Budgeting and Birthday Treats

In September 2019, with a full, if slightly bizarre wardrobe and a tired heart I turned my mind to the next quandary - how was I going to keep my financial ship afloat? The state of my bank account was horrific - I was now worse off than before I started the challenge. It was time to dedicate myself to the pursuit of frugality.

Tightening the Belt

Firstly and obviously, I made sure to return as many of my recent purchases as I could. I kept two pairs of jeans from Topshop, a dress and top from Zara, and the lipstick. The rest went back.

I put a date in the diary for a clothing swap party with my friends. I didn't expect to have much to contribute, but it seemed like a nice non-spendy way to get together. 

Dai and I looked at ways we could tighten up the family food budget. Instead of buying baby meals and 'ping meals', my former staples (I could barely boil an egg), I got a Jack Monroe budget cookbook from the library and started learning to make simple, healthy food that we could all eat together. Cooking was more pleasurable than I had anticipated, and soon became a new creative outlet, and I took up baking bread as well. Simple swaps that may seem obvious to you were to me a revelation - my £2.49-a-week cereal exchanged for a hefty 75p bag of porridge oats - porridge was twice as filling and lasted me three times as long.

Once I'd started to see a difference, saving money became addictive. I breathed down Dai's neck as we trailed the aisles in Aldi, making sure we got the cheapest products per kilo. I switched our energy and internet providers for better deals and moved my savings to higher interest accounts. I even cancelled Netflix (on the understanding that we would reinstate it if there were to be a new season of Happy). Without a regular income I didn't want to invest in stocks and shares, so instead I started buying premium bonds. I started doing product testing and online surveys for a bit of extra money - it wasn't a fortune, but it was something I could provide for the family coffers whilst still being at home with the little one.

And it worked! The holiday pay came in, making my bank account healthy again - and it stayed. At last, I had turned myself into a responsible adult, able to live within my means. 

Over the next few months, I used the money we saved to save more money - buying reusable cotton cloths for the kitchen and the baby's bum (no more kitchen towels or baby wipes), a safety razor and shaving brush (bye, Gilette), and WUKA period pants (don't even get me started on the price of tampons). Happily, these changes were also better for the environment, and I was pleased with my new, greener way of living.

In the cupboard under the stairs I found a bag - a small bag - of clothes that somehow never made it to the clothing bank, and I was so pleased I almost wept. 

Age

That September I turned twenty-eight. I was finding my late twenties a very different animal than the carefree early twenties, before stretch marks, shortsightedness, the indignity of maternity bras and an onslaught of household bills. Not to mention the unwanted guest at every occasion, the furrow developing between my eyebrows. 

I no longer wanted to wiggle round town in a slip of spandex from Boohoo - or at least when the thought did occur, it was tinged with nostalgia for that apparently-fleeting time when shiny fabric with rather daring cut-outs had actually looked quite good. Last time I'd put false eyelashes on, instead of alluring, I was forced to admit that I looked deranged.

Apart from a growing suspicion that motherhood combined with my natural tendency towards introversion was making me old before my time, I found I was enjoying different freedoms. No, I couldn't now drop everything for a weekend in London on a whim, but I also no longer wanted or needed to present myself as universally desirable, which freed up a lot of time and headspace. Other women were my allies, not my competition. Daily leg shaving and uncomfortable underwear made out of bits of string fell by the wayside, and I really didn't miss them. 

So this birthday, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do. This new all-natural version of me, unseduced by the glitz of the department store and the breathless excitement of the mall, who hearkened back to the easy joys of childhood. What kind of things did I REALLY enjoy? In this new shopping-free existence, my pleasures were simple - eating, reading, fresh air, looking at interesting stuff. So Dai and I elected to travel to a nearby town which was holding a flea market.

Somehow, at the time, it genuinely did not occur to me that shopping at a flea market was still shopping. 

An Accidental Ban Break

It was a beautiful day, the sky a cheerful blue over the higgledy-piggledy red roofs, the steam trains puffing industriously into the station of this historic market town. It was pretty and quaint, and we bought coffee and pastries as we wandered the stalls, captivated by doll parts on royal blue velvet and a cross-eyed taxidermy stoat. I bought three ribbons made from recycled silk and reclaimed sari fabric, thinking I could use them to customise, well, something. At some point. Definitely useful, anyway. And ethical! Supporting local businesses, too, I practically deserved a medal.

Please insert your own facepalm emoji here.

In other ways, though, my birthday was a triumph. In the run-up, I hadn't been able to escape thinking about buying this or that for myself as a "birthday treat", a habit I'd started many years ago, and, as with the holiday souvenirs, never since questioned. Dai thought that I should get myself a small treat, ban or no ban, but I had just about made up my mind not to, to confirm to myself that henceforth, I was doing things differently. 

It was also handy to have one or two specific items that I could think of when I was asked what gifts I would like. Because I hadn't been able to buy every item that crossed my path, I had a couple of books and useful items that I specifically wanted.

I also did something else I'd never done before. Usually, I spent all my birthday money on this or that, generally a large luxury purchase I'd been hankering after for ages. Not this time. This time, other than one little blip, I saved it all.

Been There, Done That, Became Weirdly Obsessed With A T-Shirt

I found September challenging in one notable way. Having broken the ban so very spectacularly in August, I was now having immense difficulty in reining in my shopping behaviours. Despite how much I wasn't enjoying it, every day I was back online, checking the new arrivals pages of my favourite stores, or - in a new twist - "researching" ethical brands, to, um, "make sure that I could buy what I wanted in the future, but, you know, from better companies". I was trying to put myself in the path of temptation. Even though I couldn't really afford it, let alone justify it, I was searching for something so beautiful, so right, that surely no one would say I shouldn't buy it.

This was how I discovered The T-Shirt. 

The T-Shirt was made by a small business in an English seaside town I had visited and loved many years ago. It was dyed with environmentally friendly dye and silk-screened by hand with the name of the town, and a quirky print of a trawlerman mending his nets with his trusty dog by his side. In classic British navy blue - flattering on me - and white.

Wow, I thought, that's so me.

But no. I was on a shopping ban. It was not to be. And yet...

It's barely an exaggeration to say that for most of the month my every waking thought was about The T-Shirt. I discussed it, I journalled about it, frankly I obsessed about it. I knew that sticking to the ban would give me more long-term benefits than any t-shirt - I wouldn't be learning anything if I didn't try to stick it out - but every occasion gave me new opportunities to try to get around my own rules. I should never have been browsing t-shirts in the first place. I was setting myself up to fail. 

Between that and the ribbons I felt like I was back at the beginning. One more thing, and then I'll stop. One more thing... And just one more. 

So I started planning a holiday for Dai, the Spud and me for my 30th birthday. I picked a place I had always wanted to visit, but had written off as too difficult, too logistically complicated. I chose Shetland. It gave me something to aim for with my newfound frugality, and also something to focus on other than acquisition. I felt that it was time to have a good hard think about the kind of life I really wanted, because salivating over a t-shirt wasn't it. 

I'd been shying away from doing that because it scared me. Change scared me. Goals scared me. But if I kept putting it off, my life would fly by in a whirlwind of shopping lists, everything worthwhile sidelined in case it was too difficult.

Oh, but that 'little blip' in my saving that I mentioned? 

I bought The T-Shirt.