Lightbulb moment stuff there Kath.

No discussion of thrift can go any further without mention of the doughty Martin Lewis, or Moneysavingexpert.com as he’s known to his friends. Yes, I count myself as one of his friends and have taken his advice vis, bank charges (yep got a refund before the banks got wise and shored up those pesky loopholes in the system), 0 % credit cards (in the days when I could use mine) and other matters fiscal. Martin too has a book. Oh yes. Its imaginatively called Thrifty Ways for Modern Days. and because he is the MONEYSAVING EXPERT I probably will buy this. If I raid the child’s piggy bank and live on own brand beans and soap for the next two weeks.

I like Martin. I like his face and I like his eyes. He looks reassuringly thrifty (unlike Ms Knight who just looks SMUG) He is without rival as the King of Thrift. His book essentially rounds up the collective wisdom of the many contributors (of which I am not one, sadly) of his award-winning, super-dooper money-saving website.

I'm intrigued by the amount of people making money out of how to save money. So, dear reader. I invite you to leave your ideas here, on this blog. I will round up your collective wisdom and KERCHING! your royalty cheque is in the post!