Nifty Thrifty

It’s the start of the Conservative Party Conference… so I’m steering well clear of that malarkey; for a start it’s not the party I used to know. The real Conservatives would have shored up the borders, water-cannoned last year’s rioters and had Abu Hamza in Guantanamo lickety-spit. “Fuck Europe,” they would have said, “Gerrout…and take your flea-ridden donkey with you.” 

They would have also said “mustn’t grumble” and “it could be worse” and “make do and mend.” Yet the Conservatives of today are indistinguishable from the shit-stirring envious socialists of various turnip-picking workers’ parties of the seventies, their new mottos being “Must grumble.” And “It’s only going to get worse.” and “Hand-me-downs? Fuck off, I want all new stuff!” 

Being poor was never easy, but it was never so stigmatised as it is now. Everybody is entitled to lots of brand-new shiny shit regardless of effort, merit, or need and the very idea of anybody being capable of standing on their own two feet is anathema to the Europhilesucks who want everybody to be forever in the pocket of the Euroviet Union. And the hateful word on everybody’s lips right now? Austerity. 

Austerity? You make me laugh. When the going gets tough, you can go and get stuffed. The population output of the last thirty years or so is no more capable of surviving the downturn (for that is all it really is) than the Leadbetters in The Good Life, as this needle and thread story illustrates. I've been saying it for years; it’s the practical version of ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’. If they never do anything for themselves, how will they survive out there? And what’s so wrong about making do with what you’ve got? 

Thrift; that’s the name of the game and had it been practiced just a little bit by you, me and, oh, let’s say ‘the guvmint’, then the current economic blip would be seen as just that. The good times WILL return and life WILL be roses again, but there’s no point in sitting, waiting for somebody else to do it for you. Practise GOYA - Get Off Your Arse. So, I was delighted when one of my Twitter favourites @rachelradiostar unintentionally alerted me to the mighty @queen-frugal and her penny-pinching blog. Women after my own heart - cheap dates if I’m honest! 

This won't hurt a bit!

I’ve written before about how cheaply you can eat (my current weekly food shop is under £20 for absolutely EVERYTHING) but I'm a single fella, so who’s going to believe they can achieve it for a family? The papers last week were full of stories about Waitrose shoppers turning to Aldi and Marks & Sparks munchers re-using St Michael bags at Lidl’s. Well, why stop there? Don’t just buy cheaper, buy better and buy less. My frugal Kingly gift to you today then – no need to thank me – is to hand you over to Frugal Queen and her #FQstoptober campaign and challenge you to make Tesco's shareholders quake in their boots.